Keeping Busy

So I (somewhat foolishly) decided to take on some projects at our house. I know it's not really our place but I figure we have to live there for now so I should make it the best it can be. First up was the second bedroom that we use as a tv room. The reason for this is because the frontroom faces the north and it is the coldest room in the house. We try to stay out of it and keep it blocked off by a curtain partition to keep our heating bill down. Anyway, the second bedroom still had the terrible '70's wall-paper in it, you know, the weird green color that didn't really go with anything. So I decided to take one evening and see how hard it would be to tear it down. Well, all I had to do was pull on the corner of each section and the paper fell down on top of me. I didn't have to spray it or try to scrape it off or anything. it was AWESOME!! I found a really pretty color in the mis-tinted section at Wal-mart and got a gallon for under six dollars. Very exciting!! I have never worked so hard to make a room look good. I don't usually tape off the edges of doors and windows but I did this time. I also used primer for the first time and now I know why I should use it every time. It makes painting soooooooooooooooo much easier. I only had to put up one coat of paint and the room was done. It turned out super good and I am really proud of it.

The next project was not so easy. The next room to get done was the bathroom. It also had the '70's wall-paper but this time it was HUGE orange flowers with big sick green leaves. Thank goodness it was only on the top half of the walls. The bottom half is a very neutral cream tile. Well, the paper again came off very easily but after that it got tricky. Maybe there was still a glue residue or maybe the walls were in really bad condition but either way the paint I picked out did not go on very well. I primed the walls but it did no good. I put the first coat on and it looked very bad. I put the second coat on and it looked very odd. I put the third coat on and decided the color was now so messed up that I would never be able to fix it. The color I picked out was a beautiful golden glow, but with three coats it looked more like old mustard. So I decided a nice wall-paper would have to do. Matt and I went to Lowes to look at new tile for the floor and on the way out we went down a random ilse that just happened to have a clearance cart in it. The cart was full of all the last rolls of an order of wall-paper. I happened to pick up a really great roll but there was no way one roll would cover the entire bathroom. I glanced down and underneath several rools was a second roll of the one I wanted! I couldn't believe my luck. We got the two rolls for six dollars and the next saturday Matt's mom came and helped me fix my LARGE mistake. We pulled up the carpet and put in our tile and now the bathroom looks GREAT!!

NEXT: Our bedroom (As soon as Matt lifts the project ban!)