Trading Spaces or Clean Sweep?

Happy birthday to our house! It is 30 years old this year. And while it likes to think it's going to be 29 forever, I can tell you that there are things aplenty to fix around here. So, it seems that every summer has at least one big cosmetic project to do. Last year I worked on the master bedroom. This year it's time (past time, really) to redo Michael's room from nursery to Big Boy Room.

And it will be a dino(saur) room.

This week I have been scraping off the popcorn ceiling. A few years ago, we had "Handy Randy" of "Handy Randy Home Repairs" come to fix a popcorn ceiling that was coming down in our kitchen. Only, in his handyman way, he refused to re-popcorn it and instead made it pretty and smooth. Which made me want to make my ceilings all pretty and smooth (and non-grey and bumpy). I'm a total addict now. Especially when I saw how easy it was for H.R. to scrape off the popcorn mess (and it is messy!) and how much we were paying him to do it. After the kitchen, I have now (By Myself!) taken down, sanded, and painted at least five other ceilings in our house besides this week's project.

Unfortunately, Mike's ceiling ran into a bit of a dilemma. Evidently at some point in our home's history, there was water damage in that room (not since we've lived here). And the previous owners (there have been at least three other sets of owner that we know about) decided to fix the situation not by repairing the leak, not by removing the ruined drywall. No, instead it seemed like a better idea to just paint and maybe do some slight caulking to hide the spot.

Until Julie came on the job.

So now, I have a nice hole in the ceiling drywall that goes right into our attic. And lots of pretty mold to go with it.

Yum, right?

So, thankfully, my Wonderful, Smart, Talented, Kind, bro-in-law, Handy Dave, came by tonight to start ceiling repairs. I don't know what we would have done without him (well, call H.R...I guess). Alan is not really interested in doing stuff like that. These little home re-dos are all my efforts while he does Kid Care. And I surely don't know much about re-taping and drywall and mudding, etc. But I'm learning!

Mike's room is a big ole mess right now. Nursery wallpaper border and damp ceiling muck all over the floor. Furniture, toys, books, etc. all jumbled together. But I'm on my way. And hopefully his ceiling will be as smooth and ghostly white as my legs (well, the white part is applicable anyway...) and order will be restored by the end of the weekend.