It Only Took 5 Months...

When we last saw our heroines, they had finally removed all the paper from the bedroom walls (well, most of it, I wouldn't take down any of the trim if I were you...) and were fixing all the damage from removing the paper.

It all started with learning how to spackle (thanks YouTube!!)

Then taping and priming

Finally, paint. The guy who helped us at ACE hardware was super kind and patient and was able to give us a ton of good advice--things we rarely get at the big box hardware stores. Be warned, the color we picked for the room is blue. A damn bright blue. Brighter than I think either of us expected.

"I'm super bad-ass with my teeny-tiny roller"

Ellie was attacked by Smurfs!!

I cut in, Ellie rolled; a system that mostly worked out.

A second coat should do the trick...

And finally, FINALLY, we are able to sleep in our own room:

First time using the comforter we got for our wedding!

Some things we learned from our first attempt at redoing a room:

• Sanding takes a lot more time than you anticipate. And it's really hard to make the wall smooth.
• Do not use tape that is the same color as your intended paint
• Two coats of paint make everything better
• Furniture really helps break up solid blocks of color
• Pick up the bits of wallpaper as soon as possible, because they will totally adhere to your hardwood floors

We're still trying to think of the best way to arrange the room--we have a baseboard heater along one long wall, an off-center window on a short wall, aren't quite sue how we'll eventually set up access to the closet on the other short wall, and neither of us seem keen on putting the bed on the wall that the door is on. We'll just keep moving furniture around until it feels right I guess.

Wait, We Have 6 More Rooms of This?

It's been forever since we gave a house update, hasn't it? Well, we've had some setbacks, but I think we're on track again. We better be, because I really want to sleep in my own bedroom rather than my future walk-in closet!

As you may remember, when we moved in, the bedroom looked something like this:

Baby blue flowers, how nice

And then we discovered this:

Why WOULDN'T there be Jungle wallpaper underneath?

And this:

Notice that under Layer 1? Blue stripes on the other 3 walls!

We're making progress, right?

But Ellie really busted her ass (I helped!!) and before long, we were finally here:

No monster can scare us away from finishing!

Paper-free!

Right now, Ellie is we're finishing up fixing all the damage to the drywall that came from inexperienced wallpaper removers working on wallpaper applied to unprepped walls. Honestly, I think we'd be well done with this room (the walls at any rate, I want to consult with someone who has a clue when we decide to tackle fixing/replacing the trim) if the walls had actually been prepped before the first layer of paper was applied. But our inexperience lead to what was probably too much research on how to properly correct the damage which, added to the other setbacks, just delayed everything.

Over/under on getting at least one layer of paint up by the end of the weekend?