Tags

, , , , , ,

Yesterday was the “installation” of all my design plans for the boy’s room and play room.   The rotten part for this designer is that I am also the installer, furniture mover, linen presser, accent placer and picture hanger.  The last two are cool, the other’s…well…given my total lack of patience for anyone else’s timeline—I guess it’s good that I can do those things, too.  Unfortunately my body feels like it’s been beaten with a sledgehammer. 

My goal was to have it all done and cleaned up by the time Greg got home from work—partly so that I can prove that I am both women and man(god) and can do anything (except get skinny), and also, so that he doesn’t come home to chaos.  I hated that when I worked.  Plus he doesn’t care as much what ridiculous projects I take on if he doesn’t see them until they’re finished.

So, I cleared off the 5’ wide by 6’ tall bookcase in the office and shoved it straight out the door, across the hall into Pierce’s old room.  Sounds easy?  Not so much…  It’s a cheap piece made with a lot of MDF which made it crazy heavy.  Getting over the grout joints in the tile flooring and then crossing the threshold to the carpeted bedroom was a job for Superman (Superwoman), so it got done.  Then it was time to move the armoire from the nursery to the office.  I have moved this piece before, so I was expecting it to be relatively easy minus the heft.   Naturally, with my lack of patience for the small details when I really want to get something done, I moved that monster with everything in it—I didn’t even remove the décor from the top, that is until I realized that it was too tall to go out the door. 

Here’s the scenario:  I am pushing with knees, back, hands, shoulders, bum and anything else I can put my weight behind, and then I hit the threshold where the flooring surface changes and I can’t get it to move over the last inch of carpet to the tile.  I suppose the tack strip grips the carpet that was just raised enough to get stuck on.  Okay, so now that I have pushed the armoire to the door and it is positioned and ready to get shoved out, it won’t budge, and now I can’t get out of the room.  As we all know pushing is easier than pulling and I need to figure out how to get it back out of the doorway so I can get out of the room to rig something to help me get it into the hall.  I managed to shift it enough to squeeze through the crack like the fabled camel through the eye of the needle—it wasn’t easy, but I did it.  And because I was able to do it, it made me feel like maybe I am thinner than the scale or the mirror says I am.

Now…how to fabricate those plastic moving men things that I don’t have, but make moving furniture a piece of cake for 90-year-old ladies?  Hmmm…I wonder if I have a cardboard box lying around?  I could use a couple of pieces of that to put under the front feet to slide it over the threshold.  Geeennniuuuusss!  It worked and we were on our way (the armoire and I)!  I got it positioned in place–now to put everything back in its new prospective home.  I think I started working at 10 a.m. and I was still finding little details to adjust and tweak at 8p.m., but we are pretty much done.   Of course, there is now the garage to contend with–still filled with Christmas decorations that haven’t figured out how to get into the attic—I can get them down, but schlepping them back up the ladder is another very dangerous animal.  Then there are the stupid amounts of garbage I made yesterday, and about thousand pounds (both the English and American definitions) of toys and baby gear to go to charity. 

The fun part about yesterday, besides the part where it ended, was setting up the bookcase in the playroom with all the books and toys so that the boys can get to them more easily.  With that finished, I moved on to cleaning the office.  (The whole time that I am doing all of this, Pierce is playing and entertaining himself.)  We have one of those wooden activity toys that’s a cube with the beads on metal curvy wires on the top and tiles on the sides that rotate to show the alphabet, different animals, numbers and other stuff.  It’s a fun learning tool, and it helps with motor skills—no wonder why Mikey never really liked it…  Anyway, Pierce comes into the office, and pointing to the other room, he keeps telling me “biwl”.  Of course, I don’t know what the heck he’s talking about, so I tell him to show me.  I follow him to the new play room where he points at this wooded activity cube.  On each alphabet tile is a picture of an animal that begins with the corresponding letter.  I’m thinking he’s saying “bear”, but I can’t see anything that sounds like what he’s saying.  Then my eyes fall upon “g” where there is a goat…a white goat…Pierce is saying “Bill” as in “Randy Bill” our ornery friend that we visit on our way home from school sometimes.  I couldn’t believe he made that connection and dragged me across the house to show me!  It was hilarious!

I left the crib up in the playroom until we get Pierce used to his new bed.  I figured we needed the insurance policy, but I hoped when it didn’t look and feel like his room anymore, he may be more willing to move to his new space.  It worked with a little effort!  He slept in his bed, and then woke up crying at about 4:30 like he was still in the crib.  I guess I should be grateful that he doesn’t know about getting out of bed, yet. (Oh, yeah…except when we are putting him to bed.)

Pictures to follow later in the weekend!