A fun family project

Last week Erik and I joined my brother and sister-in-law Caleb and Shannyn, as well as my younger siblings who are still at home, in executing a huge project at my parents' house as an early Christmas present to them.

Months ago Shannyn came up with the brilliant idea of redoing this particular room which my dad hated. The dark red, combined with the wood trimming and heavy, wooden blinds, made it an extremely dark room.
At first the plan was just to paint it, but the project soon began expanding, due in part to some unexpected opportunities to get furniture at a steal but mainly due to Shannyn's creativity and thriftiness in stretching our limited budget.

Shannyn spent months planning the colors, furniture, layout, etc., occasionally picking the brains of a few genius interior decorators of our acquaintance. (Unfortunately, there are no such brains in our family to pick.) We planned the project for a week when my parents would be out of town. We had from Wednesday night to Saturday night.

We painted the ceiling first and then taped and primed and taped and primed...and taped and primed some more! I think Shannyn and I primed for about 10 hours one day.

You can't really appreciate from here the fine details of the crowning. We didn't really appreciate them either until we got down to it. We are all agreed that we would have been toast had it not been for the time-saving tip of the century from Erik's mom: spay-on primer! Five bucks a can and worth every cent! (that was just for the crown, of course. All the other priming had to be pure elbow grease.)

Signs of an inexperienced painter: white highlights
The window took forever, but it sure looked good when we were through!

Erik and Caleb did a beautiful caulking job with made a huge difference.

And then came the fun part: painting!
Didn't Shannyn choose a gorgeous color? And the white trim really set things off nicely.

And we're DONE with the painting!

After the painting and touch-ups, Shannyn's younger brother came and cleaned the carpet for us. (Thanks, Parker!) Then we rearranged and redecorated the room (again--all Shannyn's ideas at work here!).

Drum roll, please...

The unveiling!

Shannyn and her mom made the curtains. And the pillow backings. Aren't they lovely? I know. You wish she'd married into your family. Sorry.

Not too bad, eh? We're considering going professional...except that it took us a full week to recover.

And I can't forget our other helpers, who very willingly agreed to paint some frames in the front yard. It was a tough call, but we decided in the end not to use them in the new room...

I must say that we couldn't have asked for more cooperation from the kids during all of this! They were so good.

And so dang cute.

Thanks for letting us have a part in this, Caleb and Shannyn!

And many more thanks to my sweet, wonderful husband for doing this during his vacation week. I love him for it!