Repairs

(Thanks for pretending to like the stamps. You’re such good readers. And commenters. And pretenders.)

Remember I said we’ve been working on the Bwun’s room? Because we’re having another kid and wanted more room and might have moved upstairs and then didn’t? Ok, let’s talk about that.

This would be a lot easier if either the Romgi or I had thought of taking a “before” picture. Use your imagination. The Bwun’s room is about 11 x 11, and on one wall there was a built-in desk. A poorly-built-in desk, actually. Our landlord has a handyman who’s very nice and kind of old and apparently not so great at carpentry. He designed, built, and installed these desks in both bedrooms in our apartment (and all the other apartments in the duplex…fourplex?). Aside from the distinctly unattractive design of the desks, they’re made of cheap I-just-blanked-on-the-word. The stuff made of compressed sawdust and glue. Seriously, what is that called? Anyone?

…Anyway, the drawers are made of that stuff, and the sides and top were funky wood laminate. The whole thing was nailed into the cement floor. Yes, the rest of the room has carpet but instead of just putting a desk on top of the carpet, our helpful handyman cut away the carpet, nailed down the desk, and glued the desk to the wall.

It’s kind of tricky to get rid of the desk, then.

But the Romgi did it. Because he loves me and I asked (and I am pregnant, which means I get whatever I want within reason – more than one donut a day is apparently not within reason). We may or may not have used the wood to have mini-campfires in our backyard and make s’mores after the Bwun went to bed for about a week.

To go along with the ugly desk, the whole wall in the Bwun’s room had fake wood paneling on it. We decided (it may have been mostly me) that the room would be better without the paneling. So the Romgi tore it down. Of course, that meant he had to put up new drywall, because the paneling was glued to the wall and it didn’t come off nicely. So the Romgi did more repairs (with the help of a friend, and also me. I helped once).

Oh – and the Bwun helped, too.

Here the Bwun is using a plastic beach rake toy to put on drywall mud. His handiwork had to be sanded down several times.

Imagine that you leave on a Saturday morning to go to a baby shower and when you come home, your toddler is putting drywall mud on the wall in his room. At least he had supervision!

When the Romgi finally perfected the wall to his liking, it was time for primer. I was surprised how much bigger the room looked once we got two coats up. (Really, I mean when the Romgi got two coats up. I observed most of the process. Apparently I am so terrible at putting up paint that the Romgi would rather do it all himself than suffer my “help.”)

The rest of the room is done in a gradated blue space theme (pictured below), but quite honestly, it was a lot of work the first time and I don’t think the Romgi was looking forward to doing it all over again on the new wall.

Obviously this was taken before we actually had a child to make a mess in here. I recently replaced the rocking chair with a glider that I'm going to reupholster (no, really) and we painted the drawers on the left to match the walls. Only not gradated. And we might replace them too. But, the important thing here is the wall color(s).

I had mentioned before we started this whole project that it would be fun to paint the inside of the Bwun’s door silver. Like a rocket ship? Or a robot? The Romgi either approved of the idea or really wanted to humor me, so he said we should just paint the wall silver. Home Depot sells a Ralph Lauren silver paint – we learned after several coats that there just isn’t a way to make it even. You can see brush strokes (rather, roller strokes). I thought if we made it look intentional, no one would know…and then I went and wrote a blog about how it was accidental. Genius.

But it turned out well. The Romgi figured out how to make it look like “brushed steel” or something I wasn’t paying attention to, and we finished painting this morning before the Romgi went to school. (Actually “we” this time. I painted the bottom half. Sitting on the floor.) I even got the Romgi to put the outlet cover and light switch plate back on, which means it is a REAL WALL now!

…The Bwun is taking a nap at the moment, which is one reason I haven’t showed you a picture of our awesomeness yet.

The other is that we have to re-paint some of the adjacent wall where the desk used to be, and we have to patch the carpet, install baseboard, and put new trim around the door frame. This we = the Romgi. I plan to go back to my role as an involved observer.

Once that’s done, the Bwun gets his very own Bed. The crib we have converts to a toddler bed, but he loves this Ikea bed that’s about the same price as getting their cheapest crib:

It's called Kritter. Oh, those Swedes.

With any luck we can get this all done before jr arrives.

If you’re interested enough in what I say to still be reading at this point, can I take a minute to tell you how fun it was to wash a load of baby blankets we got and have the dryer lint come out PINK? The Romgi and I are both surprised by how much I’m loving all the pink and ruffles and girly-ness of having a baby girl.

Two months to go!

P.S. I had two donuts today.

Greensboro Children's Museum

The Bwun and I took a trip here a few weeks ago, and I decided we’d go again today. I had a great night’s sleep (yes, I actually took children’s Benadryl to get it) and today wasn’t nearly as hot as the other days. The museum is mainly indoors but they currently have an “Edible Schoolyard” exhibit outside where kids can help garden and look after chickens. We skipped the schoolyard last time because it was over 100°F and reallllllly humid.

I think most decent-sized cities have a children’s museum like this, where kids can do all sorts of grownup things. For example, today the Bwun got to…

...drive a car

...feed a baby

...answer the phone

...fly an airplane

...use tools

...tend the chickens

...make dinner

...ride the train

At the end of the day, though, the Bwun was still just a kid.

A very little kid, at that.

In case you’re wondering, the Bwun decided to feed the baby doll all on his own. He sat down in the chair with the baby, and I handed him the bottle and told him it was for the baby to eat. Not bad!