Red Room!

Guess what! The red room is finally DONE. We’ve been working on it FO-EVAH. I’m so crazy excited about this. Here is a post with pictures.
Our saga begins one night in December 2008, when I lost my mind…

Given that red shag, can you blame me?

“I’m just going to go up and see how hard it is to get that red shag carpet out of there,” I said to JC one night after dinner. “I probably won’t get much done.”

Near midnight, he came up to check on me, and found this:

The cat was very concerned.

That weekend, JC called Peter and asked him to bring his truck over and help him get the carpet out of the house.

Oh, and I tore down the crappy masonite wall paneling too.

So good to have strapping young lads around.

So, in a matter of days, we ended up…here.

Demolition is EASY!

Rebuilding…not so easy.First we framed between the beams and put up this fantastic insulation. It’s made from recycled denim (I kid you not) and has no VOCs. It’s also not itchy!

Before we did this, there was literally NO insulation in the ceiling/roof area of our house. NONE. Now half the ceiling is R-30! We’ll do the rest as time/money allows.

Caitlin and Kevin came over to help us hang drywall (and Kevin also took these hot pix).
JC is very good at cutting drywall (but I’m not).

Caitlin had a good sense of humor about the whole ridiculous thing.

This was day 1 of the drywall–by the time we were done, one of us could have done this alone.

We were very productive that day.

And then I went to Michigan….
When I came back, it was time to paint. We joined up with Big Brothers/Big Sisters to get some cheap help. 🙂 (this is Carlos. He really really really wanted to help us paint…and his attention span was about 8 minutes. He painted roughly a square foot of that wall.).

(Paint–Benjamin Moore Aura in Caliente for the sloped walls and Frappe for the straight walls. Also Benjamin Moore chalkboard paint. My friend Chad got us a discount! The Aura paints, btw, rock my world. Self-priming, low-VOC, good coverage, great color).

Then, the floor (what’s wrong with you people? You can’t just live on the plywood?). We picked this prefinished maple hardwood tongue & groove up for $2.30/sf. at our local salvage (“Friendship Industries,” for those in the ‘burg. Check them out!). Similar flooring retails for ~ $8/sf at Lowe’s. The difference? This line is “discontinued.” Now you know our shameful secret. We have the flooring that was in fashion last year. 🙁

JC’s sister Katie came to help us. She got to learn all about pneumats.

Floor = complete!

Mom stayed for a few days, so we put her to work staining trim. She rocked–so fast! This was helpful because I couldn’t do any of it (being all pregnant-like) and JC is very slow at it.

Unfortunately, she put her back out by spending so much time half bent over…sorry….

And then…this weekend… WE MOVED IN!

We bought ourselves a new bed (the old stage platform was getting a bit…rickety). It even has drawers underneath.

The view from the bed:

Flea market wardrobe:

We got all the baby stuff set up, including this beautiful cradle handmade by Henry Finck.

Note the books-to-toys ratio:

Nerd baby!

Bryce gave us this changing table (and also a crib, which we haven’t set up yet). JC found baskets at TJ Maxx that match our new room!

Trying to figure out how to break the news to the kitty…

… or to Ender..

This room will be the baby’s, eventually, but for a while, we’re all in there. It’s a massive room for just one little person, after all. We hope that when Baby Beluga grows up, it’ll appreciate the chalkboard walls (which JC always wanted, as a kid). We’re even thinking of putting a bookcase door on the closet, which I always wanted.

Our luck, our kid will think it’s all really boring… :\
But anyway *I* am excited!