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evaelisabethIt all started with Mom remarking that Kate really really needed a closet to hang up clothes. Up to now we have been making do with a chest of drawers and that really wasn't working any more. So she decided that she was going to get her Girl a closet for her birthday. People who know us will see where this is going, especially my lovely long suffering husband.
So we look at the Ikea catalogue but don't find anything really inspiring in it, just some maybes. We decide that we were going Ikea shopping to see what we can find. So we look and we look and we can't find any nice closets that we like. But we did find a very cute little desk including pink child sized office chair for peanuts and then we find this system where you can basically hang a clothes rail and shelves on the wall also for peanuts. So at this stage Kate is getting a new desk and closet space for the price of what we were expecting to pay for just the closet. Now, Mom is saying we really need to get her room painted while we are doing all this. Let me explain, that when we moved in our builder basically gave the whole place two coats of plain white paint. Newly built houses settle, creating cracks, so we were planning to to paint around this time anyway. The house did indeed shift and we have some cracks the size of the grand canyon, in addition to some damp spots on the ceiling from when the house was initially drying out and we had to install extra vents in the attic. I love my husband but he doesn't see the grand canyon on our walls, so the fact that we were painting seems to have caught him by surprise. We figured this was the opportunity to get started on the job so we set out to get some paint. Upon consultation with the Girl we settled on a bright lemon yellow for the accent walls and a clear white that will go around the entire building when we are done.
Last Saturday was the start of our project the room was emptied and Kate moved in with me. All the cracks and other imperfections like nail holes were filled and left to dry, we did some preliminary painting that day. On Sunday we painted our little hearts out, thankfully one coat did a reasonable job because we just didn't have enough time for two. On Monday I had to go back to work, Mom, who is amazing and absolutely crazy, painted all the base boards as well as 1st and second coats on the chest of drawers (which was going the same yellow as the walls), the door and a touch up on the pink book shelves which had gotten a bit dinged since we painted them. On Tuesday she finished painting the furniture and cleaned the floor, sanding away any paint or crayon marks. In the evening I moped around the bed which was still in the middle of the room and then oiled the floorboards. Wednesday, Mom moved the furniture back to the walls and sorted through various and sundry toys and bits and pieces (there are a LOT of bits and pieces). A bag of trash was secretly smuggled out of the house (Kate is a hamster, she can't bear to get rid of anything). That evening I oiled the rest of the floor and we collapsed into bed.
Yesterday it was the Girl's birthday, we got up had breakfast and I took her to school at 9:30, she had a short day as it was the last day of school so I had to pick her up again at 12:30. That's about 2 1/2 hours of working time. I came home and we launched ourselves into a frenzy of flat pack assembly. Don't get me wrong as flat packs go Ikea is great. Still the desk had about 50,000 pieces. I think Mom put the last screw in about 2 minutes before we came back in the door after school.
We had hoped to have the closet set up as well but we did that in the afternoon after a shoe shopping trip and lunch in Naas. By the way don't ever trust that your walls are completely plumb, they never are. It took us 3 times as much time to mark where the bloody screws needed to go and to actually put the shelves up :-)
Now we're knackered and we still have a big birthday party to get through tomorrow. Still it was completely worth it for the look on our Girl's face. I'll post pictures when we are completely done.
So we look at the Ikea catalogue but don't find anything really inspiring in it, just some maybes. We decide that we were going Ikea shopping to see what we can find. So we look and we look and we can't find any nice closets that we like. But we did find a very cute little desk including pink child sized office chair for peanuts and then we find this system where you can basically hang a clothes rail and shelves on the wall also for peanuts. So at this stage Kate is getting a new desk and closet space for the price of what we were expecting to pay for just the closet. Now, Mom is saying we really need to get her room painted while we are doing all this. Let me explain, that when we moved in our builder basically gave the whole place two coats of plain white paint. Newly built houses settle, creating cracks, so we were planning to to paint around this time anyway. The house did indeed shift and we have some cracks the size of the grand canyon, in addition to some damp spots on the ceiling from when the house was initially drying out and we had to install extra vents in the attic. I love my husband but he doesn't see the grand canyon on our walls, so the fact that we were painting seems to have caught him by surprise. We figured this was the opportunity to get started on the job so we set out to get some paint. Upon consultation with the Girl we settled on a bright lemon yellow for the accent walls and a clear white that will go around the entire building when we are done.
Last Saturday was the start of our project the room was emptied and Kate moved in with me. All the cracks and other imperfections like nail holes were filled and left to dry, we did some preliminary painting that day. On Sunday we painted our little hearts out, thankfully one coat did a reasonable job because we just didn't have enough time for two. On Monday I had to go back to work, Mom, who is amazing and absolutely crazy, painted all the base boards as well as 1st and second coats on the chest of drawers (which was going the same yellow as the walls), the door and a touch up on the pink book shelves which had gotten a bit dinged since we painted them. On Tuesday she finished painting the furniture and cleaned the floor, sanding away any paint or crayon marks. In the evening I moped around the bed which was still in the middle of the room and then oiled the floorboards. Wednesday, Mom moved the furniture back to the walls and sorted through various and sundry toys and bits and pieces (there are a LOT of bits and pieces). A bag of trash was secretly smuggled out of the house (Kate is a hamster, she can't bear to get rid of anything). That evening I oiled the rest of the floor and we collapsed into bed.
Yesterday it was the Girl's birthday, we got up had breakfast and I took her to school at 9:30, she had a short day as it was the last day of school so I had to pick her up again at 12:30. That's about 2 1/2 hours of working time. I came home and we launched ourselves into a frenzy of flat pack assembly. Don't get me wrong as flat packs go Ikea is great. Still the desk had about 50,000 pieces. I think Mom put the last screw in about 2 minutes before we came back in the door after school.
We had hoped to have the closet set up as well but we did that in the afternoon after a shoe shopping trip and lunch in Naas. By the way don't ever trust that your walls are completely plumb, they never are. It took us 3 times as much time to mark where the bloody screws needed to go and to actually put the shelves up :-)
Now we're knackered and we still have a big birthday party to get through tomorrow. Still it was completely worth it for the look on our Girl's face. I'll post pictures when we are completely done.