Friday, March 27, 2009

While the Spouse is Away...

Where there's a will there's a way

Havin' fun!

All done!

Two years ago, while my husband was in Haiti, I redecorated 3 rooms in my house (Living Room, Dining Room and Kitchen). I took off wall paper, painted, added new curtains, etc. My hubby knew I was going to do some of that, but was a bit surprised how much I did. In the end, he liked the new look.

Last year, he took me with him to Haiti, I think partially to keep me out of trouble!

This year I had one more area that I wanted to update. It is what I call my entry room, or better known as "the freezer room". We use our back door as our main entrance, and this room is just 3 stairs as you come into our house. It is quite small. It's main feature is a big upright freezer--35" wide, 31" deep and 70" tall. Two days before Lynn was to leave, he realized I was planning to re-do the room. He said"You're not going to move the freezer, are you?" I explained that I felt I would have to move it a little bit to get the paper off behind it. He became very upset, explaining that it was a very sensitive freezer, with a thermostat underneath it and basically said I was absolutely not to move it!

I had just about given up hope of doing the room. However, the first week that he was gone, I went to Oklahoma City, to see friends and family. My very good friend there said she saw no reason why I couldn't still do the room. I could get as much paper off as possible behind it and then just paint the rest of the room, as no one would see the back anyway.

When I got home on Sunday evening, I proceeded to spend every minute I could getting the paper off. On Tuesday a good friend from church came to help me for a couple hours. Then on Wednesday afternoon, re-inforcements arrived! My sisters, Brenda and Lou came to help. Wednesday late afternoon and evening, we finished getting the paper off, spackled and patched the bad areas and painted the ceiling. (There was enough room on the side and back of the freezer to get a lot of the paper off; it was also possible to get the roller through to paint).

Thursday was a really productive day. We sanded the walls, washed them down, put on a primer, let it dry for a little over an hour, and then painted. Brenda even had time to give a computer lesson to a friend I had invited over--she helped her get a blog set up. Lou was our official cook--getting meals on the table and cleaning up the dishes. She also helped us sand the walls.

Feeling that we deserved a treat, we went out to eat at Applebee's. We even had ice cream for dessert! Before bedtime we had everything put back in the room and organized. We had even put a coat of floor polish on the floor before moving everything back in.

Mission accomplished! The room is clean and fresh and looks really good. AND, we did it all without moving the freezer! I'm happy and I think my hubby will be happy. As he reminds me occassionally, "When mama's happy, everybody's happy!"

5 comments:

Cindy said...

That's an ambitious project! lol! We need to do some work on our kitchen this summer - painting and maybe replacing the flooring. I'm not looking forward to it.

Joan said...

Ambitious is right. Wow!

You are amazing!

Blessings

Brenda said...

Great pictures, Donna, :-)
I can't wait to hear if your hubby was pleased. I hope that he liked it. I had such a good time!

Dee said...

Donna, You are amazing. Makes me want to get busy and spruce up secret haven. I think you should frame the picture of you on the fridge and hang it in the room.:-) Thank you for your kind words and well wishes as i recover. I am feeling better but i think i may need more antibiotics. Hopefully i will post on my blog sometime this week, but today i am just visiting.Have a happy day. Dee

Rebecca said...

I loved the pictures! Thanks for your words of encouragement on my blog! I figured out how to find them (finally)! My new blog is called Life and Godliness. Can you find it just from that? I'm still having trouble remembering everything you have to enter. The Gates' Post will be mainly to communicate with our children & grandchildren. But nothing private:)