Decorating Diaries: The Blue Lagoon

Well friends, it looks as though the blue carpet in the exercise will have to stay. I stopped in yesterday to talk to the carpet store guy and he said with both the bookcase and the weight machine, it's highly unlikely they'd be able to stretch out a new carpet as needed. They can do a cutaway around the bookshelf, which doesn't thrill me but would be serviceable. However, the weight machine is huge and a problem.

I'm ready to let it go. This room was never meant to be a redecorating "project." I just wanted the ducks off the wall. We could look into calling the people we bought the weight machine from out here and pay them to disassemble and then reassemble the weights, but that's more money (and time) than I planned on spending.

Blair is not one to give up the fight, however. Last night he pulled the installation instructions out for the weight machine along with his tool kit. And although he hasn't touched it yet, there are wrenches and hammers and drills lying all over the place, terrifying me to no end. I'd prefer a working weight machine on blue carpet to a busted weight machine on beige.

We still haven't reached a decision on the walls. I'm wondering how a chocolate brown and turquoise would look. Two walls of each color, symbolic of earth and water.  I want to get this thing painted by Sunday. A timetable for completion would look like this:

• Thursday, day: Attempt to repair cracks in plaster using massive amounts of my favorite homeowner's tool: spackle.
• Thursday, night: Explain to Blair in no uncertain terms that if he thinks he can do a better job of covering the cracks then he's welcome to it. Storm off in a huff when he points out the blobs of spackle falling off the wall and onto the carpet.
• Friday: Ignore my promise to Blair to redo the spackle and hope the primer covers all mistakes.
• Saturday: First coats of paint go on. Stare at wall in misery, wondering what on earth prompted me to select these colors.
• Sunday: Decide, "Screw it. It beats the ducks," and apply a second coat.

I doubt I'll get to all the trim, but let's just watch and see how close reality comes to the predictions above, shall we?