Sidetracked

I was so excited to redo our bedroom. I still am excited. But I have this weird condition that causes me to battle with myself over what NEEDS to be done and what I WANT to do. I'm not gonna say which side of myself usually wins these battles. But I will say that this time the NEED took the win.
Ugh! Emily's room. A constant source of stress for me. This room seriously brings me down. A LOT. She and I often have words over it.
Seeing it causes me to have unpleasant feelings about her.
WHY can't she keep it clean?!?!
It causes me to have unpleasant feelings about me.
HOW have I failed to teach her to keep it clean?!?!?
Every six months or so I go in there with garbage bags and an iron will to clean it up. And come out covered in dust bunnies, boiling with anger, and with bags and bags (and bags!) of garbage to throw out and items to donate.
But I usually let her talk me into keeping things that I know full well she NEVER uses for anything other than to cover every square inch of the floor. It gets bad, people. REALLY bad.
When we go in to tuck her in at night we have to bulldoze a path to the bed and, I confess, that by the time I do that I've lost the warm fuzzy lovin' feeling I like to have when I kiss my kids goodnight and send them off to sweet slumber.
The room is exactly 9 feet by 9 feet. WAY too small for pack rat tendencies such as hers.
I made her a deal this week. If she let me go in there and purge like a mad woman without a single complaint, I would update her room for her. She thought it was too "babyish" before.
She agreed. And I'm happy to report that she did a great job. There wasn't a single "But Moooommmm." She even threw out one or two things that gave me pause. But I just ran with it. I Didn't want to stunt her moment of growth.
Here are some kind of before pics, followed by some sort of after pics.
Kind of before, because I had actually already spent a few hours cleaning when I took these pictures. Pretty bad, huh?

She has been asking me to repaint the room and I just don't want to. Eventually she will move to a larger bedroom downstairs and I like to fantasize that this will be my craft/sewing room when she does. And I like the murals in here. If it becomes my craft room I'll keep them just like they are. The room is sunny and bright.
While we were cleaning it dawned on me that she didn't seem to remember why there is a rooster painted on her wall. So I reminded her that when she was very little, younger than Jaxon, her Grandma wanted to talk to her on the phone so badly but she just wasn't old enough to want to talk on the phone. Boy! Do I miss those days!
So, anyway, we would put her on the phone and Marsha told her one day that she could hear the neighbor's rooster crowing. And she made the sound for Emily.
From then until Emily could finally talk to her, they would speak rooster to each other every week when we made the call to Marsha.
As I was telling her that story she just started crying. And she decided that she LOVES the rooster and it can stay. By the time we were done she decided the tree is still cool too. I guess I used her sentimental attachment to things in my favor. ;)

So, now that we knew the rooster was staying I suggested the we use him as inpiration for updating the room. She agreed that going with bright colors would make the room less "babyish".


Can you believe the mess? And that window seat? For no less than FIFTEEN years I have been having fantasies of my sweet little children nestled there, lost in good books, for hours at a time. And for FIFTEEN years they (There's one in Jaxon's room too.) have been used as you see in the picture above. A place to pile junk. Aaargh!!! Why can't they just play along with my fantasies?!?!

Now here are the kind of after pics. We're not completely done yet. But here's where we are as of last night.
We rearranged the furniture. And scrubbed the walls.
GRRRROSS!!!!!! WTH goes on in here anyway?!?!?
I took down the Christmas lights but left the nails they were hanging on. I might still keep my eye out for some cute light strings to hang up in there.

We threw out two lawn and leaf bags of garbage, two kitchen sized garbage bags of items to donate and two laundry hampers full of items to sell.
We made a trip to IKEA for a new, brightly colored duvet and cover (which came with a flat sheet and a pillow case).
We picked up this green mosquito net and the blue laptop desk. Her idea was to be able to sit at the window seat and read or do homework. Is she just humoring me or will this really happen? Time will tell.

That space under the bed has always been really great for storage. You can fit 5 large laundry baskets under there. The downside to that was that with the aide of a bedskirt before, she was able to hide a lot of JUNK under there. Fairly often, "cleaning her room" meant shoving things under the bed. So now, NOTHING lives under there at all. It's completely empty and there will be no bedskirt behind which to hide any messes.
We picked up some brightly colored storage boxes and bags. They are specifically labeled for things like her MP3 players, Handheld game systems, Electronic educational toys, makeup, jewelry, hair things, etc.
The dresser and closet were purged of clothes that didn't fit or were in bad shape. I labeled the dresser drawers to make it very simple for her to put all her laundry away neatly. (Fingers crossed!)
We got rid of all the books she has outgrown or lost interest in.
She chose a bright red circle rug for the floor.


All my effort so far has been to clean, purge and buy some stuff. But there are still a few things to do. Most of them things I need to make.
We still need:
~Tags to label the round baskets on top of the bookcase.
~A better way to label the dresser drawers. They're just slips of paper for now.
~A curtain for the window. Something bright and colorful. Maybe big polka dots?
~A seat cushion for the window seat. Only about half the width. The other half of the seat holds a basket of school/art supplies.
~Maybe curtains to cover the closet. I don't usually like that idea but the things in her closet now are less often used so it might work. We'll see.
~We need to buy or make a shoe holder for the back of the door.
~She needs a basket or something to hold purses and bags. There might even be something around here somewhere.
~A small CD holder for the top of the dresser.
~A necklace holder. Maybe just stick on hooks to attach to the side of the bookcase.
~There are two of her old shirts that I am going to make into pillows. One that is cute and colorful but that she doesn't like to wear because the trim bugs her. And one is a sweater that Marsha bought her when she was visiting for Amber and Crystal's weddings. It's too small now but the suggestion of donating it brought Emily to tears. I suggested we turn it into a pillow that would be more practical to keep. That made her happy.

When we tucked Emily in last night she gave me a big hug and told me how much she loves her "new" room and thanked me for helping her.
Ahhh...warm fuzzies. :)

We'll try to finish these things up in the next day or two so I can get back to our room!
Here's a sneak peek:
I made a trip to the thrift store last week and found these Pottery Barn tabbed curtains that were the perfect color! They were $7.99 each and I bought two of them. At first I thought I'd have them cleaned (They're still new and stiff but they have some cat or dog hair on them and I like it when Roger keeps breathing), alter them a little (I don't love tabbed curtains) and use them on the window in our room. But I've changed my mind already. Now I see them as several yards of fabric in the perfect purple color. They actually match the purple on the "painting" much better than this picture shows.
And I have been purging some of the junk out of our room.
And hunting for a new computer desk solution. I'm trying to find a writing desk with pretty legs. Or figure out how to make one. Most desks are too wide for the spot I need to put it in. So the search continues.
I got a few good ideas at IKEA yesterday too.
Not the least of which was a bed frame. Hmmm....