Bye Bye Quilted Angels

When we first moved into this house there was this room down in the basement that the previous people had used for crafts and sewing. The decorated it with dark blue and dark maroon paint with this border.

I was a little bit more crafty back in 2004 then I am now- so we called this the craft room and I stored my crafts there. (No crafts have ever been done in that room)

This room was one of the first that I wanted to repaint. But there were other priorities- we have painted the whole house. The only rooms that we have not painted before this room are the bathrooms. 

Last fall I was curious how hard the border would be to come off. So I pulled it off- but only in one section. I was surprised it came off fairly easily. It was looking trashy like this picture all winter. I was going to paint last fall- but I didn't.

This room has become the "dump everything in it" room. Well- one of the dump everything in it rooms. We have too much stuff. I asked Jaxon to take some "before" pictures. You can see the Axis and Allies going on in this room in the above picture.. It is a good room for that because you can set it up and then you can close the door and let it stay set up for weeks at a time.

Jaxon wanted money. He wanted a job to do to earn money. So I came up with this job because it is a lot of work and he would have to do all the grunt work. He had to clean the room out, and take the border down, take all the light switch plates down and prepare the room for paint. He was bugged that I was helping him- because he wanted to do it and save me the work. But really he was helping me and I would finish the job and I would say- "ok, you can clean up this mess" It was great!

We have a closet in this room that has funky door handles. I actually like these even though they are weird- but one of them has been broken for about 10 years so we had to replace it.

OK- really? Who paints the door trim magenta?

Probably the same person who paints the trim dark blue. Ugg.

We started on the primer. Jaxon helped a lot with this too. He really wanted a job- I gave him one and it was a big job. Lets see if he asks for a job anytime soon. 

Chase was sooo excited to paint. He lasted 10 minutes.

Alex had fun. But it is too hard to let kids help you paint. I'd rather do it myself (Jaxon excluded. He can actually do it). I think Tanner was at young men's that night or something. He usually likes to paint too.

So.... ceiling dilemma. We decided that we should paint the ceiling. But we had these awful boxed it fluorescent light fixtures. 

If we painted the ceiling and left these up, then when, in the future,  we had to take them down, the ceiling would be a different color. So we had to change the light fixtures.

They were hard to take down. The people who lived here before us did weird things. They put the light on the ceiling so it would never come down ever again. But, they did not attach the light correctly. They just had some wires sticking out of a hole in the drywall.

So we had to cut a hole in the drywall, attach one of those electrical boxes to a beam so we could hook the electrical up correctly. Then we had to repair the drywall and texture the ceiling. It turned out to be a huge job that started out just being a little painting job. 

It's done!

It's really hard to get a good picture because it is not a huge room.

It looks sooo nice now.

This table was my grandpa's drafting table. I LOVE it! I just need to use it more. I have decided to take up painting again. (I decided that a year and a half ago but have not painted anything but rooms since.) Then I can use this table!

So... This room needs a new name. I don't want to call it the craft room because that has never been it's purpose. The kids have said that it should be the Axis and Allies room. But I think they are sick of that game for a while and that is a lame name for a room. Any ideas? We have a food storage room and a back storage room already. I don't want another "storage room". The closet keeps the toys that no one plays with anymore. So I have contemplated the "toy room". But for the last ten years the toy room was a different place that the kids actually played. Right now I am calling it, "previously known as the craft room"

The unnamed room is empty right now. But it will soon be full of junk. I am going to clean out the back storage room. This is a mess and needs some organization.

We are going to get rid of stuff in a yard sale that Jaxon's band is holding.

We need shelves for the rest of it.

Wish me luck!