Our guestroom has housed numerous people in the past 5 years that we have lived here. More than what I want to try to list. We highly value having a room in which we can easily extend an invitation for people to stay with us.
And I believe I usually apologized for it. It wasn't messy or unkept. It was just a bit.....ugly.
Two teenage girls had shared the room prior to us buying the house. Each wall was a different color - bright pastels. And the carpet was pink. We have re-done many parts of our house, but there are a few pockets of space left that we haven't touched. And up until now, I just didn't want to make the effort to paint it. It was just the spare room.
Well, I got the itch to paint it a few weeks ago.
Although, I didn't want to spend money on replacing the pink carpet, so I had to think about what color scheme would look good with pink carpet - and I didn't want it to look feminine (more on that in a bit). Or moreso, IS there a color scheme that would look good with pink carpet without it looking feminine?
I decided on a gray color. Actually, it was called "Coastal Pleasure". And well, once Becca paints a wall, it ends up being kinda like those "When You Give a Mouse a Cookie" books.
If you aren't an avid reader of children's books like we are and you find yourself unfamiliar with these stories, it all starts out with a mouse who wants a cookie and so you give him one. Well, then he wants a glass of milk. Then he spills the milk. Then he gets out a mop to clean it up. Then he notices that the window is dirty. Then he opens the window and sees his friends playing outside. And so he joins them. Then a cat chases them all........And the story continues to build all the way back around until the mouse wants a cookie again. (The book doesn't go quite like that......but it's something like that). My point is that once I did one thing, then I wanted to do something else, and something else, etc., etc.
I'm not sure if its possible for me to just paint a wall.
So, after I painted the walls. I thought the room would look so much better if I painted the bedroom set that we had in there - a passed along used gift from some family a few years ago. This included a headboard, a nightstand, a large dresser, a desk/vanity, and a benchseat. It was stained a dark wood. I wanted it black.
And after I painted the furniture, then I wanted to freshen up all of the hardware on them as they would look much better in a silver.
Then I wanted to get a new bedding/comforter set.
Then I wanted to re-cover the benchseat cushion.
Then I wanted to paint the doorknobs on the closet doors.
Then I thought the outlets and covers should be replaced.
Then I wanted a ceiling fan in place of the light fixture.
And I'm still looking for some artwork that I would like on the wall.
But I'm happy to report that my ambitious exploits that I don't really have time for have brought me great temporal satisfaction.
And the reason why I didn't want it to look too feminine......we offered ourselves up to host a male exchange student from Taiwan for the school year. Adam is picking him up from the airport as I type this. Another ambitious exploit that we might not really have time for? Possibly. :) But hosting someone in our home and opening up our hearts and lives to them - that could potentially have great eternal impact. We have a big house, let's use it and share it.
Do not worry, out-of-town friends and family - we plan to get to work ASAP on framing and finishing off a bedroom in our basement. Hope to have it done by Christmas time. In the meantime, if you should visit, we are more than happy to sleep on couches while you get the luxurious master suite. Luxurious might be too strong of a word for that. After all, the master bathroom is one more area we haven't redone and the walls in there are covered in old pink wallpaper. Maybe I should do something about that? ;)
