No, I didn't have an accident that required plastic surgery, so I still have the same round face and ever-photo-apparent double chin. This makeover actually has nothing to do with me--and everything to do with my bedroom!

The original spark was plain and simple a desire for a healthier atmosphere in my bedroom. Afterall, I suspect that at least one of the two carpets in my room was nearing 100 years old, if not already attained the century mark. Anyway, they are both definitely over 50 years old and it's probably self-explanatory as to why  we wanted to remove them. 

With the removal of the carpet we decided to paint the floor...and then I kinda got this bee in my bonnet to repaint my entire room. It's been a nice shade of light blue ever since Daddy retired (read 11 years) and I was ready for a bit of a change. If it weren't for the fact that the paint was scuffed and cracked and peeling, I might not have even considered the idea, but there you have it. I wanted to completely make over my room. Kinda spur of the moment, I suppose, but it happened.

Day One:
I started out removing EVERYTHING (and I mean everything​) from my room. 

Before​: (excuse the excess clutter please; I have also been in the middle of season clothing change and not keeping my room overly pristine partly because I knew the rug removal and floor painting was coming.)

 If you were counting you may have counted four dressers/vanities in addition to the bed, the Victrola, the old Singer treadle machine, and, of course, my bookcase (which I realized while moving it that it's made from old barn boards! I must have known that, since Daddy made it for me, but I never really noticed if you know what I mean.) Oh, and don't forget that clothes rack!

I acquired the extra furniture since returning from Florida when Katherine rearranged her room the last time. And used ​every single drawer.

In order to (maybe) give you a better idea of the size of the room (it's the largest room upstairs--I have the smallest room in Florida, so I got the biggest up here), here are a few "after removal"shots and in-progress shots:

Between the first and the last picture, Mom and I went to town and bought paint in two shades. One an ivory and the other...a red! As you can probably tell, the wall got painted the ivory color.

You may be wondering where my cats were during all this, since the upstairs/downstairs felines do not cohabitate (many thanks to Curio who just loves to chase Abby any chance she gets).

Well, this is where they were:

We did put them back in the room overnight...and I slept on the living room floor. Very well, I might add.

Day Two:
The next morning, I woke up late (was up late as we didn't get finished painting and cleaning up until after 11). After a rather slow morning, I went upstairs to see what I thought of the room in the daylight.

The cats enjoyed a little attention before I returned them to the stairwell.

While I cleared out the cat necessities and revacuumed the floor, Mom taped the baseboards and started the cutting in processes. I took over from there and put the first coat of paint on before lunch.

After that dried, I cut in again and put the second coat on, after sanding out a few paint blobules that I should have done before the first coat. Once that dried, I ran over sections of the floor again to fix some thin spots. (Througout the afternoon we had a few cat-dramas, but nothing horrendous; I did end up with snake-eyes on my left inner forearm though when Runty freaked out over something and nailed me with her hind feet.)

Day three:

I ran into town and picked up two more gallons of the ivory (turns out I only needed one) and put a third coat on the walls. It had become quite apparent that two coats wasn't going to do it.

Once I finished that, it was time to let things dry and air out before I even started moving back in. As of this typing, I have moved my new three-inch memory foam pad bed in and my clothes rank. Other than that, it still looks pretty much like this:

Daddy was going to get started on my new "closet" today, but he's not feeling well, so that didn't happen. SO...stay tuned for further updates! :)

And a Bonus Feature: BARN BILGE

As some of you may know, Daddy and I went about making a period tent for the Perryville Reenactment (which if you recall, I decided to skip in case health took a nose-dive).

Well, Daddy waterproofed it with boiled linseed oil mixed with mineral spirits--an authentic waterproofing mix.

It just so happened to be wet and rainy that day--so he did it in the garage, intending to leave it there to dry. Well, it smelled so strongly that it was decreed that it must be moved--so we took it to the barn and strung it up in the back. 

Um. Well. That was not going to do either for Grandma soon called and declared that it was really making the apartment reek. SO, it got laid over the hoop-house greenhouse where it proceeded to be rained on all night and the next day. It did wash some of the waterproofing out (as it most definitely had not dried yet!).

We eventually got it set up in the yard to dry further and if I do say so myself, it didn't look too bad out there:

Due to the composition of the waterproofing, we knew we needed to be careful and let it really dry good before storing it as such compounds do have the potential for spontaneous combustion.

We let it sit for 24 hours or so and would have left it longer except that we suspected rain was on the way again so we took it down and packed it, not too tightly rolled, in and unsealed box and left it in the back of the go-buggy under the lean-to for the night.

Next morning (it didn't rain, by the way), we headed out to set it back up. We had the posts all out and Daddy strolled into the shop to grind a few notches deeper while I continued unloading.

Well, I started to pull the tent out of the box when I noticed smoke curling out! I hollered (I think and very likely in a nasty tone) and started pulling the canvas out, unrolling it as I went. 

​I was already grumpy and the sight of my tent left me in a very nasty mood...

It was ruined. Completely. 

My anger was followed up by tears and Daddy couldn't help himself and started laughing...it was an interesting experiment even if I couldn't see it at the time. Then, both he and Mom reminded me of all the graces God had blessed us with in the whole situation--damage could have been done to property--the Suburban...and it wasn't. The only thing ruined or harmed was the tent itself--even the fly was fine. 

Anyway, we drug the charred canvas up to the burn pit--and actually lit it afire today; but that brings us into the second part of this chronicle: Barn Bilge

Perhaps I ought to look up the exact meaning of the word "bilge"--just to see if it fits and that I wasn't stretching myself trying to find an alliteration...

*shuffles through definitions*

Okay, so bilge works...

While Grandma, Mom, and KT headed off to visit my Aunt Celinda, Daddy and I prepared ourselves to begin on the Barn Bilge Busting Business. (Now, how's that for an alliteration?) He had to run to the bank, so I sat here at my desk (for the first time in weeks...yay! I got it cleaned off--again) and wrote a couple of letters. We decided to lunch before commencing business and summarily consumed the lamb sandwich/sandwichy thing (depending on wh0 we're looking at here) that was our luncheon. Then we had coffee...and got out to the barn at roughly 1 pm. We wouldn't call it quits until after 6 pm. I'll say here up front, I do believe this is the hardest that I have worked all year and I know for sure that it's the dirtiest I've been! It felt kinda satisfying. 

We were supposed to clean out the north bay. I don't remember if I suggested it or not, but we decided to clear the hay loft of the ancient hay first. That took all afternoon. I neglected to keep a tally of the intact bales we hauled out and burned, but it was quite a few. And then there was a couple of trips with the loose stuff...and then at least twenty 50lb. feed-sacks full of "sweepings" (the bits and odd ends, plus dirt, of course). Daddy helped me throw the intact bales (except for a few of them) onto the fire, but the rest of it I managed myself. The fire, by the way, was actually started via the aforementioned tent.

While I was loading and scraping and burning down below, Daddy was up in the loft, moving and sweeping and tossing and scraping. It's actually beginning to look like something other than random stacks of bird poop covered rough cut boards (my great-grandfather owned a sawmill) and mounds of at least 60-year-old hay...and an odd door and a hunk of steel (the flywheel power shaft from the mill, I think) and some old dirty nail kegs, etc. I forgot to mention my extra bee-hive components. They are up there too.

Oh, and Baby Cat came up at some point and looked all around like, "What are you doing?" And probably a little, "HEY...where'd the bedding go??"

Anyway, Daddy overdid and so far I don't feel like I overdid--but tomorrow will tell. My back is a little sore (as is the bridge of my nose--but am I ever glad I was wearing that respirator mask!!) and my wrists are also somewhat sore and stiff...but it was a good day's work and worth it. 

If I had been at all on the ball, I would have taken some "Before" shots so any "After" shots I might take would have a little more context. Oh well. I didn't.

And...that about sums up the day. Sounds rather unexciting on pa--digits--and I suppose it rather is unexciting if you aren't looking at things from the "correct" perspective. ;) 

Every now and again, life throws you a curve-ball. Sometimes, we react badly...pout, whine, cry, get mad...you name it. Other times we take things calmly with grace. Then, there are those times we simply don't care--so much so that it makes us wonder if we're really okay, knowing that in general we'd be very disappointed as our expectations crumble about our ears. 

Okay, so maybe you don't react in some of those said ways, but I do. I'm rather in the throes of the third option there.

I've been looking forward to going to the Perryville Civil War reenactment for months. I kind of intended it as my birthday fling and nobody needed to feel obliged to give me anything. I was going to go have fun for my birthday.

Well. Lord has other plans I think. 

Ever since getting back from Tennessee, I've not felt too "hep". I had about two good days last week and Sunday was alright, but I've been an absolute drag the rest of the time. Indeed, if you were to see me as I wrote this blog post, you would notice that my eyes are almost half-closed, I'm sitting (er, lounging) sideways in my chair with my head laid on the back and my laptop on the chair's arm. I feel like my face is swollen and I probably look kind of pouty because I'm not making any effort to tighten up my face muscles. 

Anyway, the long and the short of it is--unless I get a wild swing of energy tomorrow (since I would need tomorrow to cobble things together in time to leave on Thursday) and then feel decent on Thursday morning, myself and faithful sidekick Katherine will be staying home. I've pretty much resigned myself to not going and I don't even hardly feel disappointed. Just vaguely. Katherine herself isn't feeling much better and as I sit here, I can see her two unfinished dresses. I pretty much made one of them (though she fix an issue that needed fixing when I took a nose-dive) and the other one has been all her. 

In other, more thrilling news, I have managed to puddle around some today and I'm pleased, in a subdued kind of way, to silently point you to the fact that you can actually see the floor in the front room/sewing room. I even sat on the floor with the vacuum hose and got the majority of the thread up off the carpet. The disheveled wads of material are at least in neater stacks and I got the lid on one of the doll-dress material boxes and reorganized another of them so that their isn't fabric spilling out in all directions. I fixed up my own personal stacks and even threw out some things. 

​Life marches on. And I think I'm going to go get a snack.