A Promise Fulfilled

We bought this house in the spring of 1999. We loved the big yard, the low taxes (which have since more than doubled), the space (so nice since I was expecting baby #3 and big surprise baby #4 was yet to be made), and the fact that the house was move-in ready.  Move-in ready to us meant that there were window treatments up, landscaping in, floors in, et cetera.

We guided our 4-year-old daughter toward this room:

and suggested that she make it hers since it was so close to ours.  What we didn't tell her was that it was also already decorated in pink.  Our boy conveniently moved into the blue sailboat room and the new baby boy took up residence in the multiple hearts room.

In the following months/years, our daughter agreed that she could live with the fact that her room adjoins the main bathroom and she knows EVERYTHING that occurs in the bathoom.  She could live with the fact that the heat struggles to reach her room in the winter,  but she really hated her pink walls.  We promised her that in a short while we would redo her room.

Then, after yet again being reprimanded by the asthma doctor for allowing our asthmatic daughter to sleep in a carpeted room, we pulled the dusty carpet up and replaced it with a wood floor.

We asked her, "Aren't you thrilled with your new room?"

And she again asked about the pink wallpaper.

A while later she again asked about painting her room.  But, the baby boy in the heart room was now two walking, talking boys living in a heart room and those hearts needed to come down.  Afterall, couldn't a girl live forever in a pink, wallpapered room?

Later, it was the paneling in the family room which had to go.  Then it was part of the kitchen.  Then the living room took over a year to paint, and another year to refloor.

All the while, I told my daughter, "I will paint your room when you go to kindergarten, get out of first grade, finish brownies, agree to suffer through a season of softball, join the youth group at church, bring home just one more great report card, begin middle school, give us a thousand more hours of free babysitting,

 be nice about having to take piano lessons. And she kept her part of the bargain.

She is about to graduate from middle school as a lovely, smart, sweet, compassionate girl young woman.  And her new quilt clashes horribly with that old pink wallpaper.

So 2009 is the year and to commit to the new room project. I have stripped one little, tiny bit of unstrippable paper.  In the process, I have thought uncharitable thoughts toward the former owners who covered every wall of this house in unstrippable paper.  I have also significantly gouged the drywall.

My girl will have her walls stripped and painted before school gets out on June 10th.  Maybe even before her April birthday.

She has my word.