How We Do Home Improvement Projects

Today The Professor and I decided that the kids' toys could be permanently moved into the various closets in their rooms upstairs, thus freeing up a tremendous amount of space in our, like, quadrupally-functioning sunroom. Until said toys were moved, the (smallish) sunroom had housed two large bookshelves of their toys, our piano, and several pieces of furniture devoted to sewing, including my childhood desk which serves to not only host my (non-functioning) serger, but also houses our office supplies.

We ask a lot out of the rooms in our bittyish house.

Culling, organizing, and moving their toys freed up a TREMENDOUS amount of space, and I am happy to announce that the sunroom is now mine ALLMINE and you must now refer to it as Christine's Supremely Happy Room of Creativity. Or just The Sewing Room. Or really the sunroom is fine, too. Whatever, as long as you visit.

This reorganization turned into a Give-a-Mouse-a-Cookie scenario, because as I was vacuuming up the space where the toy shelves used to be, in order to move my sewing-related furniture around, I sighed loudly and said, "I just wish we could paint this room this week, while you [The Professor, who was only half-listening] are taking time off." I turned off the vacuum, faced my husband, and then said, "Um. Could we do that?"

"What?"

"Paint the sunroom. This week."

He looked thoughtful for a moment. "Sure."

And just like that, we have a project on our hands. A project that entails changing the appearance of an entire room.

You might be thinking, Oh, it's just a little paint, no big deal. But no. It became more than that. Remember the mouse and his cookie?

First, here's how the room has looked for the last fifty years or so (um, minus our furnishings, obviously), with a little demo dust in the way and the light fixture swinging crazily from the ceiling:

Where I'm standing is another window, below which

the kids' toy shelves used to sit.

It's a small, narrow room, a late addition to our 1948 home, and we can only assume, from the knotty pine and the drop ceiling, that it was a 1960s addition. See that window in the left of the picture? That looks into our bedroom. So. That's awesome. And it makes us pretty certain that this was never an outdoor porch or anything, but simply a late add-on to the side of the home. The door that leads from our living room to the sunroom is a standard indoor door, and it's a fairly elaborate, glass-paneled door that is just like the other doors in our home (all original), so we're thinking it was never an outside door.

I'm sure that was all fascinating for you.

Anyway. We've lived in this house for over 3 years, and I've agonized over this dang knotty pine paneling. This is what it looks like up close:

It's paneling. So minus like a million points. BUT. It's actual wood. It's in great shape. It's not a completely pukey color, namely dark brown veneer. And I'm a BIG believer in preserving the integrity of your home, as long as those parts are nice and timeless. I just couldn't decide if this pine was timeless. I mean, no, it's not, obviously. But it's wood, and I recoil at painting wood. I just can't do it. You'll understand if you live in an old house with beautiful original wood trim and doors and such. It's a travesty.

So I've been debating this issue for three years, and finally decided, after several consecutive days of sewing and staring at these walls for hours at a time, that they needed to be painted. The room needed updating, and I just couldn't handle paneling any more. (My mom, who is a sage person, said, "Christine, it's not like it's oak or anything. It's knotty pine. Sure, it's wood. But it's knotty pine." And I think she has a very good point.)

Okay. Paint the walls. Good, we're there. We'll go with a nice off-white, leave the trim around the windows alone, and call it a day, right?

Wrong.

Look up. Above you.

That, my friends, is a drop ceiling. The love of all office spaces everywhere. Someone along the line (we are the third owners) decided that this, this was the answer to all their problems (I don't know what their problems were, but by golly, a drop ceiling would fix it), and now we are left with their legacy.

I hate drop ceilings with the burning passion of a thousand fiery suns.

The Professor and I have long wanted to replace/cover this ceiling with beadboard, but, never having torn apart ceilings before, we weren't really sure how to go about this. Should we tackle the ceiling now, when we paint? Or is it going to be a huge job? Is it a true drop ceiling, with just the guts of the house above us, or is it covering up a nasty original ceiling? We called in my dad, who has lots of experience with remodeling. And you know what my dad did? He said, "Well. Let's see what's underneath here."

So he pulled away the light fixture. And lo and behold.

There was beadboard. Solid wood beadboard.

I think my reaction was somewhere along the lines of "Holy [profanity, Batman!]" because honestly. This is insane. Reasons this is insane: A) I want beadboard, and there it is; B) it will require hardly any work on our part to expose said beadboard and make it look nice again; and C) SERIOUSLY PEOPLE WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU, COVERING UP SOLID WOOD BEADBOARD WITH SOME CRAPPY FAKE CORK VERSION OF A DROP CEILING. YOU SHOULD BE SHOT. WHY ARE YOU ALLOWED TO OWN HOMES AND RENOVATE THEM AND ALSO PROCREATE?

After our initial shock, there was much rejoicing. It was like when we were looking at this home when it was on the market and we tentatively pulled up a piece of carpeting and NO WAY there was solid wood underneath. I'm still dealing with that and will occasionally look down at my awesome [much dented, scratched, and badly in need of staining] hardwood floor and shout, to no one in particular, "WHO COVERS UP WOOD FLOORS WITH CARPET, I ASK YOU."

So! We completely bypassed the ceiling issue and just have to buy more paint. It became a simple project once more. And even though we aren't getting supplies until tomorrow evening, I was so worried that this beadboard would turn out to be, I don't know, water damaged or plastered in dead squirrels that I asked The Professor if he would please just pull the ceiling tiles down tonight so we can know exactly what we have on our hands.

And he very sweetly obliged.

And we have a completely intact, very wonderful, very solid wood beadboard ceiling.

Feel free to squee a little. All together now:

SQUEE!!