How To Vacation in Your Own Home

When we first moved into our 80 something year-old home there were 6 rooms that had wallpaper. This included the hallway - which should really count as two rooms because of its size.
This wallpaper dated back at least 40 years if not 80. In the first year that we lived here, we stripped the wallpaper in four rooms. We scraped,*we painted, we plastered, and we cried with joy when those four rooms were done.

And then we rested...

...for a few years.

This rest went on until we could no longer stand walking through the hallway, so we stripped the wallpaper, and wisely** hired a painter to take care of the hallway and a big gaping hole in our kitchen ceiling (plumbers, sigh).

And we rested again. Until the front room reno lit the fire under my arse and sparked a whole new list of home projects. On June 27th, I came home from work and spent my Friday night cleaning out our bedroom as we*** had decided it was high time to say goodbye to the ferny wallpaper in our bedroom.

This gets me to the title of this post. For just over a week now we have been sleeping in the "back bedroom" also known as "Serge's room"**** Mr. Happy and I have been joking that it's like being on vacation in our own house. We've never slept in that room before, so it's kind of like visiting a foreign land. It is also much quieter back there which is a nice change from our room which is on the front of the house.

So, here are my tips on how to have a mini-vacation in your own home:

1. Move all of your things out of your usual bedroom.
2. Turn your bedroom into a construction zone - rip down old wallpaper. Prep the walls for painting.

3. Move into the spare room.
4. Pile your clean clothes on the chairs and floor in the room.

5. Stay up late reading and/or knitting.

6. Delay the work on your room as long as possible so that you can stay on your vacation for an entire week.

7. Take time to make jam and bread in the middle of what could be prime construction time - you're on vacation, you don't have a deadline!

Despite the fun I'm having on this vacation, it will be nice to get back into our own room. Here's hoping it's all done soon.



*80 year-old wallpaper often comes off easily.
**That's still up for debate as the walls could have used another coat of paint.
***More like, I decided and Mr. Happy came home to the construction zone.
*****Serge was our boarder who moved out in 2004, but we still call it his room. We're like parents who keep their kids room as a shrine, only Serge took his Little League trophies and bottles of wine when he left.