21774 - Jack's Room a.k.a. the Library

This ain't your Grannie's library. No sir. We got bright colored walls, dark curtains and a drum set! Jack's room wasn't done before we left for camp. Tandy got started on it as soon as everybody left town Sunday and by that evening was finished. Jack wanted an orange wall. When we were at church on Wednesday getting help with the pre-mentioned squares and I mentioned that the North wall, (the one closest to Stillwater) would be orange, Randy Hampton got really, really quiet. I said, "It's going to be ok Randy" and he said, "I can't breathe." We quickly found a nearby brother with the antidote printed on his shirt in crimson and after Randy recovered we continued with our conversation. Poor OU fans......good people......weak constitutions. Anyway, Jack just wanted one wall painted orange and that's it, but since we had already purchased the paint we convinced him to put gray on the other walls. It's an OSU color I told him and he argued with me, but I'm looking at my cup here on my desk right now and the logo is outlined in............gray.

I win.

I know many of you can't bear to look at the color orange but with the gray to offset its brightness the room looks pretty good. It is the same sidewalk gray that we used to do Jeff's room. His sheets are OSU, which Tandy found at Overstock.com for about 1/3 of the price of local retail, ($90 versus $280 local) and she finished off the windows with some black curtains. I don't have any in progress pictures because I was gone to camp, but here are a couple of finshed room shots. I plan to print copies of both J's rooms and post them on the door so that they will have a reference of what a clean and organized bedroom is supposed to look like.

There's only one more room left at the end of the hall. What color will it be?

21774 - Jeff's Room a.k.a. the Doll Room

So, having painted the girls room, Tandy moved on to Jeff's room later that week. Jeff had settled on a two color scheme, which in itself is fine, but rather than having different colors on separate walls he wanted squares. Squares! Anyway, Tandy said, "yes, ok." I have since been trying to teach Tandy a new word that many would consider the linear opposite of yes. Well, the damage was done, (Squares? Sigh.) and the painting was begun. Four walls of sidewalk gray and then the squaring could begin. Squaring begins by taping off the walls in an up and down pattern, realizing that the squares are not of equal size, pulling down the tape in an up and down pattern, retaping the walls, then looking at Jeff and saying Squares!?! what were you thinking? Why not stripes? After a break to go to Wednesday night worship and get some advice (lots of advice, some of it was even helpful), the walls were once again retaped in an up and down pattern this time in an acceptable manner. Squares were achieved!

Squares!


Taking the picture down the walls like this give it the illusion of being convex, it was really weird to look at and we thought that Jeff might need dramamine when we were done to get to sleep without getting sick.


Tandy thought that the walls looked like the Holodeck on Star-Trek The Next Generation when they were all taped up like this. She's really Trekkie that one, oh, I mean tricky. So, once the paint was (mostly) dry, you might as well get down with your squareness, right? She was just going to do a "few", but then Amanda wanted to try a few, and soon enough it was 1:00 am and most of the squaring was done.


The remaining wall was taped and mostly painted by the time that I got home from work the next day. Here's Picasso finishing up the last of the red squares. Another quick coat of red and off comes the tape. Voila!


The finished product looked much better than I anticipated. This project took 3 days I think and Jeff spent them in the living room on the couch. He had no idea that he was getting new bedsheets and stuff and was quite surprised by his black/red comforter and sheets. So far there have been no reports of motion sickness or sleeplessness from Jeff.

Next we will move across the hallway where no squares will be found. Stay tuned!

21774 - The Girls Room a.k.a. the Guest Bedroom

Tandy was going to surprise everyone by painting rooms and installing new curtainry and bedstuffs while we were gone to camp. The secret got out though and on Amanda's birthday while Jack and I were out helping a friend with his blown-down fence, Tandy asked Amanda if she wanted to see her paint color and Amanda replied, "Cool, can we paint too?"

So, after a couple of hours of helping a friend I returned home to a wife covered in paint from top to bottom and a formerly white room with dramatic changes. Tandy and I later went to town for some groceries and we could see the bright blue through the curtainless windows all the way out at the road. For me it brings to mind memories of the ranch in Johnson City. The room that was always simply referred to as The Blue Room.


Here is Amanda in the mostly completed room. Her new bedsheets are blue and orange. The quilt on top is reversible and with Elizabeth's lime green and hot pink sheets it is a startlingly colorful room. I will post a picture later of the completed room with the new curtains, (also colorful) and the finished walls. There are currently plans for the girls to put bright colored, (green, orange, yellow, etc.) handprints and stars and stuff all over and they will also put their names over their respective closets in, wait for it, silver.

Later, we had some LC's pizza for dinner, and then Amanda cut the ice cream cake and the cookie cake. Craig likes cookie cake. Believe it or not, Jack made a smart remark just prior to the taking of this picture.

So, that was Amanda's birthday-day, (we did a small party thing after camp). Once the painting got started, it was hard to stop. Hang on, there's more on the way.....

Minor Adjustments at 21774

So, how do you make a house, a home? Little by little. 21774, formerly route 1 box 110A, has been home for me for a long, long time even though things have changed over the years. I can't run and play on the other side of the creek like I did when I was younger because there are some trees down and it has grown over a little bit. But, it was never really mine until I signed papers for it 2 years ago. So, to make it mine I work the yard trying to get it back under control and make it a place that the kids can run and play in. I am desperately trying to win the war against poison ivy but so far have only succeeded in making it mad. I have killed and pulled up bags full already early this spring, which is great, but I must say that the new growth since then is absolutely lush. Leaves of 3 let it be they say, but I say Leaves of 3 kill it me!!

We are also working the inside little by little to make it uniquely ours. I posted previously about some of the changes. The next few posts will highlight more recent changes at 21774. It is slowly becoming our home. It's about time I guess, we've been there 2 years now. Audrey said the other day when she saw the changes that, "It looks like my uncle Craig's house now." That was really a sweet thing to say and Aud, I appreciate it.

So first up is a "minor adjustment." We purchased a new refrigerator a few weeks ago. Our old one died almost a year ago I guess and we borrowed Richard and Angie's extra one for a while. It's a side by side and the shorter doors really work well at the end of that counter even though the refrigerator is bigger than the old one was. Speaking of bigger......the house was built in 1973 and the spot for the refrigerator is pretty much standard sized. Standard for 1973 that is. Since then, refrigerators have gotten bigger, but the spot has not. So the excitement of a new refrigerator was briefly dampened by the realization that it would not fit in the spot made for it. Minor adjustments were required. I debated cutting the countertop back to increase the space, but Tandy wouldn't let me do that. As I began to cut the trim on the dining room side of the spot she realized, "Oh, if you cut my countertop, I get a new one don't I?" Oh well, maybe next time. What I thought was going to be a big operation turned out to be pretty simple and although it needs a little touch up paint, it looks pretty good.


More to come, stay tuned.......