As I sit here at my new, fabulously organized writer's nook, staring at the next chapter I have to write — a look of frozen, writer's block related terror on my face — I have decided now would be a PERFECT time to show you guys the Before and After pictures from the re-do.
As I mentioned, my good friend and old college roomie Jenn came to visit from New York. But it wasn't just a casual visit. She had PLANS, my friends. Big, big plans. She's been following the up and down saga of writing book 2 and thought, if nothing else, a dedicated writing spot would be a step in the right direction towards helping me reach my goal.
We had a few hurdles to hop first, however. The first being this:
That abomination was Patoot's art area. Apparently, she has inherited her parents' organizational talents. ANYway. Jenn and I decided to relocate her art desk to the other side of the room (the dining room, in case you are interested) and put my desk in its place. Mainly because the outlet is on this side. So we spent an entire morning going through a mountain of kid art, chucking the half-hearted ones and keeping the masterpieces. I ruthlessly tossed broken crayons, scrap paper and dry play-dough. Finally, her now-clear desk moved to its new home, we had a space to put my desk.
Which lead us to our second hurdle:
For almost three years, this thing has been languishing in my bedroom, after we had to turn our office/guest room into Lily's big girl bedroom so her baby brother could move into the nursery. At first I had the delusional notion that I would just write in my bedroom, but as Esposo and I piled more and more extraneous crap on top of it, it was clear the desk was nothing more than another flat space to, well, store extraneous crap on. Clearing off my own abomination took just as long as it did to clean up Patoot's area, and to be honest I'm not even done. I just left a lot of the mess in spare laundry baskets in my bedroom to be sifted through another day. Maybe this weekend? Hope springs eternal.
ANYway. Esposo was home from work at this point, so he helped me carry the now-empty desk downstairs to its new home:
Now this was starting to look like a proper writer's nook! Jenn and I stepped back to regard it.
JENN: No offense, but it's kind of an ugly desk, huh?
ME: No offense taken. It IS an ugly desk. I think we bought it for $50 at Office Max.
JENN: We can totally spruce it up. Let's do some research.
So we popped onto the Almighty Interwebs to see how one might paint laminated "wood." As it turned out, it's not really recommended. And the blogs we actually found with step-by-step instructions suggested waiting 24 hours between each step of the process. No time for that, Dr. Jones. Jenn had a bus to catch the next day.
ME: What if we...I dunno. Added a trim or something. Like molding?
JENN: We could do that! Where's the nearest Home Depot?
So the intrepid DIY'ers headed off into the night (for it was 9pm by now) in search of molding. We found some, and asked a super-cute 17 year old kid to cut it to our specs. Delighted with our fabulous idea, we trundled back to my house where we painted the molding with the same glossy white as the trim in the dining room. Then we went to bed, letting the pieces dry overnight.
Next day, we spent the morning at The Container Store where Jenn bought me a few desk-organizer things as part of what she called my "Writer's Grant." Of course, we couldn't just get a standard cork board, etc., so we found pretty deskware that would inspire as well as organize. On the way home we picked up Patoot from school. She was delighted with her new art area:
...but a little jealous of my new desk bling (she was especially covetous of my bird magnets).
While the kids had a snack, Jenn and I hammered the now-dry white molding onto the desk. Jenn started it, but then had me knock in a few nails as well. Actually, it was more than a few as I kept bending them and had to start over. I also *may* have cracked the molding in a few places. Patoot looked on, shaking her head at me.
PATOOT: You are NOT doing regular Mommy Things today, Mommy.
ME: Well, (bang!) it's good to try new things! (bang! bends another nail) Shi– er, shoot!
PATOOT: Jenn is much better at this than you, isn't she, Mommy?
Jenn assured me a little paint touch-up would hide my glaring mistakes. So I grabbed the paint can and was about to shake it up a little, when it slipped from my hands and fell to the floor. The lid, which was not on very tightly apparently, popped off and glossy white paint pooled all over my dining room floor.
ME: SHIT!
PATOOT: You REALLY aren't good at this stuff, are you, Mommy?
Miraculously, Jenn and I cleaned my humungous mess up. Patoot even helped by scrubbing the white out of cracks in the floor with an old toothbrush. She found it all very exciting.
In the end, all the dramatics paid off, because the molding came out great:
In fact, the whole thing came out fantastic:
It's attractive, neat, functional, and in a great location. It's everything an aspiring writer could ever hope for (save an actual office of her own).
Which is why it's SO DAMN INFURIATING that I am having a major case of writer's block today. Oh well. At least I now have a lovely desk area on which to bang my head in frustration.
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blah
sad
sappy
amused
singing
cranky
crushed
sleepy
accomplished
