Goodbye Guest Room Wallpaper!

Today, I finished removing the wallpaper in the guest room. We have lived in this house for 13 years. We had many rooms that need to lose the wallpaper. Glen's office and the dining room have reached that goal. Now the guest room can be added to the list.

I don't have any memory of serious wall paper removal. Glen did that task in his office. We paid a friend to do that for the dining room. I tackled the guest room. "How hard can it be?" I thought to myself. It was time consuming, but moved along faster than expected. It was physically hard, but manageable. The perfect physical task after winding up another school year! I went in the room and sprayed and scraped and saw progress each day. A nice way to unwind, really. Thankfully, the temperature was pleasant outside, too.

I learned a lot doing this myself. Glen helped me understand the process with some good tips. I cannot believe it is done and soon will be painted. The grand thing about projects like this is once it is done, I don't have to do it again -- no more wallpaper there. That is in contrast to chores, which do have to be done over and over. Another plus is the feeling of satisfaction as I walked out from under the cloud of procrastination and away from the frustration of never getting to it. That right there has payback when it comes to energy given back.

I am excited to see the room freshly painted in a Bennington Gray (looks like coffee with plenty of cream). I can't wait to finish it up with two more mini-blinds and other decorative accents, most of which we already own. When my parents visit in December, it will be a welcoming room after so many years of annoying walls and unorganized storage. I call it "The Nutcracker Suite" when they visit; not a comment on them, just a holiday name for a room.

We do like to share the room. Friends are coming next week, thus the push to get at it! A family of five from the Midwest will use it a base camp while the sight see in the area. I will look forward to sharing it more readily, now that it will look nicer. It is a delightful room, facing west, plenty of windows, and a pretty view through the trees. We can even see downtown L.A. in the distance at night -- the lighted skyline.

So why did it take so long to get it done? So many years of meaning to get to it, and then in less than a week it is ready to paint? We are busy, but really?!! Anyway, it is done now. As I thought of the procrastination, while I was scraping away, I noted a hint of something interesting within myself. When a task is undone, lots of dreaming of the day it is done goes on for me, bringing me joy and something to look forward to. And yet, once the task is complete, the dreaming stops. The "looking forward to" becomes reality. There a mild sense of loss of a dream that prevents us from moving ahead. Do I subconsciously think what if I don't like it once done, what will I have to look forward to creatively then, and what if I can't do what my ideas have crafted in our heads? This may be the curse of the creative person. Not all creative people are procrastinators, though. Anyway, I moved past that moment of melancholy. It did make me pause to see if that is a little of what makes me procrastinate. I'd rather dream than do.