Nothing you really want to know.

I've been incredibly busy lately because I got a bee in my bonnet to redecorate my foyer and entry hall, and then to turn a spare room into a media room/den. I could pay to have it all done and just stand back and sip champagne while directing traffic, but I have neither the money nor the patience with incompetency to do that. If someone is going to be incompetent and screw things up royally, I can do that for free. Besides, I then have money left over to buy better champagne, which I will need because after I screw it all up, I will drink myself into oblivion. At that point, good champagne is a definite plus.

First, for anyone who has actually read my blog from the beginning (Mom, I know that's you), I decided NOT to do the hand-painting, stenciling creation I have been lusting for, despite my legendary, intrepid stupidity at DIY projects. Instead, I decided to divide the stupid in half and then times it by 2 to arrive at the same "what-the-hell-am-I-doing?" place. I arranged to have someone else come in and hang my wallpaper, but I did the crown moulding, wainscoating and chair rail in the entry and hallway. This part of the "stupid" was entirely intentional and well-planned-out in advance, so there's no one to blame but myself.

The media room/den was the "impulse".

You have to understand our family to have an appreciation of how decisions are made around here. I am aware that most families make big decisions over a period of days or weeks, maybe even months, carefully budgeting and assessing the cost/benefit ratio of one decision over another. Not here. In our home, things are done in a much more spectacularly spontaneous way. The other day our daughter announced that her TV no longer received most of the channels and we learned that the analog set she had was rapidly becoming outdated as the signals were being switched to digital through government edict. So we needed a new TV. And of course you can now see where this is going. If we're going to have to buy a new TV, then we might as well convert a spare room into a media room and "do it right."

But "doing it right", in this home, is always a nailbiter.

Off we went to buy the TV. And sound system. Of course we needed a new sofa and chair. Make that queen sleeper sofa, so that the room could accommodate guests. Tables...lamps...CHECK.

Then what to do with the walls? It had been a not-particularly-interesting bedroom for its entire life and needed a make over. Now was as good a time as any. Furniture was on order and time was of the essence. Somehow I ran across a YouTube video detailing how to upholster walls and how great that was for media rooms because of the enhanced sound quality and how it was SO EASY!  Direct quote, "Upholstering walls, in general, is SO much easier than you would think. I mean, it's MUCH less messy than wallpaper."

Right. After watching that video, I had visions of me, being this:

In reality, this experience has reduced me to this:

 
I am currently at the "What-the-hell-am-I-doing-again?" stage. This is a stage in every DIY project that is so inescapably inevitable for me that DIY should really stand for "Damn. It. YIKES!"

So wish me luck. To keep you entertained, and because I am so miserable that I am wantonly indulging my vicious streak, here is a video of one more PSY Gangnam style redo. This one, however, is brilliant. Almost as good as the horse.





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