Challenging Love to Be Unconditional - INTERMISSION NO. 4

RE-DESIGN AND RE-UNION

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Birthday Intermission Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20Intermission No. 2 Part 21 Part 22 Part 23 Part 24 Part 25 Part 26 Part 27 Part 28 Part 29 Part 30 Intermission No. 3 Part 31 Part 32 Part 33 Part 34 Part 35 Part 36 Part 37 Part 38 Part 39 Part 40

While I write I am also doing some upgrades to the @gardenofeden main house.   I have lived here for 23 years, and am once again taking the opportunity to clear some energy, and breathe even more life into our beloved space.  I have recently completed three rooms, and am moving forward on my fourth.  

As I clean, repair, and refresh, the flooding of memories that have imprinted themselves on the space is quite intense!  There have likely been hundreds of people who have stayed in these rooms.  Some little tokens are left behind as people flow through, which conjure up the thoughts of old times potently again.

The first room I completed was my son’s room.  He spent about 10 years of his life in this room.  He had constant sleepovers, and he and his friends loved this room because it was the darkest room of the house where he/they could get into a deep sleep at any time of the day or night. His floor was carpeted then with a second layer of lego creations continually in progress.   His many dozens of swimming ribbons hung on nails on the wooden beam across the top of his closet.  Many years of gaming went on in this room as well.   The energy of his spriteness set the foundation for many transformations to come.  Some of my most heartwarming and loving memories in life were of him here in his childhood years.

When standing in the stove room, facing the stove, this is the bedroom on the right.  When this was my son's room it was painted a salmon color and had antique texts decoupaged to one of the walls.  For many years now, this room has been this color blue.

This room, since becoming an integral space at the @gardenofeden, has taken on many new identities.  Here are a few from my recollection:

• Child’s play room twice - one of those times filled with many stacked mattresses to make a jungle gym bouncing room
• Vault - housing some of our most precious goods
• Dorm - set up with 6-8 people sleeping spaces at a time
• Two room private quarters
• Kitchen pantry overflow

Cleaning out the space.

Patching up the walls.

The terrazo floor that was once covered in carpet, was also once painted.

Half of the floor is terrazo, the other half plywood.

After repainting the walls white, I decided on my floor design, and began laying out a few cardboard squares to get a visual.

The terrazo had grout lines already imprinted on the floor, so I decided on a faux finish that would create the illusion of tiles on the wood part of the floor too.  I chose to make some measurement adjustments to the squares to make the "grout lines" fall on the natural breaks between the plywood sheets.

I laid out my paint options and chose my colors.

And I selected some salvaged interestingly detailed broken picture frames to be used as part of the thresholds.

I patched some of the worst rough spots, trying my best not to get too carried away, as I could go on and on with the details of this old house!!

We sanded the wood smooth to closer resemble the smoothness of the tiles.

I painted the entire floor with a couple of coats of floor and patio paint.

The paint tied the whole floor together.  The grout lines were still visible on the terrazo.

I hand drew with chalk the positioning for the grout lines on the wood section.

I painted every other square metallic copper - a second coat was required.

And every other square a metallic gold.

Though I am detailed oriented and good with a brush, and though I'm not a fan of taping as I hate to waste all that tape that's useable only once, without the tape it was an extremely time consuming and tedious task to get the lines straight and the corners crisp.  Nick helped me to cut the tape into long strips of the appropriate width and tape up the floor.

We used blue painter's tape to stick lightly to the brown undercoat, yet seal the edges well enough to keep the metallic paint from seeping under.

The metallic copper painted on every other square.

The second coat of metallic gold and copper paint.  Tape yet to be removed.

After the second coat of metallics, I peeled up the tape to reveal the brown grout lines underneath.

The plywood, though still having some of it's wood texture, blended together pretty fluidly with the terrazo.  My adjustment in tile size to accommodate the breaks in the plywood are barely noticeable unless you specifically know what you're looking for.

I painted on several coats of polyurethane to seal the paint and protect the surface.

Nick crafted baseboards out of spare cedar boards to match the cedar wall at the one end of the room.

I began pulling out the room decor.

And began creating our rustically majestic space.

There's a little hanging handmade antique box at the head of the twin bed in which to keep one's personal treasures.  And the simple framed artwork is straight from our boutique.

This room has a cozy sitting space in the corner (which now is graced with a large mirror over the love seat).

It's a super romantic space at night.  Very comfy and cozy for a serene night's stay.

Freshening up this room does give it new life, but it doesn't erase the bazillion memories made here.

If you have made any memories in this room, I would love to hear what you did in there.  Or would I?  Maybe don’t really give me too many details, but share what you reasonably can.  Please tag anyone in this post you believe also stayed in this room and encourage their stories too.  We can have a room reunion!!

We, of course, are holding space for our family of light workers to step into the vortex.  You can come stay with us in this cool room through AirBnB and experience the love at the @gardenofeden.  

Thank you for reading my blog and for going on this journey with me toward Unconditional Love!

Stay Tuned for Part 41

Get in on the series from @saramiller about her own intriguing  personal experience at the @gardenofeden.

Check out the @gardenofeden website too.