Holding My Breath

Why? might you ask?  Because a week or so ago Marty told me that while I'm gone on my trip to the wet land, (I leave in eight days), he thought he might work on my quilt room.  Note that there is nothing going on with our kitchen, and I'll say no more about that!  But if he wants to work on my quilt room, great!

My little quilt room, which is where I also spend most of my sit-down time for genealogy, computer, TV, cutting fabric, etc, measures all of about 9.5' x 10', not a huge space for all that I'd like to be doing in here and to set it up for.  Part of me would like to switch this room with the guest room as it has at least an additional foot in both directions to work with, but it would need to have better lighting (no ceiling light in it) and would need to be wired with cable for the TV and the computer, and Marty might rebel against that, especially since I've already done the closet in this room for my fabric stash :)

Following are the pictures of how it is now, please excuse the utterly huge mess - I do a lot in here...just not much housekeeping lately, lol:

 Pic 1-below: This is the view from the doorway.  My design wall is at my left out of view.  The window is 6' wide so only half of its width is showing.  My TV is sitting on some shelves I acquired free from the neighborhood on trash day many years ago, and I'd be just as happy to get rid of them.  The desk was also acquired free from the neighborhood and the only thing I like about it is it 'works' and I love the size of the desk top and would like to keep the laminated top - yeah, I know, a bit hard to see - standard office size!  The two boxes are the kitties nap spots when I'm in here and are sitting on two 2-drawer file cabinets.  The printer in the back corner is also sitting on a 2-drawer file cabinet and is used a lot.  My laptop sits on a wood tray that Marty fixed up for me to sit over an open desk drawer.  Those boxes along the back wall? Those are just a few of my genealogy files from which I work regularly and have been working on for a couple years.  No end to papers there!  At the end of the desk is another genealogy file box - several more are in other locations throughout the house too, they rival my fabric stash. Oh and there's just an accumulation of stuff  clutter that I haven't put away in their designated spots if there are any, oh wait, those areas need to be cleaned too.  Those meds were from my back issue at the first of the year, sometimes still needed to ward off a recurrence. Not sure why I have the window cleaner in here, haven't washed this window in, well, I don't remember when it was last washed.  Maybe I'll hire a window washer when I get back from the wet land.  The stash closet is to the left in the wall facing the window.

Pic. 2 - below:  This is the right side of the room, beneath the window on the back wall, and my design wall there on that right wall.  What this is showing is the 20+ year old carpet where those file cabinets use to sit before we had the leak in the bathroom and subsequently remodeled the bathrooms.  The black mark in the carpet is where Marty's mother's portable (though heavy enough to be a boat anchor) sewing machine was sitting in it's black case.  The leak, either from the bathroom which is on the opposite side of the right wall, or from the window was unbeknownst to us for quite awhile and hence the carpet was wet beneath the file cabinets and of course, they rusted.  Marty plans to remove all the carpet, down to the, I'm sure asbestos-laden, floor tiles from 1966.  Doesn't bother me, I grew up with them, and a whole lot of other asbestos-laden items, and while the problems of asbestos can be real, the likelihood of such from these applications is minimal.  When I return, we'll decide what to put on the floor...I even suggested to just paint and varnish it ;p Marty suggested linoleum, ever mindful of what he considers not worth spending money on.

 Pic 3-below:  Shows the popcorn ceiling...where we had a leak every time it would rain and no matter how many times Marty went to the roof to patch spots he thought it might be coming from, and crawling into the attic area to try to see where the water run began, he never quite got the right one until the winter before last.  Marty plans to remove this too and maybe call in a guy to spray it with a knock-down/orange peel type ceiling to match the downstairs and our stairwell, which have already been done.  I would like to see a ceiling fan with lights installed as this room gets quite warm in the morning all day in the summer - east wall in the a.m. and south wall in the p.m. - and NO insulation in those walls.  I'd like Marty to remove the drywall and put in that nice pink insulation on those two walls but he says drywall is not his forte'...uh, it isn't THAT hard - I use to help my dad when I was a kid and could probably do it myself, except for the lifting.  Now if it was the ceiling, that of course would be harder.  Walls, not so tough.  Since this room warms up so early in the day, the A/C doesn't kick in (normally set to 78) unless I manually change it because the other room has the sensor for the zoned controller and it doesn't get warm until late afternoon.

 Pic 4-below.  This is the east wall, directly to the back of my desk, where I've already patched up some of the holes and uneven spots in the wall.  My original plan, and what I'd still like to do since this is a solid wall floor to ceiling, side to side, is put in cabinetry and a small desk (I already have the desk - another neighborhood acquisition) so that I can put all the office / genealogy supplies, sewing supplies, etc. in the cabinets / drawers and use the desk area for my desk top computer that Marty got me for Christmas - still sitting downstairs because there's no room up here at present.

Pic 5-below: This is the small wall space between the entry door, on left, and the stash closet behind that closed door.   The wall is 3-tone because the original paint color, from when Marty bought the house in 1992 (?) was/is Navajo White - blech.  The white color is the excess primer from the roller when I painted inside the closet as is the gray/green color, the latter being the same color the room will be painted in when ready to paint.

In order for Marty to work on this room while I'm gone, I have to have everything packed up and moved elsewhere...and that's the big sigh.  It's a big chore with not a lot of other places to put things, and since I'm still using certain things, so some of it can't be done until right before I leave on my trip. 

Ultimately, the big question is, if I go to all the trouble of packing all this stuff up, leaving only the furniture pieces in the room for Marty to move, will the carpet get removed and the ceiling get done?  I sure hope so!  I'll be terribly disappointed if it doesn't.