For the past, almost two years, I've used our forth bedroom as my junk room. When it's raining, too hot, too cold, too windy, etc., I build, sand, paint, and nail things together in my junk room. When we bought the house, the two rooms that were under the most diress and destruction were what they used for their two kid bedrooms. I've refinished the one bedroom and turned it into the daybed room. The other bedroom, we've just left the nasty carpet and nasty walls alone, and I've not cared if I spilled.
I'm on this huge kick to try to get the nursery as close to done as possible, before I enter my 3rd trimester...in a mere 6 weeks!! I've heard from my girlfriends that the 3rd trimester is pretty close to the 1st trimester, and I know there's no way I'll be able to get all of the ideas I have floating in my head done with what little energy level I had the first trimester.
As embarrassing as this is to share, I'm sure there's at least one other reader who's had a room that's looked like this before. So I'll keep it real, and share. Here's the before of the junk room :
And the closet is a complete disaster. It's one of the areas that we really never unpacked of the house. It's really not normally THIS bad either, but we were in desperate search of something the other day, and tore apart this closet thinking we'd find it (and we did!!). Normally all that stuff on the floor is SHOVED into the closet. And I do mean shoved.
The cardboard and paint stuff is all my normal stuff. Normally that stuff is the only thing in this room, scattered about.
So, as you can see, we had our work cut out for us to even get this room to anywhere near close to something other than a junk room. While Chris was catching up on his work from us being in Hawaii, I tackled the room. I had a trash pile, a pile for the garage, a pile for the attic, a pile for goodwill, and I left everything alone that wasn't in my 20 lb weight limit capacity.
Chris finished up working, and he moved all of the heavy stuff (love having a strong hubby!!!), and the room was FINALLY emptied out.
All of that can easily be covered with a coat of primer paint. First though, we had to take care of the holes in the room. The closet, in particular.
Look closely, and you'll see how much spackling work we had to do! So we headed to Lowe's to buy some more spackling paste, and swung by Goodwill on the way toget rid of donate our items we no longer wanted anymore.
Chris and I alwaysargue disagree on how long to let the spackle dry before you can sand over it and re-coat. I'm the down and dirty and lets get it over with type, and Chris is the lets never get started because it's going to take 10 years to finish it correctly type. We found the most perfect spackle past for us. It goes on pink and dries white. No more arguments disagreements!
Here's how we spent our Saturday night :
Jealous?! Yeah, we live the life!! Oh, and just an FYI, I ran out of the room to get my trusty mask as soon as Chris took that picture. I try to remember to keep it on with everything I do project wise.
We called it quits after we spackled as much as we could see in the night time, and headed to bed while the spackle magically turned from pink to white.
Sunday, Chris sanded and then spackled more while I finally unpacked and hung up my clothes from our trip to Hawaii. One more round of sanding, and this room will be ready for primer!! Woo Hoo!!!
Hey, they say to celebrate the small things, right?!
Hope everyone had a great weekend!! If you haven't already, don't forget to go leave a comment on Friday's post for your chance to win the CSN gift card!!
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I'm on this huge kick to try to get the nursery as close to done as possible, before I enter my 3rd trimester...in a mere 6 weeks!! I've heard from my girlfriends that the 3rd trimester is pretty close to the 1st trimester, and I know there's no way I'll be able to get all of the ideas I have floating in my head done with what little energy level I had the first trimester.
As embarrassing as this is to share, I'm sure there's at least one other reader who's had a room that's looked like this before. So I'll keep it real, and share. Here's the before of the junk room :
This is actually slightly worse than it normally is. My in-laws came down to visit in November and brought furniture for us to have, which is on my to-do list for refinishing...one day. We temporarily stored it in here until we could make room for it to be put to use in the guest bedroom. The exercise bike got shoved in here for our BBQ we had last weekend.
And the closet is a complete disaster. It's one of the areas that we really never unpacked of the house. It's really not normally THIS bad either, but we were in desperate search of something the other day, and tore apart this closet thinking we'd find it (and we did!!). Normally all that stuff on the floor is SHOVED into the closet. And I do mean shoved.
The cardboard and paint stuff is all my normal stuff. Normally that stuff is the only thing in this room, scattered about.
So, as you can see, we had our work cut out for us to even get this room to anywhere near close to something other than a junk room. While Chris was catching up on his work from us being in Hawaii, I tackled the room. I had a trash pile, a pile for the garage, a pile for the attic, a pile for goodwill, and I left everything alone that wasn't in my 20 lb weight limit capacity.
Chris finished up working, and he moved all of the heavy stuff (love having a strong hubby!!!), and the room was FINALLY emptied out.
Lovely carpet, right?! Oh, and the walls...their kids colored/left gum, and smeared gross-ness ALL over them. Here's what we're working with on the trim, and that's nowhere near as bad as the rest of the room!
Look closely, and you'll see how much spackling work we had to do! So we headed to Lowe's to buy some more spackling paste, and swung by Goodwill on the way to
Chris and I always
Here's how we spent our Saturday night :
Jealous?! Yeah, we live the life!! Oh, and just an FYI, I ran out of the room to get my trusty mask as soon as Chris took that picture. I try to remember to keep it on with everything I do project wise.
We called it quits after we spackled as much as we could see in the night time, and headed to bed while the spackle magically turned from pink to white.
Sunday, Chris sanded and then spackled more while I finally unpacked and hung up my clothes from our trip to Hawaii. One more round of sanding, and this room will be ready for primer!! Woo Hoo!!!
Hey, they say to celebrate the small things, right?!
Hope everyone had a great weekend!! If you haven't already, don't forget to go leave a comment on Friday's post for your chance to win the CSN gift card!!
I learned this neat trick! Joint compound sold in a 5 gallon bucket, same price as a little "spackling paste" is the same stuff! Just 2 different markets-homeowners vs contractors :) Well, minus the color changing part--but you could have a life time supply--or in my case--use 1/2 of it and still have tons left AND save money!
ReplyDeleteUgh. What a job! But with such an awesome goal you're working toward, well, it makes it that much better :) Good luck!
ReplyDeleteAnd every pregnant person is different. . .I was going to my step aerobic classes and working full-time until a week or so before delivery the first time. . . the second time I worked the day I was due, the day after I was due (kind of helped to keep my mind off the upcoming birth - ha!). . .and not because I *had* to, but because I could. So. . .you may be surprised at a burst of energy your third trimester too. . .here's hoping. . .
Oh my goodness, you have no idea how much this post reminds me of me and my fiance Chris lol. We are notorious for having a junk room. We call them "staging" rooms. Rooms where we keep paint supplies and tools that we use daily and everything that we have yet to unpack...ehem..afer 2 years of still renovating. We Sooo need new carpet too. Fortunately for us we don't have a baby on the way. Maybe if we did we'd work even harder than we are. I'm sure your nursery will be lovely when it's finished. Congrats on your bundle to be and don't over work yourself :-)
ReplyDeleteManymomentsofme.blogspot.com
xoxoxo - We actually HAD join compound in the 5 gallon bucket and have used that for the past 5 1/2 years. I guess it got too hot or something though because it was all moldy when we went to go use it this time! We opted to buy the smaller spackling paste so that I could walk around with it. The 5 gallon bucket is too heavy for the doctors weight limits!
ReplyDeletejennibell...thanks so much! You're always so sweet. I'm hoping you're right!!
Tatum - Thanks so much! I like the sound of calling it a "staging" room instead of a junk room...it sounds so much better!