Thread, Yarn and School Glue: the ties that bind.: Finito. Finally!!

Good grief. My poor husband. He's going to start working on the weekends at McDonalds because it would be less work than having weekends "off". Matteo's room is done, thanks in large part to the elbow grease and painting/drilling proficiency of my husband. I am sure he would have rather done something else, anything else this weekend, but he's a good guy. He humours me a lot.

This all started in ernest on Friday. Who's says Italians don't camp? (I'm not sure that stereotype is true in most places, but it most definitely is here... where in the world would I plug in my hair dryer?!) We evicted Matteo from his bedroom that evening at set up tent city in the basement (just practicing for later Occupy endeavours in the future right? At the risk of sounding like Cliff Huxtible, I sure hope it isn't foreshadowing "Occupy Mom and Dad's Basement" at age 30). Check out the temporary digs:

Ethan tried to hide in there with Matteo, but I found him. Over the course of Friday night and Saturday, Ethan managed to get the room painted. Funny, how when you repaint a room in a similar colour, it feels like you're actually doing nothing, but when you go from the colour on the right, to the colour on the left, in a teeny tiny bedroom in a house built in 1969, the perception of space is amazing!

We spent a good 3 hours playing rearranging furniture (I found a bookcase for $35 on Craigslist- told you I was cheap!) and then finally, this afternoon, I was able to hang the Roman blind. There is always that moment when I hold my breath praying that my measurements were right and that the thing actually fits (yes, I was known in high school to sit at the kitchen table in tears nightly while my dad tried in vain to explain my math homework to me, one more time...). And then when it does fit I hear the Rocky song in my head... you know that beginning trumpet riff, and I start to dance. Then my husband looks at me, and I'm sure he's thinking I'm a complete macadamia. Hanging a Roman blind is gratifying, and pretty easy. We got a piece of white moulding, made of MDF (medium density fibreboard) and inserted eyelets to it. The eyelets have to line up with your rows of rings on your blind. This was screwed up above the window. I added the sticky velcro next. Then, you tie your cord to the bottom ring of each vertical row of rings, and run the cord through the rest of the rings in each row. From there, you pull each cord length through the rest of the eyelets across the board, so that all the cords come out on one side. (Hmmm... not a clear or succinct explanation at all. Well, if you are actually wanting the nitty gritty details of this, let me know, I'll draw you a picture.)

I always braid the cords together, so that my pull cord looks okay and stays neat and tidy. I also use clear nail polish on the ends of the cords so that they don't fray. Once all that was done, up went the valance (seriously, they easiest thing in the world to make, took me about 20 minutes). And.... voila!!

Open sesame....

And here's the happy tenant... geez, maybe I should charge rent?

Don't let that picture fool you... lately it is stick, gloves and shirt around here. I should be wearing a helmet, black and white stripes and an armband everyday. Sigh.

Overall, project successful. And thank goodness for that. Although, the unsuccessful story of my last attempt would be a far more entertaining blog post. But, in the interest of saving my sanity, I'm glad it wasn't replayed here. The room looks much better- nice when the effect you were hoping a project would have is actually realized.