Enough with the chemical burns...

Where to start? Justin and I bought a new mattress on Saturday (thanks again to my mom for keeping Roxanne so we could actually take our time). We got a great deal during the Macy's Labor Day Mattress Sale (no, I'm not being paid). So, in with the queen bed, and downstairs with the double. The new bed will be here on Saturday sometime (we got free delivery, too!) so we have a week to try and desperately get things in order. Also, I think there's some kind of law that says you have to do home improvement projects during Labor Day weekend if you aren't at the beach. And we aren't at the beach.

You know how these projects go... One thing requires another thing which requires another thing. So we started with stripping the floors in the two basement bedrooms. The carpet has been out for a while, but there was that nasty old adhesive everywhere. I have mostly finished up one room, the one that will be Justin's room, herein referred to as the Man Room. The other room, which will be for my crafts and the guest bedroom, is in a state of disgustingness. I have scraped it clean, but all that sludge is just sitting there for me to clean up. But since I can't think straight, I'm taking a breather. This stripping agent works very well, but it's AWFUL. It stinks, but in a way that is toxic. Like, I probably have lost half of my brain cells between yesterday and today. The other really hard part is trying to get it all off the floor. My method in the other room was to scrape it all up, get as much of the sludge as I could into a bucket, and then pour water on the floor and mop it around, then run the shop vac over everything. I did the water in the bucket part twice in the other room, but I'm still worried that there's residue there. And I'm worried that it will damage the paint that we put on the floor in a few days. We opted for white floor concrete floor paint. If it will go on without getting destroyed by any remaining chemicals, we think it will look lovely. It will likely need at least two coats, but Justin and I think it will brighten the rooms down there.

We also need to paint the Man Room. With a lot of pushiness from me, we opted for a dark blue, Benjamin Moore's Gentleman's Gray. I know it looks really dark, but with the white floors and white trim, it's going to be amazing. We want to create a more sophisticated "study" look in that room. I told Justin I think it would be neat to make it look like a mid-century command center for NASA or something, and he haltingly agrees with my cheesy description. We have a very large world map to put on one wall, and it's laminated, so I think it will definitely brighten things up. Justin seems mostly excited about getting a rug. I say get everything else done first... I have already found some great metal filing cabinets and he has an awesome teal mid-century good-form chair. Eventually, I hope we can get him a vintage steelcase tanker desk and some vintage task lamps. There are a ton of awesome vintage NASA posters on Etsy, and I'm keeping my eye out for a cheap lunar globe. They can't all be this expensive...

As for the guest room, I painted the walls a couple of months ago in the most lovely soft shade of gray. It will look really great with the white floors. If I ever get all that done... I have dark turquoise velvet curtains for the windows, and I plan to use either an antique quilt on the bed, or our old duvet cover from IKEA that is yellow and white stripes. I'm leaning towards the quilt though, since it's sort of "my room" and I have been collecting vintage needle art for the walls in there. Can you tell how excited I am? Justin and I really can't wait to have these two rooms as extra living space. And we hope sometime soon to be able to get a TV and a sofa for the part of the basement that is now his office. We want a den. And it would be amazing to not ever have to have a TV in our living room. As for the Craigslist couch, we are on a spending hiatus now that we spent so much on supplies for the basement bedrooms and the mattress. Oh well. Things happen when they are meant to.

Pictures to come. I'm scatterbrained thanks to the fumes I've been inhaling. And all the chemical burns I've sustained. Seriously, this stuff is no joke.