Project weekend

Adam said he needs Mark and me to go back to school so we can stop improving around here.

The more I thought about switching Mark's room with the guest room, the more convinced I was that it would be awfully crowded to have the guest king bed in Mark's smaller room.

I know enough to know that I have to be prepared to wheel and deal with Mark so we sat down to negotiate.  The end result was that he wasn't changing rooms but we were going to paint his current room.

I don't know if I won or lost.

On Friday we cleared everything out of his room.  If I'm going to do a project like that with anyone, he's who I would pick.  He zips around with a screwdriver and unassembles things and moves heavy things like it's no trouble.

We went to Lowe's and bought some paint.  It's not what I would have picked.  I thought it was a little...bright.  Mark, bless his colorblind heart, loves bright colors.  We were going to paint one wall the brighter color and the rest of the walls the blue gray that is the color in the rest of the basement.

After we finished that one wall, Mark said, "I think I want to keep it like this.  Keep the other walls white."

I said, "Are you sure?"  Because everything was prepped to paint, it was now or never, buster.

Mark decided to get his siblings to weigh in.

He's never bossy or demanding with his siblings....

I was fine leaving it white.  That made our job easier.

Saturday morning, Adam and I went to IKEA.  A new desk for Mark's room was on the list.  (Mark and I had found it online.)

IKEA in the time of pandemic is not to be undertaken lightly.  I said it was too bad they didn't have "I survived IKEA in 2020" t-shirts for sale.  Adam came up with a slogan.

I came.  I saw.  IKEA.

We waited in line about 35-40 minutes before we got inside because they were limiting the number of people inside.

We found the desk Mark wanted (I asked him if he wanted to come and he said, "No.  I'm good.")

I FaceTimed him when I saw a desk I liked more and that is what we got.  We also bought some tiles because Adam had the idea to put them on top of the shelf in our family room.  I'm usually the one with the harebrained ideas so this was something new.

Adam and Mark built the desk.

While Mark was putting everything else away, Adam and I placed tiles on the shelf.

This is the tile:

And here it is on the shelf:

cameo appearance by one of the new Marimekko pillows I made during the Mariner's game on Friday

You can't see it in the family room so it's like this little secret bit of prettiness we see when we go upstairs.

This morning I'm off to make improvements in my classroom so Adam can go about his business unscathed.