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Monday, March 2, 2009

The new bedroom

I’m sorry for the lack of TCG updates, but for the past four days, Andrew, Mr. Pickles and I were a little preoccupied:

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Yes! We finally, FINALLY painted our bedroom. I realize I started talking about this weeks and weeks ago, but there was a delay. “A delay?” you are saying. “A delay in a home improvement project?” I know. I was stunned as well.

This particular delay was caused by, of all things, the duvet cover. I ordered one from West Elm back at the beginning of January, but then I had to wait until it arrived before I could choose a paint color. Unfortunately, it was back ordered. Fortunately, it was back ordered for only two weeks! Unfortunately, after two weeks, West Elm emailed me to say they were so sorry, but the duvet cover was back ordered even further. Fortunately, only for two weeks!

And so it went. I was reminded of the time Andrew and I were waiting in an airport for our flight, and every twenty minutes they announced that the plane was delayed for twenty more minutes. After the third or fourth twenty-minute delay announcement, I overheard the ticket agent comment to her friend that the plane that was supposed to have taken off from New Jersey with us inside had not actually left Boston yet. Needless to say, we did not leave twenty minutes later.

But this time, I did not fall for it. After only the second delay of “two weeks,” I cancelled my order. I did not have time to wait for the cotton to be grown and harvested. (Note: this duvet cover isn't even on their website anymore.) So I ordered another one, and after a few other boring scheduling delays, we were finally able to PAINT THE BEDROOM!

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Andrew was distressed at the size of the paintbrush I gave him:

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Oh, hush. He only used that one to fix up the edges, and it only took ten minutes.

But no matter how much painting we do – and we do a lot – we are still very bad at estimating how long it will take. We primed on Friday, and it went so well, we were done for the day by 6:00. This made us think we’d be able to paint everything, put the room back together, AND go buy Jack a new mattress, all before 8:00!

Yeah, not so much. Instead, we painted and painted and painted and Andrew finally made me stop at 9:30 with half the baseboard and one window still not finished. Thus, we spent Sunday painting some more and putting the room back together. Naturally, there were delays – issues with the ceiling fan wiring. But we finally finished.

So while the weekend itself was sort of awful what with all the hard physical labor and all, it was worth it. I don’t have any before pictures handy because we forgot to take them, but believe me when I tell you, the before pictures were awful. Awful awful awful. It was the bedroom version of our old kitchen: peeling, dingy wallpaper, crumbling ceiling plaster, and a grimy, disgusting ceiling fan.

And now it is… better. We still need curtains and pictures on the walls, but here’s what we’ve got so far:

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Mr. Pickles approves.

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****
Speaking of Mr. Pickles, let me address a few more questions you have. Yes, there are three sizes of chickens. The middle sized ones are Mr. Pickles. The tiny ones are Mr. Pickles’s brother, Mr. Pickles. The giant ones don’t have a name, because they didn’t exist (or at least I didn’t have any) when The Doktah and I named the chickens, but if you want to buy those, feel free to go ahead and call them Mr. Pickles. Do not over-think things! (But I can’t condone a dinosaur covered in feathers, because that would be The Dinosaur Game. However, The Dinosaur Game is probably equally fun.)

10 comments:

Becca said...

Your bedroom looks so pretty! I like the accent wall! Yay for pretty bedrooms!

Swistle said...

You know what's funny, is I didn't even SEE the VERY OBVIOUS chicken in the first picture until I'd seen the later picture chickens.

Mama Bub said...

Now I'm very, very nervous. We're painting the bedroom this weekend and have allotted exactly ONE day to do it.

The finished product looks great though!

Dr. Maureen said...

Swistle: You mean the very first picture which is a picture OF Mr. Pickles? Hee.

Mama Bub: You'll probably be fine. We didn't get started as early as we should have on Saturday; I am pregnant and so Andrew had to do all the ceiling removal by himself, and we had to start by scraping wallpaper. And then we also had to paint the ceiling (two coats of primer); you probably don't have to do that. And we also had to deal with a toddler. I don't know if you have that problem or not. Oh, and we decided to do the faux finish on the accent wall sort of last minute and thus had to make another trip to the paint store, and then I messed it up so we had to paint over a section and start again. Without the faux finish we would definitely have finished painting on Saturday night.

SP said...

We are playing the dinosaur game only because the feathers wouldn't stick, and believe me, we tried!

Someone please help me yell and my local craft store for MORE CHICKENS!

Lizzie said...

TCG is in full force in Seattle. You have indeed created a coast-to-coast phenom!

Anonymous said...

Is that "Waiting For Birdy" on your night stand? Love Catherine Newman! And also another bird hidden in the picture. Yay!

Dr. Maureen said...

Sarahd: You have the eyes of an EAGLE. How can you tell what book that is?

SP: In the interest of spurring on the INTERNET PHENOMENON, I will allow The Dinosaur Game. However, if you email me your address, I will be happy to send you an actual Mr. Pickles!

Whimsy said...

Dr. Maureen,

Please please please tell me what color you painted your bedroom. I love the color! Things in the yellow family can be very tricky - too yellow-y/green or not yellow enough. I painted our kitchen two years ago and it was TOO yellow-y green. And I hate it. And I must fix it. I think your bedroom color belongs in our kitchen.

Email me, if you wouldn't mind: whimsyattack AT gmail DOT com. Thanks!!!

Dr. Maureen said...

I have emailed Whimsy, but for anyone else interested, the colors are Benjamin Moore "Traditional Yellow" on three walls, and Benjamin Moore "Apple Crisp" with a faux finish using Moore's copper metallic glaze on top on the accent wall. The Traditional Yellow has a lot of orange tones, so in the daylight it looks orangey-yellow, but at night (under our fluorescent lighting) it looks yellowy-orange, almost peach.