Behold the before and after

Tada!

Biscuit's room is almost done. When I asked him what kind of decorations he wanted, he said, "I think I'd like firefighters, cowboys, ninja turtles and superheroes."

No problem!

All the big stuff is done. All that's left is details. And although I've always heard that the devil is in the details, we WILL get this done! (And I say that just as much to hold myself to it as to share the thought).

Anyway, not much to say except that here's what we did:

1. Cleaned out and rearranged the attic to accommodate a piece of furniture that we were moving out of Biscuit's new room.
2. Moved out the old furniture, including a cedar chest (the piece for the attic) and an entertainment center.
3. Cleaned the daylights out of the whole room, including window sills and baseboards and dusting the walls with a swiffer mop.
4. Painted the walls.
5. Painted the dresser and bought and installed new knobs.
6. Installed new switch and plug-in plates.
7. Tracked down, bought and hung posters of the boy's favorite things (I figured posters would be an easy thing to swap out as Biscuit's tastes and interests change.).
8. Assembled a set of shelves with cubby holes.
9. Hung a picture taken by one of the photographers at the paper (Soon, there will be a small shelf under the photo that will hold a firetruck.).
10. Moved everything from Biscuit's old room to his new room, including sorting through all his clothes and deciding what goes where, since his new dresser is horizontal, and old dresser was vertical.
11. Created a pretty hefty haul for the donation store.

Projects still in the works:

1. Swapping out of the closets. (My wedding dress, some of mine and Jeff's out-of-season clothes and other items are in the closets - count 'em, TWO - in Biscuit's new room.
2. Painting the nightstand (It does need one more coat, so you won't see it in the pictures below. And it will have a new drawer pull.).
3. Printing pictures of family to put in frames.
4. Waiting for a cowboy print and a U.S. map to arrive in the mail. (When Biscuit saw his mostly completed room, he said, "Mom, this is really cool. Now all we need is the cowboy poster." And crazy me thought I was almost done!)
5. Getting rid of the entertainment center (It's a nice solid wood piece that I bought unfinished. But it's made for old-style square TVs. One of my friends thinks she might be able to turn it into a bookcase, though.)
6. And the most dreaded of all, finding new homes for all the stuff we cleared out of the room to get it ready for Biscuit.

Here are some before and after photos, as well as some details shots. The lighting in the room doesn't make for great photos, but you can get the idea.

The nightstand (which is painted the same red
as the dresser) will be where that TV table is.

The room has one big, long closet with two sets of doors.
When we did a walk-through before we bought the house, I
opened the left doors, Jeff opened the right doors, and he walked
through his side to my side and scared me half to death.

Biscuit seemed to like having
his table in front of the window.

The dresser doesn't look very long from
this angle, but it's actually 48 inches wide.

Pinto and Puppy seem to be adapting well to the move.

When I first found this piece of furniture, I thought about getting the
bigger version that is five cubbyholes high and five cubbyholes wide.
But the more I looked at it, the more overwhelming its size was. I
think the four-by-four is just big enough. I'm sure the contents
will get rearranged and swapped around, but there it is for now.

I wasn't sure if Biscuit's name train was too baby-fied or
not, but I figured I'd put it in and wait to see if he said
anything. He hasn't mentioned it yet, so for now, it stays.

This photo was taken by one of our photographers at the paper. It's
not staged. It's a photo that ran in the paper. I did some editing for
some of the photographer's work, and he wanted to do something for
me in return. I told him no, but he brought in this print for Biscuit. How
could I say no? Plus, we work with some of the best photojournalists in
the country, so I was really pleased to have this photo in Biscuit's room.

These are some of the Little Golden Books from
Jeff's childhood. Biscuit has enjoyed reading them.

The boot is a heavy piece of pottery that I painted. I figured it would fit
the cowboy part of the theme. And since Biscuit loves musical
instruments, I added in some flutes and whistles and things I had.

And speaking of musical instruments, that is a den-den daiko,
or a Japanese pellet drum. You hold the handle between your
hands and roll it back and forth. The little balls on the strings strike
the drum head and make a fun percussion sound. The shells are
ones we've picked up on trips to the beach with Biscuit.

Some things I did for my own amusement ... like putting
a pan flute on the same shelf as a Peter Pan book.

Here are the requested superheroes.

I thought these porcelain knobs were just too cute to pass up. They had three
of them, and that's how many small drawers are on the top of Biscuit's dresser.

Biscuit has all his necessities on the makeshift 
nightstand - a lamp, tissues, a coaster for his water and
a flashlight (which we found under his pillow this
morning, after his first night in his new bedroom).

I don't know those people in the small picture frames on the dresser.
Pretty soon, though, there will be faces of people Biscuit knows and loves.