I Love Michaels

A.C. Moore has always been my choice of a craft store, but Michaels has always been so consumer friendly. For example, a few years ago I purchased my three Making Memory Embellishment centers. At first I told the cashier I was buying them for friends, and did they have to come in because we all had 50% off. No problem, we can ring you up for all three! HUH?? Wow, I was so impressed.

Then today, they made me so happy!

I tossed and turned all night, imagining the room with the pieces of Jetmax cubes I had already bought, and something bothered me, I thought maybe I had a lot more room than I originally thought. So, first thing this morning I remeasured and drew and thought and planned, and came up with the fact that I needed at least TEN more cubes!

So while my loving, darling, wonderful husband painstakingly painted over the dozens of bright blue stars I painted on the ceiling, I ran off to Michaels to shop! I had to buy them now, who knows when they will be 40% off again!! I got to the register and asked the girl if she knew when they were having 20% off entire order again. She said on April 25, but they did not compensate for items you already bought. Ohhhh, ok, it's a shame I didn't purchase these on Sunday, when I received the additional 20%. So the nice girl at the register said, "let me talk to my manager, afterall, you are buying 10 of them". After a quick discussion with her manager, she gave me the extra 20% off! A savings of another $45.00! When you are getting nickled and dimed trying to make your dream room, every penny helps!

No Holes in the Walls

We built this house we live in, mostly with our own hands. So when the girls moved into their own bedrooms at age 5 and 7, they had explicit rules from their father. NO HOLES IN THE WALLS! They hung posters and pictures with tape and for many years were so very careful, always asking permission. If a nail had to be put in, dad was consulted and he went in and did it very carefully.

Time went on, we redid their rooms when they got older, and the rules still held. Somehow they reached the teen years, and slowly, I started to notice a few new things hanging in the younger daughter's room. Not a lot, just a few things here, and a few things there. She is the one that has always been handy with a hammer and nails, so it wasn't a surprise that she stopped asking dad to hang things.

We always noticed when something new went up, and something old came down. I guess we just never noticed how many things she actually did have hanging up!

Until now.....

This was her room on Sunday, after my husband got finished spackling!




Holes of every size all over the place! In the ceiling where she hung up the Lego airplane she made, staples in the wall where she hung up toys in boxes she didn't want opened, holes from art work she purchased and hung up herself. Of course there were holes my husband had made and now questioned "why?" Holes from the corkboard wall, holes from the christmas lights he strung around her ceiling, and those many holes from the different electronics that had to be run around the room.

We had a laugh over his No Holes in the Walls statement of 20 years ago, I guess we both knew it was unrealistic to expect girls not to hang things up (although in her defense, my older daughter has hardly any holes in her walls!)

Is This The Right Thing?

Well we got a lot accomplished this weekend. I emptied her room of everything. Packed up her CDs and moved whatever books she left up into the library.

On Saturday we had a friend come over and help my husband carry the furniture downstairs. We have someone coming to look at it today.

I think that's when it hit me, was I doing the right thing? Our friend meant no harm in it, he was just teasing me when he said I couldn't wait to get her room, but I had already been thinking these thoughts.

I remember going to my mom's house with my daughters when they were younger, and for some reason we were downstairs where my bedroom and bathroom were, and looking around I was disheartened to see no signs that I grew up in those two rooms. (What teenage girl doesn't spend most of her time in front of the bathroom mirror?)

So here I am, in my daughter's totally empty room and I'm hearing my future grandchildren asking her "where did you sleep mommy?" Ok, she did tell me I'm never getting grandchildren, but you get what I mean. Am I telling her she can never come back? NO! Far from that, my daughters know they are always, always welcome here. I'm dismantling her room though, it's almost as if now she has no home to come back to. Well, at least in my mind that's what it is.

So there I stood, in her empty room, feeling all these things I didn't feel when the girls first moved out, basically because their bedrooms always stayed the same whether they were there or not. In a few more weeks this will no longer be called her room.

I'm not really sure how I feel about that.

SCORE

I'm going to post a little out of order here, tell you what I did today, and then during the week I will go back and show you the progress made this weekend.

Since January I have been checking ads over and over, waiting for Michaels to put the Jetmax Storage on sale.

Finally, today's sale was 40% off, and although I have been waiting for that elusive 50%, if you went there from 4 - 8 you received an additional 20% off your total order, INCLUDING sale items!

SCORE!

Of course I wasn't sure exactly what I needed! I stood in the aisle looking and thinking and trying to figure it all out. I came up with at least 8 pieces. Adding that to the 8 I already have, and I now have most of what I need!

I purchased three 3 drawer units, one 4 drawer, two 1 drawer file units (these I hadn't seen before) and two 1 drawer/1 open shelf units, I also purchased two packages of file holders and the carousel desk top storage that I had wanted for a long time. All said and done, I saved $160.00.

Today was a good day!

Snowball

No, I'm not wishing it was still winter. I'm talking about what's happening in my house now that I have started this process!

Because DD#1 and I have been storing things in the room, and DD#2 never really got it completely empty, I now need a place to put what I'm taking from the room. So upstairs to the attic library I'm heading. Only, there really isn't any room in there, so into the walk in closet up there that I never cleaned out. It's loaded with more scrap stuff, art supplies, toys, blankets, pillows, and everything else that doesn't have a home.

In order to fit into the closet, what I'm taking out of DD's room, I need to empty out this closet. So I started that, and brought things downstairs into my scrapcorner. Now I have things in there that weren't there before! While emptying DD's room, my corner is getting more crowded every minute! I also now have an old crib, playpen and bunk beds in my living room, along with old printers, dvd players and even a vcr!

In other words, the rest of my house is a disaster, but the room is almost empty!

The room before.........





and the room after............



Taking apart the bed the two of them built together was a little sad, but that's gone now, along with the shelves and all her books....



My battery died before I could get a picture of the room without the bed (some scrapper I am!)

Well I'm off to find a home for all this stuff in the rest of the house. A very successful 24 hours on the start of my new room!

Catch Up

Some things have changed since October. My husband was able to give away the snake. My older daughter took her two cats and moved in with her boyfriend. The saddest thing was that while we were in Florida, our beautiful Paige passed away quietly in her sleep. What this means now is that we are a one cat, one dog, no children family. Amazing how fast that changed.

Our dear departed Paige



Last night we put DD#2's television out for the garbage. Today we took apart her bed. It's a bed she and my husband built together so disassembling it was a little bittersweet for both of us.

DH and DD#2 building her bed

An Omen

Miss Me??? So much has been going on, but first, do you think it's some kind of omen that the last post from me was October 14, 2010, and my daughter's wedding is on October 14, 2011?

Since that post, we continued to work on the family room/kitchen (pictures to come). Had Thanksgiving here, had Christmas here, had my daughter and her fiance stay for 3 weeks visit. We had a few family problems that needed our attention, and then we took off for two months decompressing in beautiful Downtown Delray Beach Florida. (my new profile picture was taken there, as you can see, alcohol and sunshine were the theme of the two months!). Came home to a wonderful birthday weekend for DD#1, and although yes, I'm working on DD#2's wedding and still scrapping, it's time to start emptying her room.

I would like to give her furniture away, so if anyone knows anyone that would like it or need it, let me know.