The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Office Improvements (aka Milestone #2)

We took an unanticipated two month break from our business preparations as other parts of life interfered much to our detriment. In order for us to really commit and truly make this a worthwhile enterprise, we must not allow outside influences to distract us from our purpose. That being said, I've taken steps to eliminate certain aspects of life so disturbance will be at a minimum. Part of my pledge to rededicate myself to our business involved redoing the work space we deemed as RooBee Box HQ.

If you remember, this is what it looked like at first:

We agonized for weeks over the colors we'd paint the walls and debated tile vs. laminate flooring vs. carpet. Since our business is a Do-It-Yourself mentality, it can't be surprising we opted to go to YouTube and find out how hard it would be to lay our own flooring.

This video and others like it, while extremely interesting and helpful, were ultimately useless because when we consulted with a friend who actually remodeled houses for a hobby, he told us for our needs carpet would be the way to go. Tile was too prone to problems in an upstairs room and the subfloor would have to be fortified for laminate flooring, which seemed too much of a hassle and too expensive compared to putting carpet down.

Surprisingly, carpet was the easiest decision for us to make as we both had similar ideas for the look, and all we needed was the perfect paint color to match. We ended up using Lowe's for a good portion of our needs because it was simple and a little cheaper than Home Depot. I wanted something with a short nap and decent color that would hide any stains fairly well; they were running a deal so we ended up buying Stainmaster carpet because of a) the cheap installation price and b) the guarantee of quality.

My partner had a fabulous idea - we'd use a paint sprayer and just do the walls ourselves without any problems as a 10x15.5 room would be a snap to finish, give or a take a few hours. All we needed to do was putty the walls and lift the carpet. So, with hope in our hearts, and dreams in our eyes we started off.

Now for anyone who's ever stripped carpet, you'll know how annoying it is to tear up both the top layer and the pad beneath it; now add 30 years, former smoking roommates, and several cats and you'll completely understand how disgusting the job really turned out to be. Fortunately we developed a routine which involved my partner pulling up the disgusting mess and me hauling it away to the dumpster. Neither of us wore protective gear, unfortunately, and the gunk got into our lungs so we decided to wait one more day to paint.

The next day came early - 6 A.M. to be precise - and Roo was first in line at Lowe's for this beauty:

One hour later - after prepping the gun and tank plus reading the page length directions - we discovered the stream wasn't very strong and prone to clogging when we used the paint. It took two determined women, a half gallon of white ceiling paint, and a little cussing for us to realize the paint sprayer was defective and needed to be returned for another model. So back to Lowe's we went.

Unfortunately their other paint sprayer - the larger one - was checked out for the day and we needed it a.s.a.p. since the installers were coming the next afternoon (nothing motivates you more than a deadline involving brand spanking new carpet you don't want messed up), so off to Home Depot we went (but not before getting our money back and a free can of paint from Lowe's for our troubles). We rented this bad boy from them:

And finally we were done!

The finished product - once the rug went in.

Now all that's left is for us to furnish it properly.