Here is our chocolatey new office. I love the way it turned out. We still have to put another coat on the ceiling, but the walls are done. (Thanks for the suggestions about painting the ceiling, by the way. I think that makes the whole effect very striking). The color we bought was called Bulldog, but when we opened up the cans of paint, it looked like nothing so much as giant vats of rich chocolate milk. We seriously warned the girls against drinking it, it was that delicious looking. It dried somewhat darker, and for awhile I was a little afraid it would look like a cave, but I don't think it looks like a cave. We definitely will need to put a few lamps in here in addition to the overhead light. I think the color looks best in glow of nice, warm lamplight. We'll get some colorful pictures on the walls, move the furniture back in there, and we'll have a cozy, classy-looking office/music room.



Would you like to hear a story about how absentminded I am? Here goes: The day before we planned to begin this project, I went to Fred Meyer to buy the paint. I had groceries to get as well, and my home budgeting software does not allow me to split transactions. I knew that if I wanted my spending on groceries to go in my "grocery" category and the paint to go in my "home improvement" category, I needed to buy them separately. So I got groceries first, then went back to the paint counter.

And it took forever for the lady to get the paint all mixed and shaken up and labeled, so by the time she handed me my three gallons of "Bulldog"-colored paint, the kids were cranky and I was ready to get out of there.

So that's what I did. I walked right out the door of the store.

Without paying for the paint.

When I got home and realized that I had stolen goods in the back of my car, I admit for a second I thought, "I could get away with this! I wouldn't have to pay for that paint and no one would ever know!"

But I knew that I would be wracked with guilt every time I went into my nice brown office, so instead the next day I went back to the store. I was embarrassed to explain to the employees about how dumb I was the day before (though I am not, apparently, embarrassed to share it with the world on the Internet) so I purposefully parked near the back door where employees are sparse. No one noticed me loading items from my car into the cart (instead of the other way around). No one looked up as I walked through the doors with the paint already in the cart. I walked right on through the store to the self-checkout, paid for my stolen paint, and smiled at the employee as she handed me my receipt. Mission accomplished.

And now, finally, the mission of painting this room is (almost) accomplished. Back when we first bought our house, we sat down and made a list of all the things we wanted to do to it. My husband is an engineer, which means he likes his work to be very organized, so we prioritized all our planned projects, assigning them to Priority Level 1, 2, or 3. I assumed that we'd have all the "Priority Level 1" projects banged out within a few months. Painting this room? It was a Priority Level 1.

Two years later ain't so bad, right?