A Painted Room

Did you ever read the novel, "A Painted House" by John Grisham? It's not his typical lawyer-type book, but rather a story about a 7 year-old boy growing up in the deep south. I think I've read almost every Grisham book out there. This one was very different, but equally enjoyable.

Anyway, we now have "a painted room" in our house...

It all started several weeks ago when my sister (the Interior Designer) was coming to visit for a weekend. We had recently purchased a new sofa set for our living room, and I thought it would be a great idea to rip down the 35+ year-old vinyl wallpaper and paint the room while she was here - something I've been wanting to do for a while.

The day before Mona came to visit, I decided to peel a little corner to see how easily the wallpaper came off. The vinyl part came off readily, and before I knew it the kids were in there helping me and we had about half of the room done within the hour. Little did I know that the paper underneath the vinyl was pasted on so well that it would take literally hours upon hours of spraying, scraping, washing, scrubbing, and sanding, to get these walls ready to prime & paint.

Four weeks, a dozen trips to Home Depot, a few favours from friends & family, and several hours later, we finally had our painted room. We got the second coat of paint finished late Thursday night - just in time for Samantha's slumber party the following day. So much for my little "weekend project", eh? I'm glad it's done now, but I'm not in a hurry to undertake any other home renovations in the near future.

The painting above our sofa is one Scott gave me for Christmas a few years back. It's by Liz Lemon Swindle, called "Let the Little Children Come". I love her artwork, and this painting went really well with the new room, which actually wasn't planned originally, but worked out nicely.

Here are two pictures of the boys stripping vinyl. Jesse was having fun playing in the piles of paper strewn all over, while Brett, true to form, was busy accomplishing the task at hand. The next photo is a little dark, as Scott was in the midst of priming the walls long after sunset. And finally, the (almost) finished room. I still have to put books on the shelves and hang up a mirror and a few more pictures. Oh, and I really want to get a brown leather ottoman too. And Scott and I have been talking about how great it would be to replace that old carpet.... and... and...

(See, this is why we can't buy any more new furniture!)