Our daughter was less than thrilled with the move. When we first told our children of our impending move to Seattle, my daughter was at first thrilled. We were going to the cute little island with the great croissants and the ferry ride. It was all exciting until the realization came that it was a move not a long visit.
A month and a half has passed since our move and our children are adjusting as are all the animals. Our old dog Elsie will finally go outside without one of us with her. She seems to think if she lets us out of her sight we will somehow pick up and move without her knowledge. She even played with our younger dog out in the yard the other day, their usual game of tag. Otherwise, she sits at the bottom of the driveway awaiting our return if we are out and about.
The children have adjusted to school and are making friends.
My son picked a room with the best views in the house. He has a suite with bedroom and sitting room with sound views and painted a bright sunny yellow. I would post photos, but you really can't tell what's going on for all the clothes on the floor. I would like to say I was disciplined and made my kids keep their rooms clean, but I am not, and their rooms are a mess.
Linden selected the set of rooms with the forest view. Luckily there was no fighting over the rooms, each had their own ideas of the ideal room. My daughter has two connected dormer rooms with a secret cubby hole. When we moved in they were painted what I consider an awful beige. No offense Benjamin Moore, but I am not a fan of beige. I kept thinking the room was a bit dark, and my daughter wanted to paint the room turquoise and we were worried it would make the room a bit darker, but my daughter and I were determined that it was the right choice.
Original color of the room.
Her pick:
What I then learned was that the LRV (light reflecting value) was 70.69 for the beige and 75.69 for the winter green. Wow, the green is "brighter". What a difference some paint makes.
Here are some before and after shots of her "new" room.
This is a photo of the closet that divides the room.
This is the "sitting" room space.
Here is the first coat of ceiling white on the beige ceiling. You can see the contrast.
Here are the after shots. I still have to paint the doors, so the first photo of the outside of her door is still beige, but I think the room interior looks great.
This is her room at dusk. We just bought some Ikea cabinets in the corner, and need to buy three more to put across the back space for storage. What a difference, no?
My daughter has a view of an enormous cedar tree outside her window with a bird feeder on the window, and a view out to the sound.
This is a view out from the bed side of the room toward the sitting room with her secret cubby hole in the right corner next to the little doll wardrobe. The crazy dog paint by numbers were done by my dad in the fifties. Fun aren't they? They replaced all the puppy posters that were in her room before. My daughter is growing up and ready for a more sophisticated look (okay, maybe you can't consider paint by numbers sophisticated, but compared to two dozen puppy posters, framed PBN's seem much more sophisticated to me!)
Here is a photo of the dresser. You can see a framed poster of an 1800s Vogue cover that I painted in my twenties, and the fox painting that I painted for her two Christmases ago. The cute cookie jar with the bears atop came from a craft show in Asheville, NC many years ago when I was not much older than Linden is now.
This is my grandmother's dish cabinet from the later 1800's that is filled with my daughter's treasures. The paintings either side of the cabinet are her watercolor paintings that we framed.
A reading chair and all of her books. A great nook for reading and getting away from her big bother brother.
A view from the reading chair back to her bedroom side. The watercolor painting of the horses is one that I did when I was 12, not very good, but she loves it. You can just barely see her little secret nook on the left of the photo.
She loves her new room, as do I. It is now a bright cheery space for her. Now if I can just get my bedroom painted!
