New Office

For quite a while I have been wanting to change our "office" from the little room it was in to a larger bedroom.  I went to a home tour and saw a room people were using for an office, I loved the look of the walls and the feel of the room and decided that if I ever changed my office that's what I wanted it to look like.  I never really thought it would happen though, I'm pretty good at dreaming things up, but pretty lousy at actually making them happen.  I mentioned it to Celia and told her what I wanted to do.  Somehow she got the ball rolling and on Sept. 5th we got the project started.  First of all, we had to move everything out of the room.  We took it all downstairs to Randy's old room and to the back of the family room. The room had been wallpapered so we had to strip all that off.  Brian and Celia, Randy and Courtney, Jared, Blake and I got that all done in an afternoon.  Oh boy, now we are committed and have to finish the project!

Celia and Randy stripping wallper.

Blake's stuck in a corner stripping wallpaper.

Now that the wallpaper is gone, we have to paint.  I wanted to put what is called beadboard up about 6 feet, and paint down about 2 feet.  That is what the office I had seen was like.  I went to look at beadboard, and decided that it was too expensive and way above our skill level to do ourselves.  I had seen some paintable textured wallpaper that looked like beadboard online, so I figured out how much I needed and ordered some.  Blake couldn't believe I was even thinking about wallpaper again!  The wallpaper came just before we left for Florida. When we got back, we had to dive head first into the room.  First, Blake and I  painted the ceiling white, then Blake, Jared and I painted all the trim white, then Blake and I painted a 2 foot area just below the ceiling green/tourquoise.  Now it is time to get started on the wallpaper. Brian and Blake had a couple of days off together so Brian came to help wallpaper.

Brian brought Ralphie to help too.

The wallpaper really was not that hard to do, and really looked nice!  I was loving it!  Later that night Blake and I painted the wallpaper white!  Now I'm really loving it.  We planned to put white trim at the top of the wallpaper and decided to also put some white trim above the green because our paint line was not very straight even though we had taped it.  The trim turned out to be very difficult.  Blake thought he could figure it out, but it was much harder than he thought, but with the help of a couple of experts (Jay and Ryan Miles) he got it figured out and all put up.  Brian and Jared helped too. 

Blake holding up the trim after he figured out how to cut it!

Doesn't it look nice!  I'm thrilled!

Now the room is done!!!  I really like it, it looks very much like the room I'd seen on the home tour!  I couldn't wait to move into it!  Finally yesterday, October 10th, we made the move!

Everything is all moved in!  It looks great!

The pictures don't do justice, but it looks really good!

I am really pleased and love the room!  Thanks Blake for all your hard work!  I know that you hate doing these kinds of projects but you worked really hard on this one!  It's a great birthday present!  Now, I just have to get everything put away and the other room all fixed up.