The Green Room

One of the best things about our new house was that while some of the paint colors were not colors I would choose, none of them were so offensive that I felt we would need to paint immediately.  So why did I find myself rushing to the hardware store to buy paint on the first day in our new house?  Because I was desperate to make Henry love his new home.

Let's back up a bit.  Henry can be a bit high-strung, so I was very nervous about how he would handle the move from Oakland to Des Moines.  After all he was born in Oakland and had lived in the same house for his entire life and was already dealing with a new baby in the family, so I was afraid it might be a bit too much change.  Throughout the moving process, I kept emphasizing all the positive points of moving -- getting his own room again, a bigger yard, snow, etc.

While we were house hunting, we put him in charge of finding a house that had a play area in the yard and a bedroom just for him.  During our whirlwind house hunt (I may need to tell you all about that experience later), he was very excited and overstimulated as he looked for Henry's room in each house we viewed.  In a few of the houses, he pointed out rooms that were painted green because green was his favorite color.

Fast forward a couple of months to our arrival in our new house.  Henry was so excited that he started racing from room to room trying to see everything. Finally, we reached Henry's bedroom.  I opened the door and Henry asks innocently, "Is this George's room?"
"No," I replied, "this is your room."
Henry looked slowly around the room, which was painted a lovely deep blue, shook his head and said, "It's not green.  This isn't my room."

BEFORE: Henry's room from the original real estate listing.

After much persuasion, I finally convinced him that it was his room and learned the true meaning of the word crestfallen.  I've never seen someone go from completely excited to completely devastated so quickly, so I did what any self-respecting mother would do, drove to the nearest hardware store to buy green paint.

Despite the worst heat wave in 30 years and no furniture in our house, the first thing I did was paint Henry's room green. Actually, I had to compromise.  Since I didn't have anything to stand on to reach the top of the wall, I opted to paint the bottom green and leave the top blue and hoped that I would find some sort of border for the middle.  Luckily, Henry is also an avid Toy Story fan, so I bought a peel and stick border and movie poster on Amazon, we ordered a full-size bed (his old toddler bed needed to go in George's room and be converted back to a crib) and finally had one happy little boy who was thrilled with his big boy room.

AFTER: a preschooler's dream room!

There are still some cosmetic things to do like adding another layer of the green paint (it's a bit streaky in spots), find a bedspread, and figure out window coverings, but this room was the first place in the house that felt like it was personalized for us.  Welcome home Henry!

PROJECT PRICE LIST

Gallon of green paint (ACE hardware) - $35
2 rolls of stick on border (Amazon) - $30
Toy Story Poster (Amazon) - $6
Poster Frame (Target) - $8
New Sheets (Target) - $25

Grand Total -$105

Expression on Henry's face when he saw his new room - Priceless

What's in the Queue

I always feel that there is a lot to do.  Maybe it's just my nature to always have a lot of projects queued up in my mind, or maybe reality is that being a mother, new homeowner and professional adds up to a lot to do.  Join me on this journey as I work through my never ending project queue.  Here are just a few examples of what's in the queue:

Discovering Des Moines

After nearly 11 years on the west coast my family recently relocated  (hopefully for the last time) to Des Moines, Iowa.  My husband and I are originally from mid-Missouri, so we're thrilled to be within driving distance of our families.  Even though we feel like we've come back home by returning to the midwest, Des Moines is completely new to us, so we're looking forward to getting to know and love our new city.

Completing our New House

All those years on the west coast were in high-priced housing markets on graduate student/postdoc salaries, so after years of paying exorbitant rent, we're finally home owners!   When we found we were moving to Iowa, we flew out for a few days of house hunting and immediately bought this lovely 1915 house near downtown Des Moines. We chose the house for it's location, style and it's great condition.  The previous owners had done fantastic work sprucing the place up, but I quickly realized there are a million little projects to do before we'll  really make the house our own. 



Finding a job

Our relocation to Des Moines was due to my husband finding an academic faculty position after 10 years of grad school and a post doc.  However, moving put my career in limbo.  While my husband was working on his PhD in Oregon, I got a Master's in Library Science and started working in libraries.  Our move to California for his post-doc resulted in me being recruited by a grad school classmate to work at a library software company as a training and documentation coordinator.  To my surprise, I loved my job and after almost six years with the company, I'm very sad to leave it. The outlook for library jobs in the Des Moines area is bleak, so for the moment, I'm piecing together work by consulting at my former company and possibly doing some adjunct teaching in the area, but ultimately, I would like to find a permanent position as a librarian and/or instructor.

Raising my boys

Now for my favorite project -- raising my boys!  I have two adorable and sweet (and sometimes crazy and frustrating) little boys.  Henry is almost 4 years old and George is almost 6 months old. I thought I knew everything about parenting and kids until I became a parent.  Then I learned that parenting is a skill that is always in development and that no parent is perfect.  The books can't tell you how to raise your child, so you just have to trust yourself and do the best you can.  I just hope this project is also my most successful.

So that's me and everything I have in my queue at the moment.  I'm looking forward to sharing my progress.