Ta-da! We still need to hang pictures and curtains, but here is the 95% completed exercise room. I did a 4-mile jog in there this morning on the treadmill and loved it. No more damn ducks staring at me while I sweat. Note the green towels stuffed in the corner window. That's the one that broke when we attempted to move the bookcase. We're going into Greensboro today to buy replacement glass.

Merry Christmas!!!

I am mentally willing my right hand to unclench. It's locked in "painter's claw" as I have spent the better part of the week in the exercise room, painting trim. The original trim was this deep, dark orange (Don't ask. We're not the ones who did it). But it took primer and 3 coats of paint to cover it.  Some panels on the door actually took four coats. At that point I was just a madwoman, flinging white paint at anything that stood still.

Still...it's beautiful. Tonight we move the furniture back in and the room is ready for use.

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We had a slight setback Friday night in the decorating process when we attempted to push-pull-shove-curse the almost immovable bookshelf in the exercise room away from the wall. This heavy piece was in place when we moved here and we're told it was formally used in the chemistry lab at the old high school.

I was pulling (i.e, straining my back but not making an inch of difference) and Blair was pushing. To give himself a little more leverage, he braced himself against what he thought was the window frame but which, unfortunately, turned out to be the window itself. "One-two-three!" we said and there was an ear-deafening shattering-tinkling noise.

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Well friends, it looks as though the blue carpet in the exercise will have to stay. I stopped in yesterday to talk to the carpet store guy and he said with both the bookcase and the weight machine, it's highly unlikely they'd be able to stretch out a new carpet as needed. They can do a cutaway around the bookshelf, which doesn't thrill me but would be serviceable. However, the weight machine is huge and a problem.

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Here are a few pictures to get you started. The first is of the exercise room, pre-wallpaper ripping. Note the lovely duck motif that coincides so well with the dark orange trim and blue carpet. It's hard to believe we've lived with that for almost 12 years now. (We get to things in our own time.)

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