When we moved into this house we inherited an array of wallpaper borders. I think every single room in the house had one! We took most of them down immediately, starting with the kittens in the kitchen.
One lone room has kept it’s border all these years. It’s in my craft studio.
I’ve considered taking it down so many times over the years, I really have. Sometimes several times in a day. But there was always something keeping me from it.
Excuses
Heavy furniture was a great excuse, but the biggest one was that the carpet really, really needs to be replaced.
It’s terrible.
It’s worse than the wallpaper border. Well, okay, it’s just as bad.
Since replacing the flooring isn’t an option at the moment, it just made sense to wait, and then paint and carpet all at the same time (because if you take down a wallpaper border, you really do have to paint).
And the walls really should be re-textured, or re-drywalled, or repaired, while we’re at it.
It would be a waste of time to move everything, take down the border, paint, and then do it all over again in a few months or so when it’s time to re-carpet and re-texture.
Fixing that room was going to cost quite a bit, when it came down to it – and when I thought of removing the border the dollar signs I associated with that were possibly the biggest deterrent of all.
It made perfect sense in my head, and has for years now because new carpet for the studio really isn’t the highest thing on my household to do list. It’ll probably be many more years before I actually get to it.
Do it Anyway
So I’m really glad that I finally got tired enough of looking at that pink and blue floral garland that I started peeling the awful stuff off of the walls despite all of the arguments I had against it.
My dear husband wondered what prompted my insanity, but kindly refrained from judgement and pulled the shelves and hooks from the wall for me.
I pulled a leftover can of paint out of the storage room and painted. And while I was at it, I also whitewashed the ugly old recycled plywood shelves that I had scavenged from the old fruit room.
As I rearranged the shelves and organized everything and found lost treasures and threw things away, I fell in love with the room that I’d been making do with for all this time.
The carpet is still terrible, but when I walk into my studio it doesn’t matter quite so much. I feel refreshed and ready to create. I smile and take a deep breath (mmm, fresh paint).
And I realize that the only waste of time was all of the years that I could have been enjoying this – because aside from one small purchase, it didn’t cost a thing.
I’ll post photos next week, along with a few little tips and tricks I used to make use of things I already had around the house. . . and that one little purchase that was the exception to the rule. 🙂
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Barbara Anne Williams
Bits of Ivory
available at CuddlyBuddly
