The Snowball Effect

My daughter just had to make my morning and inform me that the forecast was calling for snow on Sunday. It's just one more thing to remind me that summer really seems to be over. I had all sorts of marvellous plans for the two months of summer vacation, but as usual, the time passed and I had to keep chopping projects off my list. I just dream too big and forget how long most things take to do. Even though many of my planned activities didn't happen, other things took their place.

Last spring the shower stall in our downstairs bathroom finally fell apart for good. It has been threatening this for a long time, but when the door fell off this time, we knew it couldn't be fixed. Since we were tearing things apart anyway, I decided it was time to paint and decorate. For those of you who have been in my house, this is not something I normally do. Choosing a paint colour scares me to death. I don't like spending money on home decor when I could spend the same money on food. Most of our house is filled with hand me downs and cast-off furniture that only kind of matches if you squint and use your imagination.

So the kids who share that bathroom gave me their input, and the only colour they could agree on was red. Let me just say that I am not a huge fan of red. I don't wear it and I don't put it in my house. But this is the room they use and we started coming up with a plan. We picked a colour and bought the paint. Then I went to Idaho for a week. When I called home, my husband told me he had finished the first coat. "It looks like dried blood," he said. My daughter got on the phone and reassured me that it really was beautiful. I decided to believe her because the dried blood image was just too disturbing. When I returned home last Saturday I went downstairs to have a look. It is much brighter than I had originally imagined, but my daughter was right. It is quite pretty.

Another project that distracted me from other things is the office. We have one room that serves as an office for my husband and me and also as a guest bedroom. There is a built in bunk bed, several bookshelves and two tables we use as desks. A few weeks ago, my uncle offered me a desk he wanted to get rid of. It is one of the monstrous old teacher's desks that has to be forty years old. It is solid wood and in great shape. I'd been dreaming of a desk with drawers to replace the table, but the problem was the colour. The blond wood just didn't inspire me. So I decided to clean it up and paint it white. A set of new drawer pulls and the desk looks like new. Of course, I couldn't put my shiny new desk in my sad beige office, so another painting project was born. Now everything needs to come out of the office so we can finish that project.

We work on these when we can, but Sunday my mother called to tell us she will be coming for two weeks in October. I guess that will be the added motivation to finish these chores that keep snowballing and get the house put back together. Sadly, I didn't take any before pictures, but I'll be sure to post pictures of the finished rooms.