Now I am so happy . . .

So I was totally planning on waiting until I was done with this room to even start talking about it, but I am so flippin excited right now I just can't wait. In fact:




'cause I couldn't help myself! I was totally doing this when I was DONE SANDING!

"let me splain. No there is too much. Let me sum up"
I've talked about my living room walls before. I've gotten more comments on them than anything else. . .usually along the lines of "so when your kids misbehave, do you just rub their faces along the walls?" Yah. Not so fun. But whatever, I was living with it.

Then I gave birth to this beautiful amazing girl. Who will learn to walk in this room. Which involves lots of falling, against these awful pointy walls (a full 1/4 inch in some places!).

Not so good. I started brainstorming - do I just put up new drywall on top of it? Should I try to build it out with spackle or something until it's smoothish?

Then, while perusing A Soft Place to Land's DIY Day (one of my favorite things each week), I came across a bathroom remodel (which of course I can't find the link for!). *(updated 1/1/11 I found it! check it out here )She talked about using a sander to take off the nasty texture on her walls. Total light bulb moment. I had a sander. I could do this!

So I put the idea forth to Hubby.

*Quick quiz time!*

Did he say:
A) What a marvelous idea, I'll do the whole thing for you!
B) Umm, I guess if you think it will work you can try it.
or C) I do not think that will work at all, and you're going to end up ruining the walls and it will take hundreds of dollars just to repair the damage.

Unfortunately, his answer was C. In his defence, he was 1. not even in the state, 2. very tired after a long day of flying, and 3. rather concerned that I was going to hurt myself in this process. I finally talked him into response B, and off I went.

NINETEEN hours later, I was done. Yes, 19!! I went through EIGHTY -THREE 1/4 sheets of 60 grit paper. I wore clear through the foam pad on my sander and had to figure out how to replace it. One nap time at a time I sanded. And sanded. AND SANDED. For almost 2 months.

The worst part - the dust.

OH the DUST.

Everywhere. Seriously. Everywhere in my whole house has been this fine layer of dust. Really the work wasn't hard. My shoulders have been very stiff at times, but I just wanted this stupid thing done so I could clean my entire house from the dust.

So, here's a nice view of that texture before:

And the room (ok, so this is in the middle - I'm lousy at remembering the before pictures!)

And now after:




And just for giggles, here's my very fetching sanding get up:
So, now I've got to figure out what color to paint. I was originally going to do a different shade of tan, but my sister basically called me a wimp, and said I should pick a color. Any ideas? I need something to go with my maroon couch. . . But I really don't know what to pick. I'm already planning on blue for 3 other rooms, so probably something different!

Now I'm off to clean every single surface in my entire house. . . .