Guest Room Christmas Project Part 1

 

I was never one to decorate early for Christmas. I didn't wait until after Thanksgiving, I waited until December 1. And when my kids were young and we had a live tree, we would cut one at the tree farm on Christmas Eve morning to make sure it was healthy through Epiphany, my youngest son's birthday. 

But as I get older, I get slower. And it just seems like it is suddenly a few days until Christmas and most of the decorations are still in boxes and I still need to bake . . .  So I have joined the early birds. 

Last year I started "Project Hallmark Christmas Inn" and decorated our master bedroom for the season. That is the third room on my list this year. First is my freshly painted and carpeted guest room. 

The theme came early in February when Christmas bedding was marked down for final sale - it's a Fa La La Llama Christmas! I have been picking up items all year and am pulling them from the hiding places. The photos are helping me make changes - add an extra gray throw pillow- lose the red one.

The quilts, ordered online, turned out to be super thin. Which worked out great because I was able to put them over the existing bedding and won't have to figure out where to store what was there. I have a 17" llama pillow coming for this bed. 

I ordered two of these 4' white trees, with multi colored lights on clearance for $10 a a piece, free shipping. I picked up the red tree collars at 5 Below, a store I had never visited before. The dresser topper will be changing to something else. Here is a look at the new drapes for this room, too. 

The wreaths were $5 at 5 Below (this is a dangerous store, lol) and the picture shows me that I need to fix the top of this tree. 

The new closet doors! Yes, I will change the wreath hangers to match each other. And I found the pom pom garland that will go over the doors. I have the fabric to make the rag garlands for window valances, but I think I will work on that project at the end of the month when I go out of town to stay with my oldest daughter's tweenagers. I also have some nifty large llamas for the walls.  There will be update posts. 

I recently saw a "Mr. Kringle Suite" advertised at a fancy hotel in Cleveland for $600 a night. I told my grandchildren I will be accepting reservations for this room and charging a special family rate.  

Actually, the first guest is here tonight before the room is even finished. A co-grandparent became very ill and there was a meeting in a McDonalds parking lot with a weeks worth of clothing exchanged for our four year old birthday boy.  He and two brothers were here the day before with fevers as we are still passing the fall 2022 respiratory infection around. I was on antibiotics for 10 days, found my voice but still have a sore throat and cough. The kids are playing tag and merry-go-round with it, as they trade spiking fevers. And two even came down with hand, hoof and mouth - which is a virus I have learned. It's going to be a long winter. 

Not Covid

 

 

All the littles have been bringing home viruses from school. The elementary kids shared a disgusting stomach virus with me in September.  They have coughing and sneezing and dripping noses for October. Instead of driving nursery school car poll on Monday, I spent my day on the phone trying to wrangle an appointment for a three year old with a severe sinus infection. A smarter gramma might have started some over the counter stuff then. 

I have been using some of my stash of covid tests (all negative), but when I tried to book an on-line appointment, I couldn't schedule until November 4. So today, a lovely Sunday with temperatures in the 70's, I sat in the waiting room at "convenient care" for two hours and eventually left with two prescriptions. 

Did I mention I completely lost my voice? It has been three days of croaking barely above a whisper and I am now under orders for no whispering either. Since my Super Power is talking nonstop, this has been difficult! 

Oh, and guess what else they are sharing at nursery school? Pink Eye. . . . 

Project Update

I want to thank everyone for their patience with my comment function. I am sure the glitch had to be something I did, but I think I have it corrected. Thank you for all your visits and comments. 

Look at the improvement with just the trim painted! 

Next came the walls. I was wrong. The carpet did look gray next to the walls. 

My six year old granddaughter looked at this and very nicely explained to me that I should go back to the carpet store and ask for a bigger piece of carpet to cover the whole floor, even under the beds! So I did. 

It's gray! 

And still gray in different lighting! 

I decided we had to have the very expensive doors. It turned out the doors are actually in stock at a warehouse (not really "special order") and we could save over 1/3 of the cost by buying them with primer instead of fully painted. We place the order and they were ready for pick up in six days. 

Door number one! 

Three doors!  Actually this was to make sure he had all the hardware prep correct. He took them back to the workshop to paint them. 

We still need to assemble two inexpensive end tables and I am looking at new bedding. I found curtains I like so I will try to get a good picture of them. 

I am SO happy the carpet really is gray! 

More updates:

I am going to call it another success. My two youngest grandchildren are potty trained! 

I spent 2 1/2 hours at training and am officially a poll worker! 

Thanks for visiting! 

Busy Busy

So, has it been long enough that I need to reintroduce myself? 

School started so we have grandchildren that we feed breakfast and put on a bus. We have a toddler 5 days a week that we take back and forth to preschool 2 afternoons. We have another toddler from out of town 3 days a week and sometimes take back and forth to preschool in another town. We have a sick bay since the three elementary schools grandkids attend have had a stomach virus. We traveled to 3 football games for the oldest 4 grandchildren. One morning all 3 elementary schools conspired to have 6 boys aged 9 and under all here on the same day for teachers days. We have a lot of grandchildren. That's my main excuse. 

So, one day I was thinking about Christmas (of course I was) and how the bedding I bought last February for the guest room will clash terribly with the misguided painting scheme on the walls and the next thing I knew

Trust me, it was even worse with the closet doors. I had purchased green, pink, and baby blue paint for a nursery, wrote instructions with diagrams and left for the weekend. When I came home, the paint was used, the furniture was in place and it was not what I had pictured. But I lived with it for at least ten years. 

Better already with the pink woodwork painted over. 

My three year old painting contractor did a great job. 

He even cleans. 

He likes to tell the laborer how it should be done. 

He installed new baseboards

A fresh white ceiling really brightened the room. And you can enjoy the two colored walls . . . 

We have progressed to the point where the painting crew cannot use paint while painting. It doesn't seem to bother them. 

We will be spending some late nights on the project this weekend as carpet is being installed early Tuesday morning. 

So, this is what we are doing. Except that the paint sample is actually gray and the carpet is supposed to be gray. And everyone from the salesperson at the carpet store, the owner of the carpet store, my husband, my daughter, any person I question, tells me it is gray. But I think it looks brown.  And they all think that it looks more gray with the gray paint sample.  I think it makes the gray paint sample look like brown paint.  The bedding is gray.  So I guess it is what it is . . .   

This room is a challenge!!  Yes, the walls will be dark, but with the white ceiling, the white molding and the wall of white closet doors (more on the doors), I think it will look great.

Back in the dark ages, when 3 teenage boys shared this room in a set of bunkbeds and a single and had 3 separate closets to prevent sharing, we built out closets and bought three inexpensive closet doors. After removing them, we both agreed to upgrade them. Once we got to the store, the budget kept increasing. We decided to come home and think about it. I have thought about it and I want the most expensive, custom order doors. Now we need to find time to go back to the big city to order the doors and just cross my fingers they arrive by Christmas.