Score!!!

For my birthday last November, my honey took me to Walla Walla to meet and greet Jan Brett (c'mon, you know who she is, a REALLY famous children's author and illustrator). He smilingly put on the studded tires (of course it was snowing that day) and drove me 2 1/2 hours each way. And waited in a crammed bookstore for about 2 hours before, during, and after the talk and book signing. What a guy!

Score, yes, but not the one I am writing about. We ate lunch in Walla Walla at Saffron, a Mediterranean restaurant that had really neat decor and old looking stuff, which I adore. We ate upstairs overlooking the balcony. Near us was the old brick wall between the restaurant deli and the business next door. It was an AWESOME brick wall.

Light bulb flashing over my head!

"Honey, that's what I want on the wall behind our headboard," I excitedly pointed out to him.

He did not roll his eyes. He didn't even look embarrassed when I walked over and counted bricks for an estimate for the size of our wall (which I am sure was way off, but such is life).

We talked about that brick wall all the way home. Upon arriving at home, we stood in the garage, I mean our bedroom, and stared at the wall behind the headboard. Hmmmm.

During the ensuing months, we have gone back and forth about how to accomplish the brick wall. Yes, I have paint color swatches everywhere in the house, but the green in the garage bedroom suite is the one that is staying.

Now, I do give him points for agreeing to do the brick thing. However, I did NOT want those skinny, fake bricks stuck to the wall. Ick. Nor did I want just the edges done since the headboard would hide the rest anyway. The bricks had to be old, red bricks. Not those ugly orange, yellow, rust, dirty ones that are on the front of our fireplace. That's another story.

This morning before school my guy mentioned checking out the wall stability to support bricks. "Cool," I thought. And then I didn't think about it at all. Kindergarten is like that. You have to stay in the moment - or they escape.

When I arrived home, I took my sock off to put it in the hall hamper. "Honey, is this your jacket?" I asked, since we have the same one. "And why are all of my jackets in here?"

I glanced at his face. It had an odd look, excited, expectant, maybe hesitant.

"You weren't supposed to look there first," he said.

Without taking off the other shoe or sock, I walked right to the bedroom. A brick wall stood where the headboard used to be!




First thought, he put those fakey flat brick thingys up! (My apologies to you if you like those. They are fine, but not for this particular project.)

But no! Those were REAL bricks - red, older (not European old, but old for the U.S.), and beautiful! Already in place, plastered and all!

Seems when previous owners enclosed the garage for the bedroom, they walled over the very lovely brick back of the fireplace! Am I blessed or what? My honey found them and cleared the entire wall off for me!

Check that project off the list.

Now. On to painting, lighting, and trim. Pendant lights anyone?