Joseph's bedroom is the smallest in the house, 8'x8'. Making his room livable has taken many years of hard work. First, we had to take down the dark wood paneling which made the room gloomy and depressing. Next, we closed the bathroom off from the bathroom. (We used to have to go through his room to get to the bathroom. When we remodeled the bathroom we had to tear out the walls. We found that a door frame already existed for a living room connection, but it had been sealed off for some reason.)
The next project had to be the window in his room. There was only one window which was mostly filled with a huge swamp cooler. We wanted more light in the room and although we weren't thrilled about losing the swamp cooler, events soon came to light that made us change our tune. Both of our children are allergic to mosquitoes and somehow we kept getting them in the house. The children were getting more upset and paranoid as time went on because their reactions to the bites were so painful. We searched and searched for the source of the pests but couldn't find it. There had been a lot of mosquitoes in our yard since we moved into the house as well, but we couldn't find any water source from our yard they were using.
One night we saw a moth fly into the house through the swamp cooler. In an effort to avoid getting anymore critters we taped a screen around the opening for the swamp cooler in Joseph's room. We went back the next day and were disgusted by what we found. Pushed up against the screen were some 100 dead mosquitoes. The mother bear in me awoke. Although it took some time to prepare, I knew what had to be done.
Mario and I began tearing everything out. As I pulled off the screen I felt ill. There were thousands upon thousands of dead mosquitoes against the screen now and I had to use a vacuum to clean it all up. We removed the swamp cooler and tore out the window. Mario and I worked late into the night to install the new window. Even though we only had a hand saw, we cut 2x4's and prepped the surface according to code. We were proud of what we had accomplished when the window was complete. It took us another good long while to get the rest of the room done, but at least there were no mosquitoes coming in his room. (Since then we have also noticed that there are hardly any mosquitoes in the neighborhood. I think we might have been providing the local supply, Oops!)
The next stage in Joseph's room was to repair the walls. We had really hoped to do a patch job but soon realized how impossible this was. There were so many holes and cracks the only option was to tear out 2 1/2 walls. This was a hard blow to Mario as he had spent 6 months + scraping wallpaper off of the walls. (We took advantage of the blank canvas and insulated the exterior wall as we had done in the bathroom and we had the room rewired.) Tearing out the walls was a difficult feat as I had to do most of it myself. On a whim I decided to ask Joseph if I could use his baseball helmet while knocking out the walls and ceiling because I was having to make some powerful swings with a rather ominous crowbar. This turned out to be wisdom on my part. Not 5 minutes after putting the helmet on, I hit a piece of plaster that hit back. The crowbar rebounded and hit me square in the side of the head near my temple. I am convinced I would have been seriously injured if the helmet hadn't taken the majority of the hit. After the clean up we were ready to hang the drywall.
Looking back at Joseph's room adventure, I could really only think of one tragically humorous moment. It was when Mario and I were hanging the drywall. The walls were difficult, but nothing compared to the ceiling! We bought 8'x4' pieces of drywall (looking back, we should have bought smaller pieces). Mario was standing on a card chair and I was on the latter. We lifted the huge pieces (which soon felt like slabs of concrete to our trembling arms) over our head and tried to take turns placing screws. The idea sounded easy enough when we were on the ground but the application was a bit more of a struggle.
With arms shaking so bad the board wobbled and heads aching from bearing the weight we scrambled to hand each other screws and the drill. When Mario suggested to me how and where to put the screws in, I had flashbacks to when I was in labor with Andrea and Mario told me I wasn't breathing right. I may have snapped at him both times, but I was and am grateful for his help. When we finished the ceiling we were exhausted and headed to bed.
The room sat empty for a couple of months because school and other drama crept into our life. In the middle of my fall semester Dad and Mom Cyr announced they were coming to town. I knew it was an answer to my prayers when they arrived and Mom helped paint and texture and Dad cleaned up the yard and helped with the woodwork and door for Joseph's room.
The room only has a few more touches left before it is complete. It is so peaceful when we go in there. It is the warmest room in the house with all of its insulation and its new window. Joseph is sleeping peacefully and he feels loved and safe in his new room.
We are relieved to have this age long project out of the way so we can focus on the next project. We will continue to survive this house one room at a time.
P.S. We have installed a wardrobe into Joseph's room now, so it is officially a three bedroom.
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