An update on the crazy.

We are now into week two...or maybe it's week three...the swirling, spinning craziness makes it hard to keep track...of the entry/hall/den redo. Part of the crazy is that my daughter unexpectedly got smacked between the eyes with decoration inspiration because of all the commotion (go figure...I would have thought watching this insanity might have cured her...but noooooo), and decided to redo her room at the same time. So now we have virtually every single room in the house consumed with the mess. Either it's actively being torn apart and redone, complete with ladders, drop clothes, tools and equipment, or it's become the repository for everything that has been moved out of the areas under direct assault. My kitchen counters have become the resting place for extra staples for the staple gun and nails for the nail gun, scraps of paper with Very Important Measurements of something written on them, caulk, and spackling paste; my living room holds tables and pictures from the hallway, and the dining room --- I kid you not --- has a brand new but shitty mattress that arrived as part of the sleeper sofa and is now unnecessary since we purchased an upgraded mattress separately. The only room that has remained untouched by the chaos is our bedroom.

Our no guts/no glory saga began when we had the furniture delivered a week ago and it couldn't fit into the room. Oh, fun. Oh, joy. Oh, happy day! The movers measured everything very carefully and assured us that they could get it through the window. They half-jokingly told us we were lucky it was the two of them on the delivery; none of the other drivers would attempt such a thing.

So we attempted to remove the window and discovered that the sash for the double hung window system was broken, necessitating a full repair job. However this was a blessing because we could. not. get. the. window. out. There we all stood looking at springs and cord hanging limply down the side of a window that resolutely refused to budge from its spot. The repair people were called. They could be out -- tomorrow.  The delivery guys loaded up the truck with our furniture and said they would come back next week.

Again, in a weird all-the-screw-ups-are-actually-blessings-in-disguise kind of way, the postponed delivery allowed me the opportunity to tackle the walls without furniture to climb over which, as I mentioned in a previous post, were going to be upholstered. By me. Because I had watched a YouTube video. So I knew what I was doing. It was going to be easy. It was going to be fun.

Yeah, I spell stupid with five letters.

But timing is everything in life and my fabric didn't arrive until the following Wednesday, the day before the re-scheduled delivery. Thursday morning I started the job and after three HOURS had exactly one wall done  when the delivery truck rolled into our driveway. Lovely.

The two young men who climbed out were NOT the two from last week. Even LOVELIER. When I directed them to the side of the house where they were to heft an enormous sofa through the window, they both instinctively started backing away, shaking their heads.

It was time for charm. But there was no one but me.

I laughed. "That's what the guys from last week said. They said I was lucky because none of the other drivers would even attempt such a thing."

Suddenly male chests thrust out just a little and there was a sense of friendly competition in the game. "That so?" one of the young men said, obviously accepting the challenge. "I think we can do it."

And they did.

After they maneuvered the sofa and chair through the window, I told them to go back to the other guys and tell them not to be talking smack about them.

So with the furniture now delivered, I had to continue with it taking up all the space in the center of the room, only the barest perimeter available to set up ladders and equipment to continue with the easy-peasy upholstering job.

This is what I worked around.

Here is how it looks now.

I still need to finish the walls with braid and cording to hide the staples and to hang blinds and build the cornice for the windows, as well as hang paintings. But with every nail a hole in the fabric, you can be guaranteed that I am not going to hang a bloody thing until I am absolutely certain of where it goes. That may take some time. I'm not just stupid, I'm slow, too.

As for the entry and hall? Well, completion was pushed back because of the media room. I'm now shooting for early March.

Everything needs paint, and after the upholstering insanity, I've hired the wallpaper to be done.

I'm stupid, but I'm not crazy. Completely, I mean.