Checkmark!

Back in MARCH (really, 6 months ago?) I teased a post about a still-unfinished former doggie room turned office. This weekend, we *finally* put the finishing touches on this room.

Let me go back to the beginning and touch on the dangers of procrastination. We had big plans to remodel the third bedroom once the dogs had outgrown their rage sprees (in recent news, Roach was put on steroids to combat a constant itchiness problem, and he has reverted to puppylike behavior, with lots of eating, destroying, and general hysteria). We peeled the strips on the walls (trailer, ew) and mudded them to smooth them out, then painted the room a lovely shade of muted peach. Next, we painted all of the trim work (top and bottom, I couldn't put my arms down for 2 days) a bright white. The last part was the floor -- I loved doing the floor last because it meant I could slop paint everywhere and not worry about ruining anything. We decided to use a snap together Pergo flooring we has used in our master bathroom. It looks gorgeous, withstands puppy and people foot stomps, and is easy to install. We purchased the boxes we would need to complete the project.

And let them sit in the room for about 3 months. Maybe more. Either way, when we finally got it together to lay the flooring, we ran short by 5 boards. We went to Lowe's to pick up one final box, when we found out that the color had been discontinued. Long story short, 9 trips to various home improvement and flooring stores throughout Jacksonville yielded no results. We needed a solution! At first, I thought we could leave the middle of the floor empty, and cover it with a big area rug (for obvious reasons, this was not a long-term solution). Finally, we settled on creating a storage/seating bench to compensate for the area of the room that was missing flooring. Always the handyman, Deane fashioned a boxy structure out of plywood from the half pipe that used to live in my front yard (free AND eliminated a massive eyesore? win-win!), with a lid that would be on hinges. We planned to upholster the top with a cushy foam and pretty fabric, and either paint or do a wallpaper treatment on the sides.

Other projects (mostly wedding related) came along over the months, and this one floated in and out of the priority scale. Gripped by a sudden sense of urgency with the upcoming wedding, we are in all-out finish-the-house mode. I think it's something about us wanting to start our lives together as newlyweds in a lovely cozy home that doesn't look like a construction site. Today, we set forth to put the final nail in this project, and it came out really cute! It was the ultimate exercise in creativity -- not only did we have to come up with the idea for the missing flooring, but there was a HUGE section of drywall that had been cut out to access a bathroom leak a while ago. Rather than patching the drywall, I fashioned a built-in cushion that is attached to the wall. Here are the final results:

And a close-up of the built-in cushion...

I really love the finished product! I have been super motivated the past few weeks, and I hope it continues. The invitations are almost complete, my washer and dryer have been running steadily all day, and the kitchen has undergone a complete purge of old in preparation for new. I even organized my knitting space, even though I haven't picked up the needles in waaaaay too long...

Let's hope we keep on checking things off the to-do list, so I can get some knitting done soon!