Sarah's Room Update

I got as far as I'm going to for now on Sarah's room I think.  I am actually very busy now that we are creating lessons for the districts and meeting with our classes.  Oh yeah, and doing lessons with the kids, cooking, cleaning, you know.  Dealing with being at home all day?
But I'm glad I tackled this project.  It got me through those rough weeks when we were waiting for direction.  Several good books helped me get through this project: Where the Crawdad's Sing, A Place for Us, Dad is Fat, Life with Lucy, Surviving the Applewhites, the Westing Game and many podcast episodes. (Is it weird that I look at walls I have painted and think immediately about what I was listening to for that project?)  Dave Barry and Jim Gaffigan helped me paint a ceiling with more cheer and gusto that I thought possible! 

Before, the actual window wall. 

Before: including graffiti from her siblings. 

I found this random wallpaper under the desk when I was starting to consider taking on this project back in December.  I expected to find it under a few of the walls at least.  NOPE!  It was here and only here.  So strange.  Maybe they used it to level up the wall?  But it seemed fine underneath, so I can't figure it out. 

Before, there was a giant window looking out over the entryway.  I put up the curtains so she could have privacy until summer when I was ready to tackle the job. "Summer" came early, Covid-19 style. 

Outside of the window before. 

During--this wall had a blue a red stripe that made this V shape under the window.  Very interesting. 

Our contractor came out and framed up, patched up the "window" over the entryway.  

No way we were going to patch the wallpaper out here, or peel that whole wall (it's the grass cloth painted over, and I've tried that before).  So I came up with a different way to cover up the spot.  (Keep scrolling!) 

3 of the walls in the room were awesome.  Easy peel.  Don't get me wrong.  It's sticky and messy.  But it came off cleanly because there was paint underneath.  Then I got to the biggest wall.  And of course.  It was the original accent wall.  Wallpaper right on the sheetrock.  They had tried to peel it off before the wallpaper I was peeling.  Some of it they had primed over.  It was a hot mess.  I had to do a LOT of patching and texturing.  Don't look too close at the finished product...although it was better than some that I've done.

And I'm finished.  The walls are almost the same color that the wallpaper was.  But they are a nice clean paint.  The ceiling is a nice bright white.  The curtains are hung.  There are no longer random hooks hanging from the ceiling and a bunch of extra holes around the walls.    

Here she is, happy in her own space, even if it won't be fully decorated until summer.  

The stencil I did on the frame.  

I didn't want to lose all the light that the former "window" gave us in the entryway.  So I decided on a mirror.  A big mirror.  Our contractor built the frame and his glass guy that got us a great mirror.  I painted the frame to match the entryway red wall.  When Ben saw the frame, he didn't understand.  He said, "we don't have anything red in the entryway!" I had to point out the red wall.  Apparently he never noticed it?
The only problem, I do need to clean the mirror.  I think a new ladder is now on the shopping list. Although many family members (aka all) were skeptical about the mirror, I think we have all decided that we love it!