Leif's room

So awhile back I declared that my July goal was to get Leif's room painted. For some reason I said that not really expecting I would get to it. Summer is always WAY too busy. Last year I took the summer mostly off from my goals.

Then we didn't know what to get Leif for his birthday. Actually I had picked something out and placed it on his wish list early. My plan was to order it after getting back from the trip to the cabin, before anyone would possibly be shopping for birthday presents for him. I got back and it was missing off the Wish List and sitting on our porch instead! Oh well - someone else thought it was a perfect gift for him and jumped on it.

Leaving us less then enthused about the remaining options. Leif is a hard kid to buy for. We did Legos - lots of them - for Christmas last year and so even though there are a number of sets he wants, we didn't really want to do Legos from us again. He has a bike. He isn't big into "toys". We have games and puzzles. AB and I went through the list and I continued to balk and say "no" everytime he mentioned a Wii. See we had agreed we would get a Wii for the family after the house sold (which it did this past weekend... another post for later). I did NOT want it to be a birthday gift for Leif.

Finally I suggested we decorate his room for his birthday in addition to getting him a few little things. AB jumped on this.

We picked out paint. That caused angst.

I had my notions on what colors we would use and then AB had to go and state that we really needed to have Leif pick the colors. I sighed and agreed... Leif could pick the colors of his new room.

This seemed like an acceptable idea until we went to Home Depot and he selected "yellow for one wall, blue for another wall, red for another wall, green for another wall and brown for the ceiling". Or something like that.

At which point I rolled my eyes WAY up in my head for AB's benefit.

Finally AB pulled out the blues and the greys in the Disney and Nickelodeon section and put them in front of Leif. He picked two.

Then for good measure we grabbed cans of high gloss red, green and black to paint lightsabers on his wall.

We got home and I slapped up samples.

Gag.

The grey looked like baby blue. The blue looked like... well it looked like blue. Bright blue. But I plodded on knowing it was what "Leif wanted". Not what *I* wanted, but *I* don't have to live in the room, right?

We tested the quarts and I admitted I could deal. Until AB gave me an out - "maybe that grey is too blue'ish".

I latched onto another grey and didn't look back. And I don't think Leif is any the wiser. And the new grey is a REAL grey.

Last weekend we painted two walls blue - the bright blue - the bright blue I can live with now that I got a real grey. Two other walls are painted grey. And the ceiling will be a deep navy/black color.

Leif likes it.

Skadi is downright thrilled.

Every morning she comes to get me and leads me by the hand to Leif's room where she declares, "it's SOOOO BEEEEEEAUUUUUTIFUL!" Then she leads me by the hand to her room and says, "paint my room now".

I hadn't planned on actually painting her room until she was a little older. Leif had a "toddler" room at the other house (the elephant on the wall), but by the time he was about 4.5 years old he was ready for something else. But I think I can finagle something that might have staying power... somthing that will latch her on now and still be "neat" when she is 5. Skadi has requested "green" and so I am thinking a pretty green with flowers painted on the walls. She loves flowers. And it would look good with her Dora accent stuff. Anyways... August/September goal? That would be Skadi's room.

We still need to finish the room off... the blue needs a second coat in spots despite having primer in it. The ceiling needs to be done. (AB needs to do the paint, I am a klutz, if you wonder why there is a strip of blue paint across the carpet it's because I was a klutz.) Then we need to hang up the characters - Ahsoka Tano, Obi Wan and then grandma Charlene bought Leif Yoda as well. I need to paint the lightsabers. We need to hang his moon light and move the stars on the ceiling from the old bedroom in the other house to the new bedroom.

We should finish a good portion of this this weekend. But given that we also have a birthday party to throw, and I am dying to get a pedicure (I WILL get a pedicure) - we may not finish until the 2nd weekend in August. Pictures when it is complete!

Then we will start planning Skadi's room.

Then hopefully our house will close on August 28th and I can think about tackling a room for me... painting it the colors *I* want and actually spending money to buy stuff for said room. Hopefully it isn't just a dream!

February - mostly done

So aside from the curtains - that at 4pm on Sunday I remembered I was going to sew. And aside from the fact that AB needs to change lightbulbs in his closet - yes I know how to change lightbulbs, but it is hard to do with a very needy nearly 11 month old squealing at your feet. And aside from the fact that the panther picture needs to be hung up.

Leif's bedroom is done.

I am happy with the storage options I found at Target. The closet is pretty well cleaned out. So a lot of things went back in. But a lot went to trash and a lot went to the garage sale stack. There is room to store things in the closet (likely "things" from Skadi's closet - which is not walk in and full of kid stuff), room for Leif's nicer clothes to be hung, and room for the larger Little People items.

I also spent about 30 minutes in the kids bathroom (told you I didn't need a full month there) and cleaned out the vanity. So I will also add that to the list since I bought bins and a few little storage things for it - that room is also done.

AB cheered that he got a few weeks reprieve before onto the next room. Silly, silly boy.

I reminded him his mom is coming out in early-mid March. And that room needs serious attention before March 1st.

So here are the after pictures. Before pictures are here.

My biggest fan

For those of you who don't know, I thought I was an artist for awhile. I even went so far as to declare "art" my second major. Then I transferred schools and gave it up figuring I wanted to make some real money and could do art as a hobby anytime.

"Anytime". That would be anytime I actually HAVE the time for art.

Yesterday late afternoon I was working on the closet in Leif's room and I pulled out my portfolios. I asked Leif if he wanted to look at my drawings.

"No," he told me matter of factly.

I left the portfolios sitting there and he came around. "I want to see what is in there," he told me.

I pulled out the first one, a bird I did. It was always one of my favorites. Of course Leif's response was, "ooooh a pigeon!!"

My drawings are a little bit better than Mo's pigeon... but we got a good laugh out of that being where Leif went first. I pulled out the least whacked out pictures of the bunch to show Leif, he picked one out of there.

A panther on a piece of posterboard done in three media. Ink, airbrush and oil pastels. I had always liked him.

Leif decided he wanted it. He carried it into his room while I bit my lip trying to curtail it from certain anhilation at the hands of a three year old.

Funny when I did it in high school I never envisioned a three year old manhandling it.

He decided he wanted it hung on his wall next to his lion chair, and down low. Not high like I hung his carved fish that Bompa made him for hanging his pictures up.

I did happen to find an old framed poster and AB has promised to try and figure out how to get the poster out of said frame so we can put the panther in and maybe somewhat protect the "art" after 20 years of residing in a portfolio.

February goal started

As the first weekend in February, it is also the first weekend to address the current goal at hand... Leif's room. As I said before, his is not a hard room. Here are pictures of the starting point... a little organization is all the room-portion (excluding the closet) really needs.

I went to Target on Saturday and found nicely coordinating bins and containers for the shelves. I cleaned off the shelves, the Ikea organizer and the book shelf top and dresser top and started sorting. Keep (keepsake), keep (put back on the shelves in some organized fashion), garage sale or toss.

The garage sale pile is pitifully small. The toss pile was good sized, but a lot of the stuff was set for keep.

After a few hours (maybe at most) of sorting and putting things back AB came in. I was surprised by his comment - "I like the organizers".

Well so do I. So back to Target I will go (after AB gets paid next week) to buy another set of green plastic organizers: a new garbage can, a medium sized flex tote for cleaning day pick up, a small flex tote for holding essentials on the dresser top, some little bins for marbles and other "pieces", and some more medium sized bins for the shelves.

I cleaned out his dresser while AB put him to bed one night and purged most of the size 2T clothes since he is just now out of that size. And then I retrieved some hangers and started hanging his nicer shirts and sweaters in the crazy closet.

AB still needs to hang the stuffed animal holder. I mentioned this on Sunday and he reminded me he has all of February to do it. ;-) As far as I am concerned he has until I get the new storage bins from Target. Because once that is done, the room part is done and the closet shall remain.

The closet. The closet that looms. (And houses monsters if you believe Leif.)

Anyways, I haven't told AB this, but as of today our time schedule is being slid up. My MIL just wrote that she will be here March 13-18th. Which means that Skadi's room, though it won't be ready for her to occupy, will need to be cleaned out and prepped as a guest room for one last hurrah before our guest room goes away for good - or at least until we buy a new house.

And that little bathroom that doesn't really serve to have a whole month devoted to it? Also needs to be handled before then. (More little bins from Target.)

(Can you tell I have a thing for little plastic storage bins?)

February Goal

I am preparing - at least mentally - for my February goal. My son's bedroom. I picked this room because it is relatively easy. He has a big toy box, a book shelf and an Ikea storage unit for sets of things. Like the picture below, but ours is white and has green and white different sized bins. (Which I really, really like by the way. No more boxes. Of course you are sorely out of luck unless you have an Ikea store near you.)

The things I have to work on in his room are relatively few and somewhat easy. Such as:

-Hang the stuffed animal storage net thing (another Ikea see below).

-Clear off the orange shelves and return only displayed items. (Or items that have been put into time out.) A few little storage bins might be necessary.

-Clean out the toy box (garage sale fodder?)
-Sort through the book shelf
-Under the bed storage redo.
-Finish curtains and hang them.

And the big task is to tackle the closet. Clean out the walk in closet, sort out what can be sold versus stored. Return storage items. Carve out an area where Leif can have some storage for big toys and places to hang HIS clothes.

Not bad, reasonably do-able. I don't expect I will get my huge burst of, "it looks so good and so much better" from this room, but at least it will be done.

March is the scary month. And the month where I will no longer have a guest room. If you want to visit and not sleep on an air mattress, the couch, in a hotel or in Leif's twin better do it before March!