Extreme Room Makeover

For anyone who checks the blog regularly (all two of you), you may have noticed a lack of attention to it lately. Call it paint fumes, frustration with the wallpaper steamer or overuse of Downy Fabric Softener (which, by the way, does NOT come out of throw rugs if you happen to spill it by mistake). Or . . . you can call it:

Extreme Room Makeover 2009-the Cassidy Edition.

After a lot of talking about the possibility of doing a new color on Cassidy's walls and giving her a loft bed, Gregg and I made good on our promise to "someday" do something different in her room and so below is our "BEFORE" photo . . .



followed by the "AFTER" photos . . .



Having chosen a new brown and pink striped comforter last fall (yep-that would be twelve months ago for those of you doing the math at home), she chose to have one wall painted brown with the remaining walls painted pink. Pepto Bismol Pink. (Actually, I think it's cute.)


Gregg, bless his heart, built her a long awaited loft bed. It's been wonderful to give her some extra floor space with the newly opened up area underneath her bed for her desk and beanbag chair. The board against the wall is the new spot for tacking up all those things that kids love to TAPE to their walls.



All in all, the whole project took about a week. In all honesty, a good portion of that week was about cleaning, purging and sorting through all sorts of treasures in her room prior to Operation Demolition. It's nothing short of amazing to experience the difference of opinion as to the definition of "keepsake" and also how many items really can fit under a bed.

I need to give a huge thanks to the folks at MyBlogSpark for helping out with this makeover. While I would have loved it if one of them had shown up at my front door with a paint brush and drop cloth and insisted on painting, I still GREATLY appreciated the arrival of a brand new Swiffer Wet Jet just in time for some extra thorough cleaning in the midst of our project. Initially I had some doubts about the whole cleaning system, but I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised at how well it did on our wood floors. I was even more excited to find out that the multi-purpose cleaner also comes in some other fragrances like Open Window Fresh and Febreze Lavendar & Vanilla Comfort. (And frankly, for anyone else out there with a 10 year-old daughter, we could all use a little comfort after sorting through collections of broken necklaces, mismatched earrings, dried-up nail polish and bottles of body glitter.)

So, from me to you, the Swiffer Wet Jet gets a "two thumbs up." So does the feeling of satisfaction at being done with this project.

Now, will someone please make Mackenzie stop asking "when are you going to do my room??"

After all . . . I need to find her a new comforter first. ;-)