Upside Down and Inside out

Mother Nature kind of cooperated yesterday and it finally stopped raining about mid-morning but it was breezy all day.  Sounds like perfect weather right?  Sure, if you aren't trying to paint a huge concrete hole in the ground!

We finally got all the water out of the bottom of the pool but because of the morning showers, the concrete was too wet to start painting yet.  While we were letting the concrete dry out, we decided to go ahead and fix another issue we had with the pool.  We have fiberglass walls with tile imprinted at the top.  After many, many years, the bottom portion of the tile faded out from all the chlorine.  We had a couple of choices - 1) replace the walls (not in the budget this year) 2) repaint the tile by hand (no way I was tackling that tedious job) or 3) use a product called BorderLines to rejuvenate the tile surround.

I opted for the BorderLines because it was relatively cheap and sounded easy to install.  It is basically a giant sticker that covers the old tile.  Easy peasy - right?  Kind of.  It was really easy when the pool was empty to walk in and stick the new border on.  At least in the shallow end.  Unfortunately, about half of the pool is designed in such a way that I can't reach the border from the bottom.  My only option was to lay on the deck with my head upside down and try to line up 2 foot sections of sticky border.  I'm sure it was a comical sight to watch - me laying on the deck, legs all akimbo, half hanging in the pool, head completely upside down desperately trying to keep the lines straight!  Thank goodness no one was home when I was doing this part!  I was able to finish this in a couple of hours and I have to say that it looks so much better!

Mr. M and I debated about starting to paint or not.  Apparently the paint we are using must be activated and then only has a certain amount of time that it is usable.  We decided that darkness was going to be an issue, so we only opted for priming some sections that needed to be addressed so they could dry thoroughly before we began the real job of painting the pool.  

Today the weather looks glorious so I think we should be able to get our painting done.  I'm not sure how we are going to do some sections of the pool but we will come up with a way, we always do!  Wish us luck!!

D.I. Done!

The craft room/office is ready!  Finally.  Ok, it honestly has been completed for a week or so but I have been kind of distracted by work related stuff lately so I haven't had time to think clearly.

This time, Mr. Monkeygirl outdid himself.  He will personally confirm that I am picky. Just mention "bathroom floor" to him and he may just run screaming from the room (I'll let you in on the story in another post).  But there isn't one thing in my room that I would change.

The room looked like this when we started:

Now for the big reveal...drum roll please.brbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbr

I don't think the photos represent the real color of the room, but I can't seem to quite get myself together enough during daylight hours to take some pictures.  I have to give a big thanks to the following people.

1. Mr. Monkeygirl for letting me see "the vision" and for his willingness to follow through on my wild ideas.
2. SewWhat? for her expert advice and sewing talents on the window coverings.  Without you, I would still be trying to sew a straight line or searching endlessly for just the right thing online!
3. Skaterboy for his interest.  It is hard to get teenager's engaged in home life but he did drop in frequently and offer his opinion.  He likes it and I think his friends where completely floored by the change.  He says I should get a whopping big plasma for the wall so I can watch the DIY shows while working.  I think he is a really smart boy!
4. MEF Nik for sharing the DIY portion of her brain with me.  Without it, I'm not sure what we would have ended up with.  Our original plans would have been ok, but remember I'm a perfectionist and it would have driven me crazy.

Slight Change in Plans

We had a plan.  We had purchased the basics months ago.  We were ready to get to work.  And then I got a brilliant idea and everything changed.  The progress we have made so far won't go to waste, so that is the good news!

Mr. Monkeygirl is used to me changing my mind so I don't think this about face comes as a surprise to him.  So what changed?

1. Wall Color - I had a vision for a bright, warm color on the walls.  I found a color called "Pale Butter" that was my final choice.  Until I went to buy the paint.  I ended up buying a color called "Golden Chime".  If I showed you the paint samples individually, you probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference between them.  Old color - yellow with a green tint.  New color - yellow with an orange tint.
2. Desk Size - In a moment of panic, I decided to change the desk size.  Old plan - 10 foot long on one side with a 4 foot return- huge!!  New plan - 10 feet.  Still enormous and it saves us from having to have a custom countertop cut or - eeek! - trying to cut it ourselves.
3. Desk Height - The original plan was to have a desk that was slightly higher than a normal desk.  Why?  Because we had a base that was 28" tall.  Now? The desk will be counter height.  This will allow me to either sit or stand and work.
4. Desk Placement - In my vision, I would sit at my desk and get my inspiration from looking out the window.  Good thought.  The window does overlook the pool.  But the window also faces our neighbor's yard.  Picture a slightly smaller version of the junk yard on Sanford and Son and you kind of get the image I see every day.  So I decided to move the desk from under the window.  This move solves multiple issues - I don't have to mess with the windowsill height anymore, I get maximum space usage, and I don't have to look at the cr*p next door.
5. Desk Base - I bought these great storage cubes from Michael's.  I was going to stack them for the base of my desk.  Only I discovered a problem or two. First, the cubes are only 14" deep and the countertop is 24" deep. Hmmm, this is a problem.  We thought of 200 ways to try to support this desk top my they all seemed kind of dodgy to me.  Solution?  I decided to buy kitchen base cabinets to support the desk top (which is going to be a kitchen counter top anyway).  I get the storage I need plus the height I want and it is solid!

So a lot has changed over the past few days but we are making progress.  The walls are painted, Mr. Monkeygirl is working on the ceiling, we bought the base cabinets and lights.  We are getting there and hopefully we will be finished in a week or two.

Step 2 and 3

Mr. Monkeygirl rocked this weekend!  He took me out Friday night (to a retirement party, but out is out!), he tasted tested my creations (brave man), and he joined me for trivia and has some good answers to contribute!  The icing on the cake?  While I was off cropping on Saturday, he finished up the demolition in my craft room.  

How much does he rock?  He removed the ceiling fan and the associated electrical wiring, disassembled the grid from the drop ceiling, and he took all of the demolition debris away.  He even cleaned up the floor!  Today, he patched all of the holes in the walls and on the ceiling.  There were holes every 12 inches around the whole perimeter of the room from the grid so he had a lot to patch.  

Hopefully, it will all be dry tomorrow when he gets home from work so he can start sanding.  I guess I need to make up my mind on the paint colors and we need to order the countertop so we can move on to the next project.

Success! (cough, gasp, wheeze)

Mr. Monkeygirl was determined to get the gluey stuff off the wall today. He did it, with minimal effort on his part, and a whole lot of noxious fumes permeating our humble abode.  The stuff he used smells awful!  His miracle product of the day - something called "Goof Off".  I'm sure that it is not environmentally friendly based on the smell alone but it did work and made short work on the goop stuck on the wall.

He tried to minimize the "funk" by keeping the door closed and that didn't help.  He opened the windows. No, not much better.  We opened the doors.  Nope, it still stinks in here.  We all left the house for 5+ hours.  Still smells like a toxic lab in here.  I hope the smell is better at the other end of the house or I might have to sleep on the back porch with the mosquitoes!

We still have to remove the ceiling fan before we can disassemble the ceiling grid. Unfortunately, we didn't have enough time to tackle that project before we left the house.  That should be relatively easy and something that we can tackle after work one night this week.

We are making tiny baby steps towards our goal!

Step 1.5

After cleaning the pool and mowing the yard, Mr. Monkeygirl still had some energy so we started working on the demolition in the Craft Room.  We didn't finish because we ran into a couple of issues.

1. The original owners owned stock in Gorilla Glue.  They had to because they used it everywhere.  I will attest to the holding power of the stuff. It really holds. For a long, long time.  The only problem is how do you get it off the wall if you ever change your mind.  In the grand scheme of things, the cork came off much easier than we thought it would.  Now we have to figure out how to get this gluey residue off the walls so we can paint.
2. Contrary to it's name, the ceiling fan isn't attached to the ceiling.  The fan is braced and hung from the grid for the drop ceiling (ok, if you really want to be technical, I guess you could count that as part of the ceiling).  Until the fan is disconnected, we can't take down the grid.  We did remove most of the ceiling tiles.  The only ones that remain are the ones used to hold the blocking for the fan.

3. A little wooden rack on the closet wall gave us more problems than we thought.  I have no idea what you could hang on this thing but I doubt it could be more than 2 hangers.  I'm not sure who installed this, but they definitely wanted to be sure it was sturdy.  They lag bolted this half ounce rack into the wall.  I guess we get to practice patching drywall again!

Since we needed to find something to remove the gluey stuff (it's a technical term!), we made the rounds to Home Depot and Lowe's.  On the agenda, look for paint samples, find something to remove the glue, look for countertops, look for new lighting, new pots for some plants, and dirt to fill the pots.

We found something that claims to remove the goo - we reserve the right to pass on our judgement until we try it.  Paint samples were found that may work out - I love that machine at Home Depot that reads your "inspiration piece" to find the color!  I need to look at the colors next to the furniture before I make a final decision.  Both stores had countertops that I liked at prices that aren't going to break the bank.  I think the prices were exactly $1 different between the two stores so it really will come down to which one looks prettier!  We also found some good lighting choices at Lowe's that will work for what I want.  Most importantly, we didn't forget the pots and dirt so it was a good trip.

Shhhh.....

(In a hushed whisper)  Don't get your hopes up or get too excited yet, but I just caught Mr. Monekygirl when he didn't know I was watching.  On his way down the hall, I just caught him stop in the doorway to my new office and look around.  Does this mean he is ready to begin the demolition?  We will have to see.

Oh man, he went outside to clean the pool.  Well, the day is still young!

One down, 11 to go!

A week ago, my new office looked like this...

Normally, it wasn't quite this messy (well, the mess was generally confined to the surfaces in the office and not in the middle of the floor)!  I took this picture after I cleaned out the closet so I could recall what it used to look like.

I was inspired to get moving on this project this morning.  I had already packed up and moved all of the boxes.  I needed to get the furniture out of the room so we could start the demolition.  I conned Skaterboy into helping me move the remaining furniture out of the room (access to a car is a powerful motivator!)

Now the room looks like this!

All in all it doesn't look too bad, but you can see the floor is really worn in the lower left hand side of the photo.  There is just a touch of the drop ceiling and the cork wall in this pic too.  While it wasn't intentional, I noticed that I happened to capture our lovely yellow toilet in both the before and after pictures.  Someday, that too will be replaced!

So many choices....

I'm not working today.  I'm not answering the bat phone.  I'm not going to log on to check e-mail.  The world will survive without me for one day.  The doors will still be open on Monday.  I deserve a break.

I have the whole day to myself.  Mr. M is stuck at work forever today.  Skaterboy has yet to surface from under the covers  - it is way too early for that.  I can do whatever I want.  I was catching up on some reading and my fellow bloggers gave me some inspiration.  

• Most Excellent Friend, Nik is also off today and grueling away with her faithful sidekick, Lawrence, doing something sweaty and constructive today.  Hmmm, maybe I should finish Step 1 of my DIY project and move the furniture out of the office so we can move on to step 2 - demo!  
• Ty'sMommy is making me feel bad because she has a toddler, is making jewelry, quilts AND scrapbooks all before the parental units show up!  I promised my SIL a baby book for my Godson and I have all the stuff and I started it, but I wasn't happy with the second page, so I gave up.  I am such a perfectionist and I need to get over it!  Maybe I could work on the baby book before he goes to Kindergarden.  Or I could drag out the jewels and make the necklace I have been envisioning in my mind for the past few weeks.
  
• Ann totally got robbed out of her right to the first shower this morning.  I think she should refuse to share her mouth watering creations with the shower robber for that one.  Those cherry cakelets make me drool every time I spy their little stems peeking at me.  I could bake today...wait that would require some effort.  Clothing appropriate for public viewing, a trip to the grocers, following directions, figuring out if I have cakelet pans (is that a word? Where would one begin to look for cakelet pans? I don't think cakelet pans are near the sticker or shoe aisle so I might get lost).
• I do have all day with no plans and there was a new assignment on DPS this week that I can handle.  BabyNik is back in my possession and I have a nearly empty card tucked inside.
• It is a glorious day for mid-summer here.  I have a pool.  I have no plans. One of my thinking buds at work commented on my lovely alabaster glow this week (or at least that is how I interpreted her comment).  I could drag out a boombox (that is so '80's) and go hang out by/in the pool for the rest of the day.

So many options, which one will I choose?  I'm not sure either but check back later to see if I accomplished anything at all!

12 Step Program

Mr. Monkeygirl and I are embarking on a 12 step program.  No, we do not suffer from any type of addiction that would make for great rumors!  We are getting ready to tackle our latest DIY project.  We have attempted some projects in the past with some pretty good results.  Anyone who visited our house after we first moved in couldn't possible forget the family room with the faux wood beams on the ceiling, the faux brick fireplace completely surrounded by lava rock, smokey glass mirrors and dark wood paneling.  Top this all off with lovely pinky-rose carpeting.  It was a living tribute to the early seventies!  It took a huge amount of work, but we were able to change the room around completely with ceramic tile on the fireplace, Pergo on the floors and a bold color choice for the walls - Campfire by Behr.

A few months ago we decided that the office needed a renovation.  Both Mr. Monkeygirl and I shared the office, plus Skaterboy camped out there often.  It wasn't working for us to share the space.  I am a scrapbooker and I have a lot of supplies and didn't have anywhere to put them (or work on my projects) without having to move all kinds of things around.  Add in Mr. Monkeygirl's stuff plus a gaggle of Skaterboy's friends camped out in the room most of the time and you can quickly see why we had issues.

After some persuasive arguments on my part, I was able to convince Mr. Monkeygirl that we should convert the spare bedroom (nobody ever uses it anyway) into one office and convert the remaining room into a craft room for me. Somehow, Mr. M was able to persuade me that his office should be finished first and then he would work on my room. In a complete moment of weakness, I let him have his way.  His was the easy one and we quickly had the room finished. That was months ago and we still haven't made any progress on my office/craft room.

That was until today.  While the forecast called for a warm sunny day, I woke up to gloom and doom and storms rolling through the area this morning.  Since I had planned to do something outside today, this unexpected rain gave me the kick in the pants I needed to get started on my room.  You see, Mr. Monkeygirl had been bringing home boxes for me for weeks and I never did anything with them. Until today.

In our own spin on a 12 step program, we have developed 12 steps that we need to complete in order to call this project completed.

1. Pack the remaining junk and move the furniture.  This room was wall-to-wall furniture at one point in time.  We had 3 desks, 2 filing cabinets, 2 tall bookcases and a rolling craft cart in the room.  Over the last few months we have been able to rid the room of some excess furniture.  One desk was literally falling apart so we disassembled it and chucked it in the trash.  The desk that belonged to Skaterboy didn't make it back into his room after his renovation project, so it ended up in my space.  This desk was nice but didn't have much space for crafting, so it was donated to the church garage sale earlier this summer.
2. Demolition!  The original owner's of this house loved the '70's.  This room has a drop ceiling and fluorescent lighting.  Top that off with a wall covered with cork and mirror tiles (more smokey glass but this time without the 'veins' of gold) and brown shag carpeting in the closet.  All of this needs to go to make way for my dream room.  Of course, this won't be easy because the favored method for installing anything in this house was Liquid Nails.  I have to admit that it does make things stick but it makes removing anything a tad bit difficult.
3. Repair walls/ceiling.  Did I mention that the original owner must have owned stock in Liquid Nails?  We will definitely have to repair or replace a portion of the walls after we remove the cork and mirrors.  Who knows what the ceiling will look like after we disassemble the drop ceilings?  Let's hope they didn't use Liquid Nails to hang the ceiling grid.  Hopefully, we will only have to fill in the holes from the hooks in the ceiling.  Keep your fingers crossed.
4. Paint!  The ceiling, the walls, the inside of the closet, the trim - it all needs to be painted.  I haven't exactly picked out the final paint color yet but I'm leaning toward a bright, sunny color.  I have been inspired by my dinnerware for other color schemes in my house, so I doubt this room will be any different.  Stay tuned for the final decisions!
5. Install Lighting.  My dream room includes plenty of direct lighting over my work surface.  I had my eye on some really neat pendent lighting but Mr. Monkeygirl warned me that none of our rooms have ceiling lighting that is controlled by the light switches.  Plus, given some of the weird switches that we found in this house, we weren't really sure how the current lights were run in the drop ceiling.  A quick recon mission revealed that they actually wired the lights correctly, so I can get the lighting that I want!
6. Refinish Hardwood Floors.  We are blessed to own a home that has hardwood floors in every bedroom.  The floor in the office has seen better days and needs to be revived before we can call it completed.  Teenage boys are really rough on the floors so this room is one of the worst for wear.  Mr. M found some miracle product that he used on his office floor that did an awesome job of bringing back his floors without having to resort to sanding them done and starting over from scratch.  Hopefully, it will work in my room as well.
7. Assemble Cubes.  No, I'm not trying to recreate Dilbert in my office!  I found these great storage cubes at my local Michael's that fit my needs exactly. Even better, Michael's was running a 50% off one item coupon sale around Mother's Day.  I gathered all the coupons I could find and repeatedly hit my local store buying one cube at a time.  Mr. M bought the remaining cubes for me for Mother's Day and I have been patiently waiting to use them ever since.  The cubes will be used as the base for my new work space.
8. Install Countertop.  No matter how much you have, you never seem to have enough space to scrapbook.  I plan on solving that by installing a countertop that runs all the way across the back wall of my space.  Plus, I plan on turning the corner and running the countertop up to the edge of the closet.  That should give me about 12 + feet of space to work!  The shorter span is slated to be the 'electronics' area.  I should have plenty of room for my laptop, a printer and my Wacom Graphics tablet.  If you don't know, a graphics tablet is a very cool way to edit your photos with a pen instead of a mouse.  It is the coolest thing but it is a little difficult to use in your lap.
9. Install Closet Organizers.  I know that I should have plenty of room with my cubes but if you know me at all, you know that I have a lot of scrapbooking supplies. (I even 'had' to buy a bigger car to go to Crop Camp!)  I know that there will be some things that just won't fit into the cubes or that I don't want to have at my side at all times.  The closet organizer will help me keep things organized so that I can find them when I need them.
10. Unpack.  This seems kind of silly, but it will probably be one of the hardest parts of the project.  Did I mention that I have a lot of stuff?  I have things stashed in various places in the house depending on the frequency of use. I'm sure that I will get in my step count for the day when I decide to unpack since a majority of my belongings are stored in the basement right now.
11. Organize.  One of the biggest perks of this project is that I will be able to get everything out of boxes and bags.  I made a major effort last fall to organize my supplies and it helped immensely.  I found things I forgot I had and was able to get rid of things that I will never, ever use.  The bonus, my scrapbooking totes now weigh about half of what they used to.  My ultimate goal, to only bring things to a crop that I will be using that day.  Oh, and to try to limit the stuff I bring to one trip from the car!
12. Create!  I can't wait to decorate the space and start working on some projects that I have started but never finished (like the baby album for my newest nephew).  It will also be really nice to make a piece of jewelry and be able to see the exact colors of the beads that I'm using!  

So the challenge is on.  Mr Monkeygirl is going on a guy's trip to a NASCAR race next month.  I gave him my "permission" to go - IF he finished my space before he leaves.  For avid DIY'ers, this is a ridiculous amount of time, but we aren't rabid fans of DIY and we try to find every reason to procrastinate.  We have a deadline, we are working towards a common goal - to get what we want (I want my space, he wants me to stop whining about it).

Step one is almost complete.  So I have one thing to say to all my brain sharing friends - RENEGADE?