A New Decorating Diaries

That's right loyal blog readers... it's time for a new DECORATING DIARIES installment! DECORATING DIARIES are a long-held tradition here at Dena's blog, as I catalog the attempts of Blair and myself to decorate, upgrade, or fix... anything.

This time it's the downstairs guest bedroom. I've decided to make it my writing room. Note the term "writing room." A friend convinced me of the importance of differing my office space from writing space. It's hard to be creative in the same space you do your income taxes. (Okay, Blair does our taxes, but you get the idea.) So we're gutting the room and starting over.

Plans involve scraping and painting the ceiling (sour apple green) and painting the walls (turquoise) and the massive amount of trim (off white). The trim is always the killer.

For your entertainment purposes, we'e decided to up the ante on this room. Blair has decided he will build me a bookcase and add ceiling trim to what's already there. I'm more worried about the trim. Our home is 101 years old and most experienced contractors leave our home cursing after a job because nothing is straight, level, or straightforward. But it's a project Blair wants to tackle and here, at the beginning, he has my full support. (Compared to three weeks down the road when we both suspect I'll be screaming at him to just hire someone who know's what he/she is doing so we can finish it... finish it!)

At the moment there is talk of cat trees and built in windowseats. And of course, I want to get the fireplace operational. Six fireplaces and not one of them works. We're still trying to lcoate someone who sells the coal-burning size gas fireplace inserts and can add a liner to the chimneys. Harder than you might think.

So expect lots of fun in the next month as we follow the progress of this room. I expect the first clash tonight. This weekend was going to be spent scraping the popcorn texture off the ceiling, but Blair wants to have a bit of the ceiling checked for asbestos first. That's a good idea, but since we're not doing the ceiling, I say let's rip into the room and start doing other stuff. I suspect Blair will want to wait and follow the shedule (ceiling, walls, trim, carpet) we had planned. Luckily, I am a world champion pouter.

Have a great weekend!