the playloom

The last time I actually liked our back room, known as the playroom but pronounced playloom, it looked like this:

That's the couch where Ellie and Bill spent many, many, many nights.

That couch is long gone, as is the carpet and that funny little tv meant to plug into one's car. The desk, the tray tables, the wooden shelf you can just see the edge of in the foreground, and the curtains that my mother in law made while I was in the hospital birthing that ballerina? Those things stayed long past their welcome in the playloom. 

See?

Over the years, the playloom became the bane of my very existance. Look:

Hate. Not you, honey. Hi Bill!

It was just so full of dumb stupid things that nobody wanted or needed or gave a single shit about.
I'd try to overhaul it every once in a while, purging and cleaning and throwing away the literal piles of trash that were always everywhere. It was never enough.

The room needed to be sorted out properly, which in my mind could only be done in one way. I designated three collection areas:

and enlisted my girl to make three signs:

Poor Dumb Bastard

Then we dug in

Until we were all dug out

You should have heard my girl scolding me as I literally pulled this piece apart in my relentless haste to drag it out the door. She's no fun. 

We left the plugged together stuff in the middle of the room, and if you'd like some foreshadowing I will tell you that this jumbled mass of cables and modems and surge protectors is the new bane of my existence.

Once we were out with the old, we foraged to the home improvement store to pick a paint color, then prepped for the big moment

Tadaaaaaaa! 

I thought we settled on a nice light-ish shade of charcoal gray, but it is blue. Nothing but blue.

It's a nice blue. But it's blue. This was before touch up/second coat, shoosh. 

In the meantime, we needed some new furniture! So we got this:

To class up this dump

P.D.B.

And moved Big Red into the playloom

And just as the story gains excitement and momentum, we stalled.

There were lots of big distractions with a side order of lazy procrastination.

We did manage to dispose of the TOSS pile, and the DONATE pile won't be picked up until June 10.

I found ways to distract myself while secretly wishing that everything under the green tarp in the KEEP pile would be destroyed in the elements.

Damn this perfect San Diego weather!

to be continued.....

eventually.