Paige's Room - Part 2

We just got back on Tuesday from our Tour de Pittsburgh.  We hit a lot of places in Pittsburgh in too short of time.  In three days we visited The Strip District, The Rivers Casino, Kennywood, Sand Castle and went to a Pirates game.  You'd never know we only live an hour north!!

But I wanted to get back on track with Paige's room.  I figured some before photos would be helpful and since she's in the shower, I ran and took some shots of her bedroom.  Sorry that they aren't the best.  I stuck my camera on auto and shot away before she got done.  She would not be thrilled to know her room was on my blog.  Anyone with a moody 12.5 year old going on 40 will know what I'm talking about.

Currently her room is purple and green.  Purple was always her favorite color and since I had received my mom's spare bedroom furniture when she moved to Florida in 2004, it just worked great to keep green as an accent color.

Paige's room is the first room you see when you come to the top of my second floor.  Normally her door is shut so it's never a problem when it's a disaster.  And normally it's a disaster!  But I had her clean it before we left and her friend's are coming over in a few hours to go to the Lawrence County Fair and she ridded it up a bit.  If you look closely on top of her dresser you will see some dishes.  DRIVES.ME.NUTS.

Yes the one curtain rod is falling down.  The existing nail hole is just too worn out and I've never taken the time to fill it with putty.  I promise it will get fixed when we do her curtains.

This is the view to the left of her door way.  Her closet door does not close all the way.  Very common problem in old houses, but we're good at fixing that.  Just never gotten to it...like the curtain rod.




Yes- that is her gerbil.  The same one from Easter years ago!!!

 

This is the view looking into the hallway.  Her walls are pretty banged up.  When I removed the wallpaper, I really didn't do a good job of sanding any rough areas.  Plus Paige used to have tons of posters on her walls and so they are chipped from tape.  She wouldn't use poster putty.  Also if you look real close between the two doors, below the light switch is a hole in her plaster.  We're guessing it's from all the door slamming she's done in the 8 years we've lived here.  It just fell off a few weeks ago and so we have to rip out the plaster and fix it with drywall.  Again you can see MORE DISHES!!!!

This is the only wall that will accommodate her bed.  We've had it in front of the two front windows, but it makes me nervous.   The green armoire doesn't hold anything except stuffed animals.  It does have two drawers with shirts and shorts, but we are not replacing it.  I think we will either put in a closet organizer or use under bed storage as her dressers really don't hold much clothes.  To me they just take up a lot of space to store items that can be put somewhere else.

This is a view from the door way of the other wall.  That long dresser has 3 drawers that hold her underwear, socks, pajamas, and sweat shirts.  I'm thinking of getting 2 side tables for her bed to store undies and pajamas and again use closet organizer or under bed storage for sweat suits.

 Paige loves the color green now.  At Christmas time, I found this quilt at Homegoods and it's the inspiration for her new room.  Luckily, she loves it too.  She had said she wanted to redo her room in blue and green and I thought this was perfect.  I want her room to have a grown up feel. 

She picked out furniture that she saw in the PB Teen catalog.  She only wants a vanity and a new desk.  I can't afford PB Teen and I think I should be able to find what she wants cheaper at other stores.  I just purchased her desk 2 years ago and I am probably just going to paint it white as that's the color she wants her new furniture.  Once we pick out colors for her walls, I can get started.  I would like to be done within the next few weeks (furniture and new bed not included).  And she's real excited too!!

Weekend Getaway

Tomorrow we taking the kids on a little getaway to Kennywood, Sand Castle, The Pittsburgh Zoo, and a Pirates game. Yup, we're trying to squeeze all this in from Sunday to Tuesday. 

Yah, we're nuts.  Look out Pittsburgh here we come!  They may need to drop me off at Primanti's or the North Shore Deli for some sanity filling sangwhiches while I get my Pittsburgh on! 

Hope yinz have a fun filled weekend...  (my mother is probably yelling at me now...she dispised the word yinz!)

Paige's Bedroom Remodel- Part 1

Can you spot the 10lb Chihuahua?

This is not Paige's room.  This is my room with some of the things that she wants to get rid of.  Poor Peanut is barely visible!

We've been talking about re-doing Paige's room for some time.  She has hand me down furniture that is just not functional and her poor mattress was a quick buy for less than $100 at Big Lots.  I've been secretly going in her room and cleaning out some things but it was so hard not to just go through everything.  She would have been so upset if I did that and it would not have been fair to her either.

So I gave her an ultimatum.  Clean out your closet and drawers and then we can re-do your room.  I told her that Thursday night.  By Sunday, she finally got to work.  And she worked really hard.  She took some breaks here and there, but cleaned out most of her clothes drawers and her closet.  She just has her desk drawers and a couple cupboards to go through and she will be done. The best part is that she really cleaned out all of her toys!! And she cleared out a lot of books.  I know some other little girl is going to be blessed with all of this.

I have no before or during shots because we technically are not allowed in her room.  She wants to surprise us when she's all done and show us each drawer and cupboard.  I have been sneaking in and checking things out though!!

We've picked out furniture.  Well, she chose furniture she liked from PB Teen, but I can't afford that so I am going to be on the look out for furniture similar to what she wants.  Mainly, she wants a vanity.  And a new desk but we just bought hers a couple years ago and if I paint it white, it'll match what she wants.  Her color palette is teal and green from a quilt I bought her for Christmas.  I think it's going to look so pretty, but most importantly is the fact that she's getting rid of a lot of things that should have gone years ago.

Now to get things listed on eBay and/or tagged for a yard sale! 

All over the place

Sunday I went up to the attic with the intention of locating Jeff's school records.  But of course the main living area was a disaster from Paige having a sleep over.  She said she would clean it up....well, we know how that ends!

Because I couldn't stand the way the living area was, I had to clean it up.  Which also led me to go through some of the containers of toys that have been collecting dust.  As I put away the stray toys, I ended up going through Jeff Michael's container of Knex and Legos.  Big mistake.  That took me forever to go through because I did not realize how similar those are.  But I did find most of the pieces to put his Star Wars Lego sets together.  Amazingly, the only piece I am missing is one of the Storm Troopers heads. 

Then I decided that I had to clean out the bottom of Jeff's closet.  More stray pieces of toys that had to be returned to the right place led me to the office.  I cleaned out the other side of the office and have toys ready for either ebay or a yard sale.

Long story short, I eventually got back to the task at hand which was locating all his school records.  I now have a 10 gallon tote filled with his papers from Pre-school to 3rd grade.  I was able to get his height and weight information for his doctor's visit and also put Paige's papers in a pile to be organized as well.  I think I may have saved too many papers to be neatly stored in binders or even lidded boxes (unless I stick with the totes).  Luckily, as evident from Paige's 5th and 6th grade papers, there are WAY less things.  I guess as they get older, they make less cute artwork.  Most of Paige's 6th grade papers are essays she's written.  I'm thinking by the time she's in 12th grade it will be even less. 

As far as Jeff's appointment, it went well.  They want to rule out some hormonal and/or other physiological problems that could be affecting his growth.  Unfortunately that required more blood work.  Like 7 tubes of blood!  But he did awesome and did not complain at all.  We are changing his diet so that he is consuming less sugar as the doctor thinks he's using sugar to fuel up and not eating.  I totally agree.  He listened to her and is not giving us much trouble about cutting back on sugary drinks and eating more protein and vegis.  I am hoping this will help him gain some weight too. 

His doctor isn't rushing anything at this point.  She was really great and explained a lot of options to us.  We are hoping that his growth hormones are normal and that he will not need to have to take any.  He goes back to see her in a few weeks once his lab work is done.  She should have a better understanding if there is anything physiologically preventing him from growing.  But she also said that he just may have his growth spurt later, there is no way of knowing. 

So at least I was able to get his school papers organized in one spot.  And I did get some other organizing to do's done!