breaking news: max's room livable!

I'm so excited I can barely contain myself! After months of work, Max's room is almost done. We still have a few finishing touches like covering the switches and outlets, putting the doors back on, adding fabric piping to the walls (don't ask -- it will all become clear in a later post), touch-up paint. But the bulk of the work is officially finished and we can start moving furniture in there! I'm going to post a few pictures. Well, more than a few actually, but feel free to skip it if you're not interested in the before and after.

So here's Max's room before:



Lime green and bright blue (not shown) paint job with random squares of chalkboard paint, nasty stained carpet, and badly sewn (according to the sewing expert, Dr. Mom) valances. Oh, and revolting "cottage cheese"-style textured ceiling (more on that later). Not exactly the most homey and welcoming room. Welcoming to bacteria and general yuckiness, maybe, but not much else.

And here it is today, a palace by comparison:




New cafe au lait paint, fresh white trim, beautiful textured ceiling, and, as of 30 minutes ago, soft, plush, wonderful new chocolate carpet. It looks SO good after months of being a terrible construction zone! I can't wait to get Max's things (and Max) in there.

A few more, if you'll permit. First, a close-up on the new curtains. We decided on a sock monkey theme, and my mom made the lovely linen curtains with sock monkey border as the first step (still to come, a quilt and possibly a wall hanging, among other things). Here's the detail of the monkeys. Isn't that fabric great?


And finally, before and after of the monster ceiling project. We worked our asses off (pardon the language if you're still reading), especially Mike, on it. The top picture is the yucky cottage cheese texture. The bottom picture is the result of scraping, scraping, scraping, sanding, priming, painting, plastering, more priming (this time with special stuff used by firefighters to seal in smoke and stains), painting, and painting again. A much more subtle texture.