A little home improvement

It’s been warming up of late (or I have adjusted to the cold whichever one you like) and I had been telling myself I needed to get a proper bed, that and I don’t think my back or knee can take much more of my present sleeping arrangements. I knew I wanted a blue themed room with apple green, purple/chocolate brown accents. At this point I think I should mention I am suffering from an overdose of HGTV. All those 30 minute makeover shows where beginning to put ideas in my head and I was beginning to fancy myself as an interior decorator of sorts. It has gotten so that when I am not watching a specific program on TV I am watching channel 74 on mute.

Last week Sunday I was working on my laptop and as usual HGTV was on mute. I looked up and saw the most beautiful blue themed room on ‘Double Take’. I quickly interjected some apple green accents in my mind and was convinced I wanted this room. A quick trip to the HGTV site and I found the blow-by-blow of how the total look was achieved. In January a colleague had taken me to a reasonably priced furniture store and so on Monday I went back to look through their catalogues. I found a perfect bed at a reasonable price and asked to have it delivered at the weekend. Next I needed to change the color on my walls from ‘Hospital White’ to ‘Seaside Pleasure’. Unfortunately the paint store listed on the HGTV site is in North California, so I had to find a substitute locally. A colleague suggested I try Ralph Lauren Paints and I was like ‘shebi na light blue, how difficult can it be to choose’, boy was a wrong; I never knew there could be so many variants of ‘light blue’! After much deliberation I settled on one (I can't remember the name now) and stopped by HomeDepot to pick up my selection along with paint supplies plus I had received a discount coupon in the mail and if there is one thing I love, it’s a bargain. Paint? Check; Roller and paint brush? Check; Paint pan and painters tape? Check; Plastic sheets to protect the carpet? Check. I head of to pay and while in line had an interesting conversation with a 70-ish year old man about finding bargains in unexpected places. He also suggested I get a canvas sheet that I could reuse on future paint projects and as much as that sounded like a good idea, storage would be a problem I passed.

Saturday, I was up bright and early and spent an hour carefully taping my room. Then I whipped out my roller and started painting. I was very happy I decided to do this before my furniture arrived; with each roll of the roller a fine spray of paint was emitted and in a short time I was covered in tiny spots of paint. 3 hrs later as I tried to survey my ‘damage’ I realized that painting is not something to be done on an empty stomach I was starving. A tub of yogurt and a granola bar later I was able to see clearly, I felt like I had conquered the world. I found it was much more convenient to use a chair as opposed to a ladder to get to hard to reach places and wearing old socks meant afterwards I just took them off and tossed them. Clean up was a breeze (although I forgot to anoint myself from top to bottom with baby oil as suggested on a site I visited, its supposed to help get paint off skin easily) and since I was in the spirit proceeded to clean my apartment from top to bottom. Once my apartment was spick and span, I pulled on some sweats and went to get the furniture people. Somehow they had forgotten about my delivery as such I had to wait till like 6;30 pm for them to come. As long as they will carry the bed into my apartment, no wahala. I was beginning to feel the effect of all that activity as I left the furniture store. I went home and lay down on my airbed (for the last time) as I waited. By 7 pm I was beginning to suspect they would not be making the delivery on Saturday. I was glad, ba energy. Sunday morning and everything hurt, and in the oddest places! Who send me message o! I hobbled over to the phone and called the furniture people and with all the iciness I could muster I demanded to know why I didn’t have furniture in my room. The guy apologized profusely. Na apology I wan chop? Abegi give me a further discount! The furniture is on its way he assured me. Finally it arrived and setting up wasn’t so bad considering the fact that I almost couldn’t move. I wiped the sweat from my brow as I surveyed the result of my weekend of manual labor. Nice. Now all I need is a club chair in pinstriped fabric and a bench for the foot of my bed then on to the hard task, picking accent pieces. I can hardly wait! Before that though I needed someone to bathe me, feed me and tuck me into bed I was that worn out. I must report I slept like a rock and was surprised I heard my alarm at all this morning. Now that the aching has subsided, I am keeping an eye out for ideas for my living room and yes I will be painting!