What have I gotten myself into?

Sunday night, I was all full of fun, Pinteresty visions in this teen-room clean-up project:

Monday morning, I told myself I had to first get the room clean before I could dive into the fun of figuring out how to help my daughter organize all of her stuff in a small space that lacks storage (namely, a proper closet):

Before too long, I realized that I was going to have to take everything out of the room for two reasons:

1. I needed to really see everything she has in order to figure out how to best maximize the space she’s got and know what her storage needs are.

2. I needed to clear the room in order to really clean it.

#1 and #2 are closely related. Because I haven’t helped her figure out better storage solutions (especially for all the little things–earrings and make-up and school supplies), they’ve just been collecting on all those long white counter and shelf spaces. Problem with that is, it’s hard to remove them for cleaning.

Before too much longer, I realized I was going to need to paint the room. The dirty-white walls are just too…dirty. Two things happened:

1. Cane just smiled and shook his head. (He’s got his own room renovation project going on. More to come on that later.)

2. I wondered why why why why am I always surprised when projects take on a life of their own and grow?

As it happens, we’ve got an extra gallon of the color we used for our living room. It’s a very light, very neutral gray that I thought would look great with a painting that she’s used for color inspiration in the room.

Big problem: She didn’t think so.

Several frantic texts and one tense phone call later, I stopped painting.

Luckily, I hadn’t gotten too far. By that point, though, I’d been working all day. I was tired, hot, sweaty, and pretty smelly. It took a lot of muscle to get to this in one day:

And–plot wrinkle!–today we’re supposed to hit a high of 96 degrees. You might remember from last summer, I don’t do heat well:

But I will not be defeated! Not by heat, not by distance, not by my usual tendency to underestimate the job and overestimate how much I can get done in any given amount of time!

So, here’s the game plan for today:

1. As soon as I hit publish on this post, I’m high-tailing it to Home Depot for some white paint.

2. Paint like crazy before it gets too hot.

3. Get out of the heat this afternoon and spend it in the lovely, air-conditioned aisles of Ikea, Home Depot, and Michael’s for supplies to use tomorrow.

It’s just a little before 7:00 and our house is already pretty warm. Wish me luck. I think I’m gonna need it. And maybe more of these:

Have I mentioned that we have no AC? Because: western Oregon.

All advice and encouragement are MUCH appreciated!

(If you want to see how this started, click here.)