Baseball Wall Finally Painted and Guest Room More Presentable

Hola everyone!  I know I left off in the middle of writing about all the rigamarole of updating my living room last summer, I promise I will complete that in the future -- hopefully the near future.

A lot has been happening around Maison Newton, many family-oriented matters, since last summer.

For various reasons, I wanted/needed to get the guest room, this one --

Sheet over curtain rod for "curtains," black "foam" thingies on the wall
(you can see the little black "dots" to the upper left) that would not
come off with regular scrubbing/fingernail treatment.

And, of course, the "baseball wall."  Painted stark semi-gloss
white, with red "seams" painted on it, inherited from prior owner.

-- up to snuff.  It's only taken nearly two years; I moved in on July 13, 2014 and here it is, April 8, 2016, and I finally got that damn ugly wall painted!

HOORAY!

But let me tell you, it was a major (and literal) pain in the neck, and it also kicked in my sciatica, all the climbing up and down the ladder to do the cutting in and cutting in and cutting in, never-ending cutting in (or so it seemed). OUCH!  I haven't painted a wall in probably 20 years, and it was a chore, believe me!

The Guest Room Is Driving Me Nuts, P.S. -- Shortening Curtains With No Cutting or Sewing

AFTER photo.  Gave up trying to keep the long panel curtained look on the headboard wall where
there was no room for it and went with common sense.

So, after all my ranting and raving (see yesterday's post) about the guest room and how much I don't like the lack of space in this house, today is a new day and I feel much better after a relatively decent night's sleep.  The years since menopause, let's just say that a good night's sleep is a rare commodity in the Newton mistress bedroom so I appreciate it when a good one comes along :)  

And with less blood-shot eyes and sunshine greeting me this morning, determination sprang anew.  Where there is a will, there is a way; I had lost my will, and that's scary because I'm usually a pretty stubborn person who doesn't give up easily no matter what the issue is.  Let me tell you, losing one's will sucks.  Good thing it doesn't happen to me too often.  Today, the old smart-ass woman is back.  And so I took another look at the windows in the guest room.

There's no help for it; as much as I love the look of full length curtains (NONE of my curtains from the former Maison Newton qualify for that description in this house, given the placement of the existing curtain rods, my curtains all hang several inches above the floorboards now) I'm going to have to go with short curtains/window coverings on the window above the headboard.  I need every spare inch of floor space I can garner in the small guest room, and shoving the headboard as close to the wall as I can get it underneath the window just doesn't leave room for long curtains to hang prettily behind, let alone being easily accessible to open and close by pulling them across the rod.  And, because I like symmetry, the other window should probably be treated the same way too, or it will most likely bug me to perdition. 

But I'm not ready to tackle that room yet with my full attention. There are too many other spaces to work on first and for Goddess' sake, I've yet to complete ONE.  I just wanted to get rid of the long curtain panel that was trapped behind the headboard, a headboard that was not even pushed all the way up against the wall as far as I could get it in the vain hope of making the long curtain panel behind it hang decently, but that curtain panel was definitely "squished" and sorry looking.

I was NOT a happy camper with that look.

So, with renewed determination today, just to get that ridiculous curtain situation out of my craw, I got up on a chair at the problematic guest room window and started fussing with the two curtain panels.  I tried creating a semi-draped sort of cascading look by throwing the bottom of each panel over the top of the rod toward the center, and then putzing and putzing; but I didn't like how that looked; then it occurred to me I could thread the bottom hem of each panel (which are open on each end) on a rod and the curtain panels would magically be "cut" in half while also providing an additional layer of privacy "underneath;" but alas, the existing rods are only singles and I don't have two double rods just laying around waiting to be installed on the guest room windows.  So then I thought (briefly), about putting up an old fashioned curtain rods by screwing the brackets into existing holes in the woodwork on each window -- but I didn't want to do that work and then not like the look!

So -- I cheated.  On the window above the headboard, I ended up tossing the bottom of each curtain panel over the top of the curtain header already on the rod, stretched each panel out full width, tried to make the overhanging curtain "valance" the same width all the way across, and then "gathered" them a little on the rod, trying to get them equal on each half of the rod, and sort of "fluffled" things up a bit.  Here is another photo of the result:

This will do for the time being...  I'm going to leave the panels on the east-facing window hanging long for the time-being because I like how it looks when the panels are pulled shut over the IKEA blinds for the night.

One window with short curtains, one window with long curtains, right next to each other. Geez.  But for now, I no longer have a squished panel behind the headboard, and I'm very happy about that :)  Maybe I'll even manage another good night's sleep tonight!

The Guest Room is Driving Me Nuts, Part 2

Hola darlings!

Sadly, there is not going to be a great reveal here.  The room is, to put it bluntly, absolutely, totally P A T H E T I C.

Admitting defeat when it comes to rearranging the furniture, short of getting totally new furniture or removing the dresser forever, I put it back the way it was.  It looks like a 10th rate hotel room, but right now that's all I can come up with.

I thought perhaps it would look better when I finally removed the sheets I'd thrown up the day after the move-in and put up actual curtains.

Oh my.

That's all I can say.

All of these things worked together so beautifully at the former Maison Newton.  I just don't GET why they don't work here.  It's making me so sick to my stomach, I can't stand it.

First photo, above.  The room as I put it back together after EPIC FAIL of trying to angle the furniture around.  What I ended up doing was switching the night stand from the right side of the bed to the left side, and moving the bed over a little bit more underneath the window.  Bedhseet curtain - lovely. NOT.

 Photo two, above.  Isn't it - well, lots of words come to mind, none of which I can publish here.  There's the closet, with double sliding doors, and right across, the entry door.  And the triple dresser and large mirror.  Oh, and don't forget the custom paint job of "baseball seams" that was done on the "accent wall." 

Photo three, above, that's the ceiling fan.  The less about that, the better.  I switched off the "globe" light and the fan, which is not set correctly and wobbles, looking like the blades will fly off and decapitate someone at any second.  This was a child's room, but REALLY?  Oh yeah, there's one of the cold air returns next to the closet.  There is another one underneath it at floor level.

Photo four, above.  The dresser and mirror - and the baseball seam "mural" on the accent wall.  You can see how tight the space is.  The right end of the dresser is about half a foot from the entry door; there is about a foot of space on the left hand side of the dresser.  There is perhaps a foot of space from the top of the mirror to the ceiling, yikes! 

Spent hours dinking around on two chairs putting curtains on and off the rods; didn't work.  I finally re-set the rods and that took another 1.5 hours because I had to do the screws manually with a small Phillips head screw driver.  Another surprise was revealed, I'll show you later on...

So, finally, after much huffing and puffing and climbing up and down two old chairs (because the little handy-ladder I bought to access the top shelves in the kitchen cabinets is too short, and I don't have my rickety step ladder here yet, it's still in the garage at the former Maison Newton, long story), I put up one pair of curtains on the east-facing wall, it overlooks my backyard:

Photo five, above, east window with old ivory and black toile curtains from my old mistress bedroom at the former Maison Newton.  Crappy photo, to boot, all blurry!

Photo six, above.  Despite moving the curtain rods over -- and you can see my little surprise -- the former owner who painted this bedroom did not remove the curtain rods when she did the room, she just painted around them, so you can see that the former color in this room was puke green and you can also see all the gunked on paint coating the woodwork, now it's a fricking mess and ugly as hell and upsets me each time I see it -- well, the curtains STILL don't cover the windows as much as I like because there is NO return on these rods to enable one to curve the curtains closer to the wall to cover over that gap.  But I'm not into giving my neighbors a peep show whenever this room is in use. 

Sooooo, I took the Ikea stick-on pleated shades that I was going to use in the mistress bedroom and used them in here, instead, and engaged in yet another lovely adventure of sticking on and ripping off the shades many times while attempting to get maximum coverage and match up the center-ends of the shades.  Fortunately, the shades allowed me to do that several times without falling apart or losing their "stickiness," kudos to Ikea!

Photo seven, above.  Well, I'm sure no photographer, LOL!  But you sort of get the idea of what I was trying to do with the shades.  It took several tries, but eventually I got them "stuck" on evenly across the top of the window frame where they still managed to cover the ends of the windows and also meet in the center.  NOTE:  I have not trimmed the shades, I'm using the plastic clips that they came with to shorten them up to sill height, tucked comfortable on the top of the sill.  In this photo you can see how "springy" the shade is; trying to trim it without letting it acclimate to the room and "stretch out" some would, I think, have been a big mistake for moi, especially since I cannot cut a straight line to save my life. 

Photo eight, above, shows the not too terrific view out of the guest room north-facing window which overlooks my neighbors' driveway and garage area.  Yep, that definitely needs to be covered up but still let light in...

More tomorrow.  It's after 10 p.m. here and time for me to scrub up, get into my PJs and have a glass of wine (or two).

The Guest Room is Driving Me Nuts!

Hola darlings!

This new old house I moved into is not very large. Of course, "space" is relative, depending on what you've been used to.  This new space feels small compared to the former Maison Newton.  It just IS way smaller than the former Maison Newton.  No way around that.  I know there are so many people who would love to have this home of mine, and I shouldn't be complaining about being fortunate enough to live in a nice house in a great area.  But this fricking house is driving me crazy.

I have too much furniture, and it's all too big.  It was purchased for a much larger house.  What the hell am I supposed to do?  I cannot afford to replace it all -- budget is totally blown.  I cannot afford to replace anything, truth to be told.  And, I have to just put it right out there, ugly as it is:  I do NOT want to banish much loved pieces to the wreck of a basement rec room that I will NEVER use.  They would die of loneliness down there and become home to centipedes -- I saw a giant one down there the other day DESPITE the humidifier going full blast 24-7, and spiders, and who the hell knows all what creeper-crawlers.  EEEEUUUUWWWWWW.  I am just not a basement dweller.  The thought gives me the heebie-jeebies.  I think I need to take a shower now...

I'm really frustrated and ticked off.

My mistress bedroom is the largest of my three bedrooms, at 10' x 12'; the second largest was listed at 10' x 12' but actually only about one-half of it is that size and it really can't be fully utilized because the closet entrance takes up part of it on the south wall and there is the entry door on the east wall.  The other half of the room, toward the lone high window that makes the space feel like a prison, is about 10' x 10', because there is a cut-in for the entry foyer on the  south wall plus a foyer closet.  I love having the foyer and the rather roomy closet!  But the bedroom behind the wall has a split personality as a result.

The third bedroom is the smallest, 9' x 10'.  That space is also causing me fits.  I thought I might be able to turn the bed or move the dresser around freely. I thought angling the bed oppposite the wall with the entry door would work -- BUT I CAN'T TURN THE FURNITURE, the room is too small.  The furniture is getting stuck. 

How do I know this?  Because I tried -- several times -- to angle the furniture this way, and then that way.  No go.  The bed doesn't have enough clearance to get it turned with the long dresser in the room, and vice-versa. 

Add to that, the arrangement of corner windows on the outside wall, one of which also holds the heating/air-conditioning vent, there are only two potential walls upon which to place the head of the guest room bed:  on the wall it was initially placed on when I had the movers put it there, or the opposite wall, which has less wall space because it also holds the entry door into the bedroom.

That would entail, however, putting the triple dresser and its tall mirror underneath one of the windows, blocking light, and on the east wall, also blocking the heating/cooling vent. The third wall (west wall) holds the cold air return and a closet.  There is no way the bed would fit on it and the dresser is much too large!

WHAT WAS I THINKING WHEN I BOUGHT THIS HOUSE?  It's impossible to use this as a guest room with a full-size ("double") mattress, a triple dresser with mirror and a night stand.  There is not even room for a chair.

For Goddess sake!  This bed, dresser and night stand fit comfortably into my 10' x 11' former guest room, and it also had room for a small bookcase, a side table for the other side of the bed AND a small scale wing chair!  Now I have none of those things and the room is still too cramped and crowded. It just looks sad right now.

I should have never bought this house.  I am beginning to hate this house.

I removed the bookcase.  That opened up a little bit of space,  but didn't help at all with the dilemma of the bed banging into the dresser and vice versa when trying to move them to try them out on different walls.  I had already given up the chair, it is at the former Maison Newton, now one of the possessions of the young, nearly furnitureless couple I sold the house to.

I got so desperate trying to think of a furniture arrangement that would work in the guest room, I actually contemplated doing a Feng Shui no-no by attempting to turn the head of the bed angled to the left -- smack dab across from the entry door.  [RULE: Beds should NEVER be placed where any part of the entry door intersects with the bed.]  But, the same thing happened when I attempted to turn the bed to angle it into the left-hand corner -- it got stuck on the dresser, and I couldn't move the dresser enough to scootch each piece of furniture past the other.  Even if I had been successful, though, there would only have been about 2 inches of "leg room" access to get to the far side of the bed between the angled end of the bed on one side and the dresser.  Nope, not working.

Attempt to put the bed at an angle opposite the entry door, on the west wall, the wall that holds the closet. EPIC FAIL.

WHAT WAS I THINKING?

SO, I need a new dresser.  A much smaller dresser.  Or no dresser at all.

But I NEED THE STORAGE that this 9-drawer dresser provides.  It holds curtains, table-cloths, place mats, afghans, napkins and curtains, among other things, that this house is too small to hold elsewhere (but fit into the former Maison Newton comfortably, with room to spare) -- and would also provide drawer space for a guest.  Get rid of the dresser?  And get rid of more of my life?  Why don't I just shoot myself right now and be done with it.

SO, what to do, what do do?