girl's weekend (or, a big boy bedroom makeover)

Neal took Elias to visit his Dad and step-mom this past weekend so I had the house to myself from about 10 am on Saturday until about 3 pm on Sunday (but who's counting the hours?!).  Here's how I spent my child- and husband-free time:

10-11: removed all furniture from Eli's room, except for newly installed "big boy bed", including untethering and de-booking (is that a word? it should be...) the bookcase and changing table/dresser combo. Schlepped dresser out to garage where it now stands next to disassembled crib.

11-1ish: taped off entire room: baseboards, corners, doors, window. Tedious, time-consuming, but ultimately totally worth it step.

1ish-3ish: painted room one coat of Carolina Parakeet, with a few breaks for Trader Joe's yogurt covered pretzels.

3ish-4ish: painted one coat of Vintage Orange on the room-side of closet and main doors. Decided definitively that main door simply needs to be replaced. Duly added to ridiculous list of house projects (there are currently over 70 items on this list).

4ish: Realizing that smell I kept smelling was me, decided to take a break and shower. I also decided lunch was probably not a bad idea.

5ish-7ish: After deciding one coat of Carolina Parakeet was mostly good enough, got second wind and applied second coat of Vintage Orange to doors. Taped carpet around baseboards and decided to touch those up as well with white paint left in the garage by previous owners. Took a break about halfway to remove 1/4 inch long splinter lodged in finger nail.

7ish-9ish: Done! Celebrated by spending two hours working on Eli's 3rd birthday party paper goods and plans.

9:30: So. Tired. Decided to call it a night and make myself a quesadilla, already. Ate said quesadilla while watching last 15 minutes of When Harry Met Sally on PBS. Spent the last hour of my day the way I plan to spend the entire weekend next time I get this kind of freedom: reading two issues of US Weekly.

On Sunday I spent most of the morning removing painter's tape, cleaning, and putting Eli's room back together. I then cleaned up the rest of the house, showered, and had a late lunch right before the guys returned home. Elias was delighted with his room, giggling for several minutes when he first went in.  I'm not sure, though, if he was giddy from the colors I chose, the fact that his train table is now standing where his changing table used to be, or lingering paint fumes, but he seems pretty happy about his room's make-over.  And so am I. Here it is, the big reveal (man, I am watching way too much HGTV these days...):

We have since added dark curtains to the window in the hopes that Elias will stop waking up at the crack of dawn only to yell at the sun, "go down, Sun!"

Our makeshift train table used to be under the bar between the kitchen and dining room. There are bar stools there now. It's a nice change all around.

The big boy bed! After sitting in our garage for two weeks, Neal finally had the chance to put it together last weekend. So far, so good (knocking on wood). I think we like this bed as much, if not more, than Eli does!

Originally I wanted to get a second bookcase like this and put them side by side where the train table is but, alas, Ikea no longer makes this style. Elias will have to be a one-bookcase kid for the foreseeable future, it seems.

The colors, up close: Carolina Parakeet for the walls, pure white for baseboards and trim, and Vintage Orange for the doors.

I've shared these pictures with just about everyone I know (and now the entire world, theoretically). I don't mean to seem braggy, but not only am I happy with how the room has turned out, I think I'm maybe a little extra excited about it because not only did I never really have walls of my own to paint (I covered my walls in posters and a shopping bag collection instead), but Elias hasn't up until now either.  We never really did that whole nursery thing since he was brought home from the hospital to a rental we knew we were leaving within a couple of years and from there we moved to another apartment across the country. So this is kind of a big deal for me, if not for him, too. 

That said, I think I've satisfied my painting urge for awhile! This DIY stuff is hard work when you add a little one to the mix.