Room Makeover!

While the kids were away at M&D's I enjoyed a leisurely few days of bubble baths, bon bons and books. NOT! I had been prepping for this very moment for a looooooooooooong time! I redid Sweetie's bedroom in Dec 2012 and after hers was done, the other two finally decided they were ready to give up their teddy bear border!

After some intense discussions, they finally came to an agreement on a colour scheme. This is partly the reason for the long delay between their room makeover and Sweetie's!  They chose pink & purple and turquoise like Sweetie had in hers. I couldn't figure out a good way to work all three colours in there so decided to work with just pink & purple. Last summer I found half price comforter sets in those colours and snapped them up and stashed them away.

As March Break got closer, I started gathering my supplies and getting everything ready. Shopping during the last room makeover took too much of the weekend that they were away and I almost didn't finish in time! This time I was way ahead!

Or so I thought! Their room was so full of junk that it took the entire afternoon to empty things out of there! It took me the rest of the night to remove the wallpaper border. In the beginning it was a little sad "ohhhh this is what I brought them home to when they were released from the hospital!!!' and by midnight it had turned into "die you buggers, DIE!!!" Finally the room was empty and bare and ready to start painting Wed morning!

Taking a decorating break, I brought Murray to my circuit cardio training class at the gym. I thought he'd enjoy a change of pace in the exercise department and it's a fun group with an instructor that puts us through our paces. I'm always red faced by the end and it was nice to see Murray sweating hard too, he wasn't bored! After class we went to the restaurant next door for some delicious food. He got his precious salmon salad and I went for the steak and everything was delicious!

Painting on Wednesday was sloooooow! I forgot to have any crack fill stuff on hand to had to make one run out for that and then got started. I taped off the ceiling and all trim. Then I started blocking in my colours. Then I made a mistake on the layout and had two half walls the wrong colour. Then I tipped a bucket and made a biiiiiig mess. Luckily the disaster happened while I was standing on some plastic sheeting and the carpet was spared.... that time. There were a few direct hits with that hot pink but with some quick scrubbing and Varsol action, there's only a slight mauve tint in the bluish carpet and isn't noticeable without close inspection (don't do it! let's pretend it never happened!)

Around midnight I called it quits, I was tired and needed to get out of that wet paint smell! Murray had come in to assemble the bed and found the stink too much so by that time I'd definitely had enough.

This morning I put on the last coats of pink and packed up the paint supplies before lunch! Hooray! That only left a bit of decorating and I was home free! I thought I'd probably do some grocery shopping, then pick up a pizza and come home for dinner! Except that all those little things took longer than I expected and even with Murray making his own pancake supper, it was still 7pm before I'd hung the curtains and gotten some pictures for the before & after composites.

I asked Mum to have them get ready for bed there so they wouldn't need to do that after we got home. On the drive up I was excited but nervous too. I thought it looked great but would they???? Lovey is quite particular and hadn't approved the plans... could be dicey. Murray had gently cautioned me earlier, when I was just getting started, to not be disappointed if they didn't like it and to not take it too hard. With everything complete and all the hours and hours of preparation, googling, Pinteresting, and then the actual work itself, it would be impossible not to be disappointed if they didn't like it!!! I was sure Honey would be pleased, I'd included purple, that alone would rock her world. I'd left out the requested turquoise though and that could be enough to lose Lovey's vote! I decided that if she didn't like it, it was her problem not mine. That room was to die for!!! Once it was done, even Murray thought they'd both love it.

As I'd anticipated and hoped, Lovey dilly dallyed getting out of the van but Honey was first in the house. Perfect! I grabbed my camera and brought her down the hall and told her to cover her eyes and then I went to get in position! When she opened her eyes again, she was so startled that she didn't even see anything at first. It was just TOO different to take in at first glance. She wasn't long in deciding she loved it though and thanked me and hugged me repeatedly. "I've always wanted a mirror in my room!" she said. After a few minutes I scooted her out to the kitchen and told her to not say a word! Sweetie was on to us though and was loudly proclaiming "I KNOW WHAT IT IS!!!! I KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON!!! CAN I SEE????"  Thanks for keeping it on the downlow Sweetie!

Finally Lovey got herself untangled from her boots and came upstairs and came to see what the fuss was about. She was in love instantly! and was thrilled with everything, the extra space, the tidiness and all the new stuff. The grin splitting her face was ear to ear the rest of the night!

Now I'm off for a good night's rest. I seem to have developed an allergy to being overtired! I've been sneezing like crazy all day. Lots to do tomorrow that I've been neglecting since starting the redecorating! Grocery day was supposed to be Tuesday and I think we're down to one piece of fresh fruit in the house and I've done no baking so Murray's lunch is looking pretty grim for tomorrow!

Here are the before and afters. Looking at them side by side, it's unreal how cluttered it was before. We should have gotten rid of the unnecessary long before this!

Ooh la la!

Shooter Shelley needed my help recently (I've been slowly brainwashing her over the years and have her now trained to believe I am indispensible on shoots, muahahahaha!!!) She was prepping on Thursday, getting the sets put together, figuring out shot sequences etc and then had 3 high school seniors coming for makeovers and the shoot on Friday.  It was all for marketing materials and not actual paid shoots so I volunteered since January is slow for me and we always have so much fun working together and talking shop!

As a special treat for me, she got the MakeUp Artist to give me a quick going over and some fake eyeleashes too! I thought spending a couple of days with her was fun in itself but this was sweet of her to arrange for me! She and the MUA were somewhat horrified to hear that my new face was going to play tennis and not out for a big night on the town.

Oh well, I enjoyed it while it lasted and had the best eyes on the court that night! hahaha!

Extreme Room Makeover!

A few weeks ago, Sweetie asked me, "Mum, you know how some people have those bedrooms where, you know, everything... matches and looks neat????" with a bit of a wistful note in her voice. I said that I knew what she meant and asked if she'd like a room like that. Here eyes lit up and she responded "COULD I???" So I said we'd try and do it sometime when things calmed down. Her room is pretty small and used to be my scrapbook room that I'd painted a nice sunny yellow years before she was born. We painted and decorated one room to be the nursery when they were born and when she ended up in the other room, it never got any decoration whatsoever. I figured she was due to get a fresh look!

She showed me some colours she liked and as I was doing Christmas shopping I kept an eye out for bedding in that hue. I couldn't find anything quite right in the stores. Finally we went online and browsed there instead and found one she LOVED. Then I hunted around and scrounged up a 20% off coupon and headed out to shop!

We got the bedding set and then went to the paint store and got some paint to match and told her I'd start working on it "sometime when I had free time". :)

Then Grammie & Grandad conveniently arranged a 2 night stay for the girls at their place and once they were off, I set to work tearing down the shelving and pollyfilla-ing. Murray dragged out all the mattresses. A couple years ago she jumped on her bed (despite repeated warnings!) one too many times! The bedframe cracked and she had been sleeping on her mattress & bedspring, plus the mattress and bedspring from the spare bedroom from the downstairs flooded out spare bedroom, a la princess and the pea ever since. While I took the room apart, Murray repaired the bed frame for her. I got the room prepped and ready to start the next day!

The next morning I headed out in search of some accents for the room and hit the jackpot at Walmart of all places! They had exactly the touches I wanted to add and getting everything in one spot was pretty convenient!

I finally got home, slammed down a fruit smoothie for lunch because it was fast and got to work on the cutting in and trimming around the room. It took for-freaking-ever. I haaaaaaaaaaate painting. I'm messy and spilly!!! I don't have a steady hand and there were mistakes everywhere, aaaaaarghhhh!!! I was up til 2am getting the last of the painting done. I woke up the next morning, knowing I only had a few hours til Mum brought the kids back. There were a lot of spots to touch up and the room still had to be reassembled, some trim painted and accents put up!!! It was a whirlwind morning and I was nailing the last piece of trim back on as Mum's car pulled in the driveway.

The night before, Murray asked if I would be disappointed if she didn't like it. My heart sunk! I hadn't even considered that possibility! I'd killed myself all weekend, picking out all the perfect little touches, back breaking labour that I detest..... HOW could she NOT like it???? Yet, I knew suddenly, it was all too possible! This was the girl who disliked pants on sight because she could tell at a glance that they'd be too "rimbly"!!! She MIGHT NOT LIKE what I'd picked or how I'd arranged it!!!! It was too late though, I was already committed by the time he asked and I just had to hope for the best. It certainly didn't look worse than when I'd started so I decided it would just have to do. She had no idea I was doing it while she was gone so it could be a rude awakening...

Here's the before:

 and after!

 and her first look at the room, shocked! (shocked good? or shocked horrified?!?!??)

 annnnnnnnnnnnnnnd YES! It's shocked GOOD!!! Yay Mumma!

She's been in it a week and it still looks neat as a pin! She's been sorting through all the things we took out and discarding lots of things and sorting and organizing what she wants to keep. She doesn't want it getting junked up and has been diligent with it for 7 days straight, which I'm pretty sure is a record!

Before embarking on this mission of gargantuan proportions, I'd talked to Lovey & Honey about their room and whether they still liked their teddy bear & baby block border. They were quite adamant that they didn't want ANYTHING changed. I'd suspected as much. Those two don't like changing their sheets! I replaced Lovey's blankets once and it took a week of bedtime crying before she adjusted to the drastic change! Within 5 minutes of seeing Sweetie's room makeover, both of them did a 180 and are now in the process of fighting over colours and themes. After listening to the bickering for half an hour, I forbid any further vocal discussion and said all future negotiations must be done via text through their iPods so I didn't have to listen to it. So far Lovey is campaigning for some red but Honey's holding out for all purple and until Lovey agrees, she's refusing to part with the teddy bears on the walls. There's no way to work on it while they're around anyway so until someone kidnaps my children again, it's a moot point for now.  :)

Company's Coming!

We had the pleasure of having Murray's entire family in town for his birthday recently! We don't live near them anymore so they don't get to our house very often. Having them all here together was a huge treat!!! having everyone right in his backyard put the biggest smile on Murray's face! He's a pretty easy to please, content guy but I could tell he was extra happy this weekend! Thank you to everyone who made the trip, it was very much appreciated!

We got the extra bonus of stealing Mr. Bojangles away from his parents for the whole weekend. Leading up to the visit, we talked to him on the phone a couple of times and he was pretty pumped to have TWO sleepovers coming up (Fri AND Sat!) He even made us a dessert and served it here. As you can see, chocolate was involved and it was DELISH!

 Aunt Mandy heard about the free makeovers and beat a path to the front of the line to be next! They pulled out all the stops until even the 4 year old said "Mummy you look bootiful!"  They were disappointed that Crazy Uncle Andrew had a headache and wasn't up to having his eyeballs jabbed with eyeshadow applicators! Luckily they had supermodel Mandy to fill the gap! (I'm not sure her skin is as appreciative this week though!)

Special Offer!

Step right up for your 100% chance to win a FREE MAKEOVER with TripleTrouble Makeup Artists! I'm fairly certain that this offer does NOT expire any time soon. It is likely that any and all applicants will be accepted! Grandad was the lucky recipient today. His only stipulation was that "if you're just going to try to make me look stupid, don't bother!"

Lucky for him they take their work very seriously and had no intention of making him anything other than ravishing! It was an enthusiastic team of stylists that was on duty today and they dug deep in their bag of tricks to transform his rugged good looks into classic elegance!

Grandad sure loves his girls!

 Sweetie had trouble getting the hair extensions in for some reason... and eventually settled for wrapping them around his ears!

The big reveal seems to have gone over rather well! Another happy customer! Reserve your appointment today. We're expecting a big rush of "customers" next weekend so you should probably book ahead to get your preferred timeslot. Just sayin'.

Triple Joy Beauty Parlour Now Open!

This holiday season, make sure you're looking your sparkly best at all the Christmas parties! Don't get your makeover by just anyone! Let our dedicated staff of three bring out the beauty in you! Services include manicures, make up application and hairstyling! Prices are very reasonable but we do recommend a reservation as appointments are limited. These girls are busy and very popular. In fact, the one in the yellow dress is so busy working on her own look that she can rarely fit a client in!

Grammie stayed for supper one night while she was in doing some Christmas shopping and as soon as the girls finished eating, th y scurried off and got themselves all glammed up. We didn't really know what was going on until Honey started to cry when Grammie was getting ready to leave. We didn't realize they'd been setting up their salon and were now ready for their first customer. Grammie quickly agreed to her surprise makeover appointment. She managed not to grit her teeth tooooo much during the heavy handed nail filing and let them style her hair to their liking. Murray opted out of his appointment which allowed me to get in even sooner than I'd hoped!