Gabe's Room
After we added onto our house, two years ago now, we moved Luke into our old bedroom and Gabe was left with the old bedroom. It was the only room in the house that still hadn't been painted since moving in.
Ben built some bunk beds which you can see in this post. Eventually I put a few shelves on the wall and Gabe added a couple posters to the wall, but not much else has really happened in there.
We've been promising to paint for well over a year now and it's just never happened. I was determined not to put it off any longer. I dug up the can of paint we bought just for this purpose and we all decided that it was too baby-ish now.
So off we went to Lowe's where Gabe picked out a bright blue. It was not my first choice and I tried to talk him out of such a bright blue and into more of a muted tone. He would have none of it and then decided that his accent color should be black. Ooookay.
So, bright blue it is.
I warned him that we would *just* be painting. He wasn't crazy about the red accents and he didn't really want the upper bunk anymore, but I told him we just didn't have the time or money to do a full overhaul. Paint and nothing else, mister!
But then Ben went in to repair the hole in the wall where the doorknob had broken through the drywall and he said it only made sense to go ahead and take down whatever shelves Gabe didn't want so he could repair those holes at the same time. Fine, whatever.
[caption id="attachment_3922" align="aligncenter" width="300"]
Before pictures. Before we decided to even take anything down. Gabe was not sad to see that taupe color go. You know, taupe, every child's dream bedroom color.[/caption]
As he worked, I guess he got inspired because he then said he wanted to go ahead and do something fun or cool in the room. Since he'd just been given a raise we could afford it. I told him that, out of all of Gabe's ideas, the one that sounded best to me was a whole wall of bookshelves. We measured it out, looked on IKEA, and then found a solution that would work.
So off to IKEA we went. The shelves were big and heavy and the two of us just managed to get them on the truck. Thankfully, Luke is just as strong as I am, so he was able to help us unload when we got home.
We got back to work on the room when Ben stopped again and said that, really, it only made sense to go ahead and take down the top bunk now so that he could go ahead and patch those holes and I could paint it all at once. Sigh.
So we pulled down the top bunk and then he had to cut a 2x4 down to use as a leg since the ladder was no longer there to act as the 4th leg of the bottom bunk.
By this point, it was the 4th of July. We'd already committed to attending a party hosted by friends at church. I was so tempted to call it off and just keep working. I hate to shift gears when I'm in the middle of things. But we went, had a blast, and then resumed working on the room the next evening.
Ben put together on of the shelves and dragged it into the room. Oh no! It was way too short! We'd grabbed the wrong shelves. Dang it. So we packed everything back up and headed back to IKEA. We returned everything including the shelf we'd built and then made our way down the the warehouse.
Oh what dorks we are. It turns out we'd had the right shelves all along. We just needed shelve extenders. Basically, little shelves that you add to the top of the existing shelves to expand their height. Soooo, we had to REBUY and RELOAD and RE-UNLOAD all of those shelves and the shelf extenders, to boot. Egg on face.
We spent all evening Thursday on that bedroom since Luke's friends would be over on Friday. Not that they care what Gabe's bedroom looks like, but because all of Gabe's stuff was strewn about the house; Luke's room, the hallway, the computer room. It was a wreck.
The paint was dry, the shelves were up and loaded, and I was able to start taking the old shelves and things that he no longer wanted down to the basement to get them out of our hair.
We worked late into the night, but it came together really well and the house was actually presentable the next morning before Luke's friends showed up.
There are just a couple more tweaks to be added and then I'll do an update post. It came together really well and he's so excited about it. The blue has really grown on me. I wouldn't want to see that color every day, but Gabe loves color and it makes him so happy.
Ben built some bunk beds which you can see in this post. Eventually I put a few shelves on the wall and Gabe added a couple posters to the wall, but not much else has really happened in there.
We've been promising to paint for well over a year now and it's just never happened. I was determined not to put it off any longer. I dug up the can of paint we bought just for this purpose and we all decided that it was too baby-ish now.
So off we went to Lowe's where Gabe picked out a bright blue. It was not my first choice and I tried to talk him out of such a bright blue and into more of a muted tone. He would have none of it and then decided that his accent color should be black. Ooookay.
So, bright blue it is.
I warned him that we would *just* be painting. He wasn't crazy about the red accents and he didn't really want the upper bunk anymore, but I told him we just didn't have the time or money to do a full overhaul. Paint and nothing else, mister!
But then Ben went in to repair the hole in the wall where the doorknob had broken through the drywall and he said it only made sense to go ahead and take down whatever shelves Gabe didn't want so he could repair those holes at the same time. Fine, whatever.
[caption id="attachment_3922" align="aligncenter" width="300"]
Before pictures. Before we decided to even take anything down. Gabe was not sad to see that taupe color go. You know, taupe, every child's dream bedroom color.[/caption]
As he worked, I guess he got inspired because he then said he wanted to go ahead and do something fun or cool in the room. Since he'd just been given a raise we could afford it. I told him that, out of all of Gabe's ideas, the one that sounded best to me was a whole wall of bookshelves. We measured it out, looked on IKEA, and then found a solution that would work.
So off to IKEA we went. The shelves were big and heavy and the two of us just managed to get them on the truck. Thankfully, Luke is just as strong as I am, so he was able to help us unload when we got home.
We got back to work on the room when Ben stopped again and said that, really, it only made sense to go ahead and take down the top bunk now so that he could go ahead and patch those holes and I could paint it all at once. Sigh.
So we pulled down the top bunk and then he had to cut a 2x4 down to use as a leg since the ladder was no longer there to act as the 4th leg of the bottom bunk.
By this point, it was the 4th of July. We'd already committed to attending a party hosted by friends at church. I was so tempted to call it off and just keep working. I hate to shift gears when I'm in the middle of things. But we went, had a blast, and then resumed working on the room the next evening.
Ben put together on of the shelves and dragged it into the room. Oh no! It was way too short! We'd grabbed the wrong shelves. Dang it. So we packed everything back up and headed back to IKEA. We returned everything including the shelf we'd built and then made our way down the the warehouse.
Oh what dorks we are. It turns out we'd had the right shelves all along. We just needed shelve extenders. Basically, little shelves that you add to the top of the existing shelves to expand their height. Soooo, we had to REBUY and RELOAD and RE-UNLOAD all of those shelves and the shelf extenders, to boot. Egg on face.
We spent all evening Thursday on that bedroom since Luke's friends would be over on Friday. Not that they care what Gabe's bedroom looks like, but because all of Gabe's stuff was strewn about the house; Luke's room, the hallway, the computer room. It was a wreck.
The paint was dry, the shelves were up and loaded, and I was able to start taking the old shelves and things that he no longer wanted down to the basement to get them out of our hair.
We worked late into the night, but it came together really well and the house was actually presentable the next morning before Luke's friends showed up.
There are just a couple more tweaks to be added and then I'll do an update post. It came together really well and he's so excited about it. The blue has really grown on me. I wouldn't want to see that color every day, but Gabe loves color and it makes him so happy.
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