My room at Illyria, now blue

My room is blue at last! Two days ago the wonderful acousticshadow2* came to help me finish painting, and brought the also lovely Josh Marcus along with her. EB is a really capable person, it turns out, when it comes to getting home maintenance chores done, as I learned when she was on the team helping me move as well as today. I'm impressed. She taught me a few things about painting a room that were really helpful, such as starting by painting up along the taped-off areas with a brush so you can follow up with the roller in the larger areas without fear of going outside the appropriate area. Josh was really helpful but going ahead of us as we painted, finishing up taping off all the trim that I hadn't gotten to yet. It took about four hours, but we got the entire room done by the end of the day. I am extremely grateful to both EB and Josh, for being so kind as to do all this work to help me out. Thanks, guys, I owe you one!

As I mentioned, the orange coat from before was not well-applied, so there was lots of orange bleed-over onto the trim, which I will eventually have to touch up with white. But I am pleased with how things look even now, so I think I will take a bit of a break and enjoy my nicer room for a while. Now I finally have the place cleaned up and back in order, which means all of you finally get to see what it looks like!

Here is my bed and nightstand in the corner. I like how the blue walls go with the blue in my bedspread, which is one of the reasons I chose it. It also looks nice against the dark wood of my bedroom set. Note the sloping ceiling, one of the more unfortunate features of the room, but that's to be expected on the top floor of a New England house of a certain age. The skylight is nice in that it provide a lot of light in a room that is otherwise a bit dark, though it also makes things quite hot if left with the shade up too long. (I had to brighten all of these photos to make them acceptably clear.) You can also see the neat low closet on that side with its shuttered accordian doors. It has a shelf and a piece of thick carpet along the bottom, and I actually haven't used much of it yet, but I expect I will as time goes on. My moose Romeo, more often called Moosey, who was a gift from Jared can be seen sitting in the place of honor on the bed.

Here is the view more or less from the door on the right side of the bed. Across from it is the smaller of the room's two full-sized closets, which I love because I have many, many clothes. That corner next to the closet was a perfect size to fit my small bookshelf, packed to the gills with show programs, English-major literature, cookbooks, and old notebooks. of mine. Horatio the beanbag mallard, affectionately known as Ducky (notice a pattern with me?), sits atop several decorative cigar boxes. I have decided to keep them there, though in general I have a preference to keeping my surfaces clear. I'm not sure the rug is necessary now that my room has a carpet, but it was in my old room and keeps with the theme of blue. You will also notice my mirror on the floor against the wall there. Now that I've painted I want to hang it there, but it is a very nice, heavy mirror that I don't want to risk breaking, so I may enlist the expertise of someone who knows more about wall hanging than I do. I am amused to notice that you can see Moosey's reflection in it from this angle.

This is what the side across from the bed looks like. This is what I mean about how the room has lots of bites and chunks taken out of it by the weird shape of the walls and ceiling. Now you can see both closets, including the larger one off in nook back there. That is also the room's only window other than the skylight, currently occupied by an air conditioner I almost never run due to the expense. You can also see the room's only real light, a tall lamp that used to be in the similarly fixture-less living room at Elsinore. It works well enough but is not bright enough for my tastes, and I am not fond of having to walk across the dark room to turn it on at night. I suppose I could move it next to the bed, but the door opens into that space and I'm worried about whacking it every time I come in. The wreath on the smaller closet's knob I idly made out of odds and ends of morethings5*'s costume while the talented hazliya* made him up a deer spirit in my kitchen for a photo shoot in the local woods. (I love how much art is in my life.)

On the only side we haven't looked at yet is probably my favorite feature of the place, the little adjoining room I have turned into an office. Here we look through the door to see the far wall and a little of how I have the place set up. Also notice that between the door to the office and the bedroom entrance is a weird little corner with a low-sloping ceiling that comes to a sharp little point. I am currently at a loss at what to do with this seemingly useless wasted space, so if anyone has any ideas I'd love to hear them. Maybe a little end table? One of those corner-shaped bookshelves? I wish it had an electrical outlet back there at least, to give me more options for what I could use it for.

Now we go into the office. On the far wall is this room's window, under which I have my computer desk. My primary computer is a desktop, all containing within the frame of that screen. I also dock my iPad on this desk, which also holds a box of odds and ends, my personal cable box, an external hard drive, the land line my dad insisted I have just in case, and Jared's high school senior photo (which incidentally I hate.) To the left of the desk is a table that holds my printer, with paper and important documents kept on the bottom shelf and various office supplies in the drawer. The chair doesn't roll very well on the carpet, so I am considering getting one of those plastic mats to put under it. I like working here, as the light and breeze from the window is very pleasant.

To the right of the desk is the old white leather armchair that used to be in the living room at Elsinore. When it didn't fit in the living room here, several people suggested I move it and the matching ottoman into my room. I am finding I quite enjoy having it to lounge in, so I am grateful for the suggestion. Next to it you will see another low closet with accordian shutters; this one is much fuller than the other one, as I use it to store my shoes and boxes of things I want to hang on to but don't necessarily use all the time. Again note the sloping ceiling, which can be a pain even for a short person like me. You can also see here the dark teal color of this room, which I can't say I love, but I don't really mind, so I am saving myself the work and not bothering to paint in here.

Here is the corner between the office door and the accordian-shuttered closet. It's a bit of a random mess right now. I decided to stick my mini-fridge right here, with its crate of random personal snack or kitchen items on top of it. You can also see that I've turned this into my "sewing corner" with my mini-ironing board, iron, sewing kit, fabric basket, and katiescarlett29*'s apron draped over my self-healing cutting mat. I'd like to have a little work table here on which to do projects like sewing or packing larps. Just need to find one I like that fits here. Maybe it would have its own chair too; I wouldn't mind having another little chair in here in case a guest needs to sit at the desk or table.

The last thing I want to show you is the space on the other side of the office door. This is my long dresser, where I keep the clothes that I don't want to hang up. Ideally this would be in the bedroom area rather than the office, but it's so long and the walls are so oddly shaped that this is the only place it would fit. I don't love having it partially under that really low part of the sloped ceiling, but again, I didn't really have a choice for where it was going to go. It just makes it a wee bit tough to use without kneeling, and the mirror in the other room used to live on top of it but now it won't fit. It's a shame, I liked it there. On top of it you will see my jewelry box, my perfume box made out of neat old cigar box that has little drawers in it, the beautiful bone china teaset Jared gave me as a housewarming present when I moved into Elsinore, and a silver tray with some frequently used beauty products on it. Again, I tend to prefer my surfaces clear, but I like having that stuff out because it's either pretty or I like the convenient access. Next to the dresser is another large lamp that used to be in the living room-- it's not great, worse than the other one in fact, but in the meantime I'm just glad for a little extra light.

And that is my room! I love having the space for living and doing things. I am really happy with the color of the blue paint. It's still technically unfinished, as things will need touched up. But now I can start putting things in their permament homes, and hanging my pictures on the walls. I will be very happy when I'm totally settled in, and I think I've made a good chunk of progress with the help of some lovely friends.