It's Been A Long Time

As you can imagine, it's been strange around here lately. The house fees so empty without a rabbit. For the first couple of weeks, I couldn't stand to be in the house. I was doing a lot of walking, and some gardening. Then, I decided to take on some home renovation. I have been working on giving the Oldest Daughter's room an update.

I have been stripping. Wallpaper, that is. What a messy job!

 

And then, there was some spackling and sanding. It's amazing how many tack holes a kid can put in a wall. There were even holes down near the floor. Why??? I can't imagine any reason to tack something to the wall that low....

 

Priming followed. See that fabric hanging by the window? That's the inspiration for the room.

The walls have now been painted to match the blue of the fabric (no picture yet). It's an odd blue, with a touch of green in it, and then greyed down. The color name on the paint chip is "Blue Stream".

Since the kid took her furniture with her when she moved south, we purchased a futon for the room. It will have a red cover, and eventually I will make a quilt to match. I'm also going to refinish the built-in drawers, replace the tacky old ceiling fan, and gather some of my treasures from my blogland friends into the room. Unfortunately there is no budget to replace the carpet with flooring, so a throw rug will have to cover that pink for now. I'll show you more pictures as the work goes on.

In other news, the Younger One was home from college this past weekend. It was actually parent's weekend at her college, but she came home to attend the opening of Tom Grady's show, 100 Portraits: A LifetimeAt A Glance, at the Sprinkler Factory in Worcester, Ma.  In a little over a year, he painted 100 portraits, one of someone for every year from 0 to 100. The Younger One was the model for 18. Here she is standing next to it. It was done back when she still had all her curls.

 

Here she is standing next to her sister, the model for 23. When I saw the photo of this one on his website, I didn't like it as much as her sister's. Then, I saw it in person, and was blown away. Tom totally captured her in this portrait. 

 

Quite a few of the models were at the show, and he did a wonderful job with all of them. The only ones who didn't look exactly like their portraits were the youngest kids, but that had more to do with them changing. Kids have a tendancy to do that. You can see all the portraits here.   But, if you are anywhere near Worcester, I encourage you to check out the show. It's on until October 28, 2012.