Saga

Better go to the bathroom and get yourself something to drink - This is a long one.

Ready?

Three years ago, Greg and I moved into our home at the end of July in 2006 about a month after we got married. We knew this house was going to need some adjustments. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.
The above is a photo of the room that we took when we were first looking at the house. What it doesn't show you is the other endtable of the bed that is placed right in front of a tiny closet. Inconvenient.

There are certain things you learn after owning a home... 50+ year old furnaces break down, basements flood, if you have life gas lines in your walls - they're going to leak, and wildlife will continually try to reclaim your living space as their own.

(The door knob into the bedroom... bolstered by cardboard screwed into the wall)

When we very first moved in, we set up the room like this:

This photo was taken a month later - it's the best thing I have to show you where the bedroom door WAS when we moved in - i.e. NOT on the wall behind me. Yes. I dressed as a southern belle for halloween that year. I found that dress in a thriftstore for $2. Go Ahead, be jealous.

When the work began on the house, first we did the floors (on the first floor), then we did the bathroom, then the living room, then the craft room, then the dining room.

During that time, the bedroom morphed also. It went from this:


and the closet of this:


To a different orientation of the bed, and the addition of some (on sale) orange curtains.

The different orientation of the bed gave us maybe a little more space... And also it kept the bed away from the door way. See, before, one of our nightstands was right next to the door, so that when you walked in, the very first thing in front of you was the night stand.

The night stands have drawers.

We keep private married-people stuff in those drawers.

I won't get graphic here, but it is a colorful, eye-catching sort of drawer when it's open.

We moved the bed on a Monday after a weekend visit from Greg's grandparents. I had mentioned to Greg's Grandmother that I had a really cool Halloween costume (see above, southern belle) that I found at a thrift store. She wanted to see it. So despite the fact that we had carefully put all of our energy into cleaning and straightening the REST of the house and mutually agreed to leave the bedroom door firmly shut, I invited her in, left her at the entrance to the bedroom, and scurried to the closet to grab the costume to bring it out to show her.

When I brought it out she seemed distracted, she kept looking down. I put the costume away, and we left the room. She went out first. As I turned to close the bedroom door behind me - I caught a glimpse of the WIDE open married persons drawer, on display for my grandmother-in-law.

I think I blushed for a solid hour.

SO we MOVED the bed.

The previous purchase of the bright orange curtains made it mentally possible for us to whole heartedly embrace these $2 shelves we found at Pottery Barn Clearance in their Teen section.

That is one of our many love seats, the scuzzy carpet, AND the broken blinds all in one photo. That's talent people. The loveseat cover just happened to go with citrus fruit medley of a color scheme, so after we obtained our living room furniture, we brought it up to our bedroom.

That's also my fish tank. I used to have fish in college. I liked taking care of them. Unfortunately, they died alot. And when the few I brought to Pittsburgh died, Greg strongly encouraged me not to get anymore. I'm not sure what it means that Greg avoids the fish section of the Pet store with more determination than he avoids anything else.


But I know Eevee misses them too.
The broken blinds happened in the middle of the night when I awoke to seeing a cat IN the blinds above the headboard, and then falling out of the blinds. I have no idea how she managed to get up there, or to squarely break the center of the blinds like that...

And this:
Was my effort to be artistic.

We collected all of those ledges and boxes from thrift stores and we painted them black and hung them on the wall. The only result was that Greg would regularly smack his head into them while getting out of bed and walking out of the room.

For those of you that marvel at my interior decorative skillz, this should be a comfort. I had thought the color scheme of the bedroom was meant to be oranges and greens and blacks. It sounds wacky, but I could seriously see it in my head. My impotent attempt to affect that color scheme resulted in the above photos, and after a while - Greg and I were totally and completely DONE with it.

This was our closet "revamped".


I spent a lot of energy ignoring the shortcomings of what should be a relaxing and welcoming and private space. This year the cracks in the ceiling, the naked drywall and screws, the doorless closet, the scuzzy carpet, the broken blinds and even the temporary things we tried to make the room a little more palatable started really getting to us. It became a source of pain for us. Both of us were unsatisfied with it. Both of us longed for something finished, beautiful. But we only had the one bedroom - what would we do?

The first thing we truly rennovated/redid was the ceiling fan. First, Greg took the old ceiling fan down... and emptied it of bugs.


Then, he put the new ceiling fan up by first opening the ceiling and then putting up the anchor, and then putting up the fan. Somewhere in there, he got the brilliant idea that by putting up a garbage bag AROUND the hole (and himself) there would be significantly less mess.

Now, disappointingly, I do not have a photo of the result of this tactic, but let's just say it wasn't pretty.

The fan was pretty though.

On May 15th my husband looked at me adoringly and told me that for my birthday, on June 12th, he would complete our bedroom. He would spackle, sand, rip up carpet, replace carpet, paint, and put the finishing touches on.

SO, we moved stuff out with the help of some strapping manly friends.




And we moved the vast majority of it into the craft room.


Then Greg spent weeks spackling and sanding and spackling and sanding and spackling and sanding.






To add insult to injury, our house is crooked, so it took a lot of extra time to get everything smooth, and right, with no cracks, etc.

Then we started to rip up the carpet. Oh - Did I mention that Greg intended to have the space recarpeted before the deadline also? A big carpet store was having a sale, so we got an estimate from them and after getting them to drop their price over $1000, we accepted the deal. We scheduled it and then worked hard to get all the spackling, sanding, painting, and carpet ripping done in advance for it.

Because of the deal, they would not be moving our furniture for us - we would have to do that. Because of Greg's perfectionism, we would also be tearing out the carpet ourselves, even though that was included in the deal. He just couldn't deal with the idea that they'd tear the carpet out and do nothing about the floor board squeaks.

We started to take the carpet up in the closet. There was a different kind of carpet in the closet vs. the bedroom, vs. the hallway, vs. the stairs up to the attic.

Underneath the closet carpet we found this red carpet:
Underneath that red carpet we found newspaper.

I didn't save much, but I did save one or two clips. There were surprising and important things to remember in some of those papers.

Such as, did you know?:
Because I did not.

So we finished clearing out the closet, and decided not to take up the laminate flooring underneath the newspaper.
We did take out the slightly burnt looking (dead) outlet in the floor.

Then there was the bedroom itself, first with its beige carpet. Then with red carpet.


Then with tapestry carpet.

Then with newspaper.
Then laminate flooring - JUST ON THE EDGES:

And of course we found tile - which this time we did not break up and cement over.
After all that was ripped out, there were still thousands of staples.


This was Sunday, three days before the carpet was to be installed. We called in as much back up as possible - but there was limited availibility, and there were some set backs, including the definition of why I was glad we were attempting to paint BEFORE the carpet went in.

We had a friend edge the bedroom ceiling, while another friend quashed the creaks and squeaks in the floorboard and stairs, while Greg sanded the door frames, while I painted the banister and all the trim I could get my hands on. This is for another post, but we also carpeted the stairwell/hallway and so that needed to be painted before it all went in also - in addition to everything we were doing for the bedroom.

On Tuesday, I convinced Greg that we should postpone the carpet installation. He agreed to postpone it... 24 hours. He was being stubborn and I should have fought more, maybe. But, I agreed to 24 hours, and we put in one extra night's worth of work.

It just so happened that on this night, there was a terrible thunderstorm. I love thunderstorms, they are my favorite. So I was glad and sort of happy when I started to hear the pouring rain and the cracking thunder. Our puppy did well in his crate - calm and no barking. I was painting trim, and Greg was scraping, and two of our friends came over for an hour while we were tirelessly edging, and painting, and scraping and sanding...

That there was a moment Greg decided he needed a different scraper. So he ran down to the basement and all of a sudden I hear "HOLY CRAP".


Water was pouring into our basement, not from under our walk-out basement door, but UP from a drain in the middle of the floor. Oh, AND it was pouring in from our "coal shed", which I have never looked into, but it's under our porch.

It was almost a fountain in the middle of the basement floor - and after racing down to see what the problem was, we all kind of froze on the stairs, COMPLETELY unsure of what to do.

I ran upstairs, called an emergency Roto Rooter appointment, Grabbed whatever towels I could get my hands on and ran back downstairs. One of our friends had taken off his flip flops and was wading through the water. Greg had disconnected the extension cord that had been hanging and half submerged in the water - plugged in - and was now lining up paint cans to get out to the fountain.

And then he took this big canvas drop cloth and shoved it on the hole, put a cement block on it, and stood on it. I guess he thought that would stop it. Eventually, it slowed and stopped, and then we packed it up and went back up to our painting. It was very surreal.

I cancelled the Roto Rooter call, and we kept working feverishly.

Apparently it flooded a second time - but we were more "live and let live" with the water then.

I fell into a dead sleep at about 1 a.m.

Greg stayed up all night working. He swore he would finish everything - painting every room. All the trim. All the sanding.

He didn't.

But I love him for trying.

In the morning I took these pictures:


It was time for the carpet to be installed - the guy was coming at about 8:00 a.m. Greg stayed home so that someone else was in the house. He also got to nap all morning to help offset the all-nighter. I was feeling relieved - like the day had FINALLY come... until I caught a glimpse of these two standing at attention in the front office.


It didn't take very long to figure out they were staring at a bird. A live, wild bird. In our house.



It probably got in through the hole in the ceiling where the ceiling fan used to be in the office - thank goodness we had the door shut.


I discovered the bird at approximately 7:55 a.m. I had to leave for work. The carpet guy was going to be there any second. The cats were having a blast stalking and watching the bird.

I made a conscious decision NOT to think about the bird.

The bird got in, it could probably get out.

So we left for work, and the carpeting commenced:

When I got home, I discovered this:





Sweet sweet carpet.

It was beautiful.

The only complaint we had was that they underestimated the amount of carpet needed, so about 12 steps were left UNcarpeted.

But all was well, the carpet guy came back the next day to finish the job, and it was good.

Dexter also liked the carpet.

But he liked the leftover carpet padding even more.

And despite minor setbacks like that, the carpeting brought us closer together as a family.

So, Greg spent another week and painted the bedroom. Then we started moving everything back in.

First - to the closet:


And the other complication about the closet was that we wanted doors - not one door, two doors. Two doors, plural. And not doors on a track. We wanted two doors that opened, one on each side. The thing is that neither Lowes, nor Home Depot sells doors like that. We called 12 door places in Pittsburgh - and NOBODY sold doors like that.

Now, between you and me, Greg latches on to things sometimes. When he latches on, he becomes minorly obsessive... These doors were something he latched onto. He found a place in Ohio - an hour and a half away - that made these doors. At this point I was like, why don't we just get one door and be done? please? And he was like, No.

So we drove an hour and a half, there and back, to get new closet doors - only to get home and figure out that they should have had 5 panels and not 3. And once again, we said "screw it" and put them up anyway, and I died a little on the inside.

We moved in the bureaus:
And the bed parts:


And we put away the air mattress that we'd been sleeping on for A MONTH.

Wasn't our makeshift bedroom lovely?

Yes. That's me.

And Ella, our third and oldest cat, was very sad. She kept sitting on a clinging to everything that had been moved to the dining room. I think she didn't want it to go. She had been napping daily on our air mattress, so I'm pretty sure we broke her little heart by putting it all away.


And then we put the finishing touches in the room... including curtains, new blinds, lights, a new bookcase (NO MORE ORANGE SHELVES!) and a new comforter.

Now, I invite you to enter my domain, my sanctuary --- My Bedroom.

Please hold your questions until after we get through the door.
As you walk in, the bed is immediately on your left and the low bureau is immediately on your right. The entrance-way is comfortably wide.

This is a reverse look at the doorway into and out of the bedroom along the bureau wall. The Bureau is the same one we started with but we took the chunky hutch up to the attic. I wanted to donate it, but Greg wanted to keep the full set of furniture together - Just in Case.


We got the Mirror at TJ Maxx for less than half what it would have cost at IKEA. The frame turned out to look a little darker than I expected, but I can deal.

On top of the bureau we have a table runner, two globe lights and an iridescent glass dish. Before the rennovations, I used to throw whatever jewelry I was wearing that week on the bureau where - week after week - it would accumulate slowly till it resembled a nightmarish jewelry monster. I know I won't change much, there will definitely still be casual placement of jewelry on the bureau - but at least now I can aim for that pretty glass dish.
And continuing along that wall with the bureau is the doorway to our closet - now featuring closet doors! W00t!

The door on the adjacent wall is to my mini-shoe closet. This closet is approximately 1 foot deep - not even deep enough for hangers. I have a couple of devices in there that allow me to store my shoes. I don't want to think about it too hard, because I know I've been hoarding shoes in there that I really don't need, won't wear, and therefore are just taking up space... but it does always get a jealous little "oh- you have a SHOE closet too?" type of comment when we give tours of the house.

Continuing on, you can catch another glimpse of what is probably my favorite bedroom feature - aside from the bed.


Bum.... BUM.... BA BUM!!!!!
Oh my pretty pretty book shelves. I loves them. They are wonderfuls. And the books are organized by color. YES color. And I am pleased. Greg was skeptical at first, but I believe the results have wowed him.

And front and center is my favorite childhood book. Eventually it will probably be sorted with the rest due to an ever increasing library, but in the mean time it will remain in its place of honor. Also, if you go to my flickr page and blow up a photo of the bookcase, you'll see some books that are tilted. I didn't completely pack every shelf so there was room for a little artistic arrangement above and beyond the color organization. The tilted books just happen to be a few of my absolute favorites.

Moving onward to the far corner of the room is the second bureau.

This one also features two globe lights and a table runner.
The globe lights have cherry blossoms etched on them.

We positioned the bureau so that it is not blocking the window.
Continuing -- Next to the tall bureau is the window that looks out onto our neighbor's beautiful brick wall. We decided it was save to put the air conditioner there. Unfortunately, that means that the air conditioner, whilst conditioning, gently blows the gauzy curtains around. Previously, I was unaware that cats find gently blowing gauzy curtains to be irresistable to pounce upon. So after 2 hours of watching cat after cat zip out from under the bed to attack the offending curtain - they were banned from the room.

We'll see if they shall be allowed to return.

And now to the bed.

On the left side of of the bed (facing it), which is Greg's side, we have a technologically exciting charger station that we got on clearance at a Pottery Barn Clearance Outlet.
We now know it was at the Pottery barn clearance outlet because the outlet strip in the back fell right off when we tried to plug something into it, but I'm pretty sure that can be remedied with super glue.

On the right side of the bed, we have the sexy new replacement to old faithful:
This CD alarm clock has been with me for as long as I can remember. It has two alarms. It can play cds. It is amazing. Aside from my computer, it is the only stereo system I ever owned before getting married. But Greg has had some complaints about it over the years. He claims that sometimes, the alarm does not go off. Sometimes, after he sets the alarm, it will turn the alarm off itself. And sometimes, during the day when he's sitting in silence, he can hear the beep beep beep beep BEEP BEEP of it's increasingly urgent siren-song of GET UP NOW.

I have had to come to grips with the fact that old faithful can not remain with me forever. So I went searching for - and found - the PERFECT alarm system for us. It has a remote control. It has several speakers. It has AM radio, it has FM radio. It has a USB connection. It has an IPod dock. It has a CD player. It has two alarms. And yes, it is sexy.


And this is our bed.

I may have gone a little nutty with the pillows... but I like pillows. In fact, I love pillows. In my defense, I first ONLY bought new normal pillows, to replace our yellow ringed old pillows - Yuck.

Then we bought our comforter which came with two Euro Shams. So we needed two Euro Pillows. The comforter, by the way, is amazingly kitty friendly. The cotton is not really attractive for claw scratching AND it's machine washable.

Then I realized that I've been sleeping with this one particular down pillow since I was thirteen, and it's been over 10 years. So we got TWO new down pillows to replace that one.

And now there's no room for us.

But I love it anyway.