Dear Diary - the Smitten Kitten Blog

15th April, 09

It was the boy’s birthday yesterday, and since last weekend’s surprise activities went off without a hitch, I thought myself clever and wanted to give him a surprise too!  I hadn’t been planning it for very long, but I thought it was a good one none the less.

Since last summer the boy’s writing career has been taking off.  He’s a contributing writer for a local paper, and as well he keeps a blog about horse racing.  All this on top of his day job!  I’m very proud of him.

The house we’re living in has been set up so that my business (studio, office and Smitten Kitten headquarters) is on the main level, and our living quarters (bedroom, living room and everything else) is on the upper level.  Best described as decorated with sunshine and lollipops, the decor is VERY Smitteny Kitteny.  This doesn’t leave the boy a whole lotta room for his creative endeavors.  Often he would stay behind at his office to write.  He says pink floral and vintage chic doesn’t inspire in him images of race horses thundering down the tracks.  I understand and feel bad about this.

He’s been putting up with this girly overdose for a loooong time now, so for his birthday I wanted to turn this space we have upstairs into a boy writing area.  At long last the boy will have his own desk, his own shelves to display horsie things, and a haven to escape from all this pink (decor I mean, not the singer).

We’ve been meaning to reno this area of the house for some time now.  This is probably the last free space we have left in the house (since everywhere else has been claimed as workspace by Smitten Kitten).  This unofficial dead zone is where we seem to have piled up all the stuff that doesn’t have a proper home.  The walls are this yucky Peptibismol pink (no thanks to colour blind past inhabitants) and is totally mismatched with the other wall which is covered in dark blue brocade wallpaper, needless to say it’s hideous! But with everything else going on in our lives it’s been the “we’ll get to it” area which we never got to.  I decided that this was the best time and reason to finally tackle the job.

To turn this space into a boy space would mean a new paint job, cleaning, sorting, shelf building.  I’ve seen those home renovation shows where a designer and a team comes in and have only one day to make over a select area in a house.  I watch these shows and think, why would you need a whole team to do that?  What are they chumps and mama’s boys?  I can do all that myself!

So after dropping off the unsuspecting boy at work yesterday morning (8:57 a.m.),  I set the stop watch and got to work.  I’ve got 8 hours and 3 minutes to paint and fix up an area.  It’ll be a walk in the park!

Boy was I wrong.  Thank goodness I had the foresight to pick up the paint and supplies the day before so I could get to work right away.  2 hours into the reno I realized that everything was taking longer than expected.  The walls were quite big and needed one coat of primer plus two coats of paint (just to cover up the yucky pink).  All the stuff we had lying around had to be allocated to new homes. The fancy curtains I got for the windows were a pain in the butt to figure out (thanks for nothing Ikea).  The shelves took forever to level and the brackets were a pain to anchor…

With less than an hour to go, I still hadn’t quite figured out how I was going to move my antique sewing table (AKA his new desk) up a flight of stairs.  I honestly thought that with some clever finagling I could move it myself.  It wasn’t the biggest table but damn it was heavy!  I tried dragging it, turning it sideways and dragging it, flipping it over and dragging it, I even tried strapping it to a dolly and pull the dolly but nothing worked!  Tick tock tick tock… time was running out.  Eek!  How can something so simple take up so much time and energy??  I began to wish for a team of helpers but was thankful there wasn’t a camera crew documenting my clumsy moves.  In the end I had to call upon one of the boy’s friends to come over and give me a hand.  Thanks for coming over on short notice Barry.  You’re a gem!

I managed to get everything done in the end, but not before I sliced a hunk of my finger off while cleaning a piece of glass (Stupid inanimate object!  Owieowieowie…).   It took a total of 8 hrs and 46 minutes to get everything done, and without a team of helpers (except Barry).  Ha!

So what do you think?  It’s not a bud-light-bikini-clad-babe-frat-boy-arm-wrestling-chug-chug-chug boy area but it’s pretty neutral.   I chose a robin’s egg blue for the wall (that actually matches the dark blue brocade wallpaper on the other wall) and framed a couple horsie art prints he had stored away.  I also found a picture of him with his parents (awww sweet) and displayed a few Kentucky Derby glasses he had bought a long time ago that have been forgotten in the basement.

The boy loves his new space and was very surprised by the reno.  It took him more than a few minutes to realize that the walls have been painted “Did the walls use to be pink?”  HOW that could’ve escaped his attention I have no idea.   I’m just so happy he likes it!

The reno is one thing, his actual birthday present was my promise that I wouldn’t let any of my pink-ness or girlie-ness sneak into his new boy space.

Categories: Random.
Tags: decorating, room make over, While you were out.
Subscribe to the comments feed if you like. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.