I have an itch that I have to scratch…  I have been reading a few too many DIY home blogs, and I feel the need to DO SOMETHING.  I was thisclose to painting the kitchen cabinets on a whim yesterday.  I don’t even like painting, but I just need to put a little lipstick on this piggy of a house.

I thought about polishing off Alice’s room – I have tons of ideas, and her room is 80% of the way there already.

But I need to start Finn’s room.  Ideas have been whizzing around in my brain for his room since we moved in – hell, even when we were living in the old Ohio house.  He got shafted in the room-decorating department.  When he was born, we knew we would be moving to Chicago when he was eight weeks old.  By the time I got around to putting things together for his room in Ohio, the Colorado bomb hit and there wasn’t much of a point in decorating a place you were going to be selling.

So here we are.

Nae and I have been toying with the idea of making his bed into a loft (a low one) with bookshelves and a comfy reading nook underneath.  His bookshelf did not survive the move and his books and toys have been piled up in his closet since January.  Every one we looked at that was affordable was a piece of junk, and Nathan can build exactly what we want for about the same price.

Unfortunately, Nathan’s idea of building him a loft is this:

And I’m more into this (which I think will survive Finn’s changing tastes in the long run):

Since Nathan is working crazy long hours for the next few weeks, I’m kind of on my own in the decorating department.  I’m setting aside the birthday money I have left to whip out as much as I can while Nathan is preoccupied.  It reminds me of the time my mom covertly wallpapered the entire house when my dad was on a business trip…  Oh, the 80’s was covered in wallpaper.

I sat down to hash out a few thoughts, and here is what I have come up with.  I want something neutral that won’t look childish in the next five or ten years.  It seems like lots of people are painting rooms dark these days, I want to so bad; I am terrified to do it.  Shaking-in-my-boots terrified.  Should I just pull the trigger?  It is, after all, just paint.

Obviously, I won’t be able to build the bed by me onesies, but those LEGO man posters are sa-weet, and I have a great idea to make them even better…  And I’ve got a customer service credit for FIFTY 11×17 poster prints from Snapfish.  (I think it was intended to be fifty 4×6 prints, but I didn’t argue.)

I’m hoping to find awesome fabric for bedding – or maybe even a duvet cover at IKEA, who knows – since the one I love is discontinued and a small fortune for a little person to pee on.  Finn has decent wood blinds in his room, but I think I’m gonna whip out a faux roman shade to dress the window up a bit.  I love the look of roman shades, but they are a pain in the ass to open and close twice a day.

The project I am DYING to do is a ginormous plywood map of the US.  Finny is pretty well-traveled, and I want to make sure we put a nail in every new place we go.  It helps in getting him to comprehend the vast distance that separates him from his grandparents and our new house from our old house.  And just how far Disney World is – which is why we can’t go next weekend.  Nathan will have to help with this, of course, since woodworking is his department.

But I can paint by myself, yes?  As long as I can work up the courage to buy a can of daaaarrk grey paint.  (I’m gonna wuss out, aren’t I??)