Out with the old

I'm sitting here this morning wondering what I can demo today.

This isn't entirely born of some pathological desire to destroy things. It's partly the whole end-of-the-year, out-with-the-old kind of thing.

It's also partly due to all of the ugly I have lived with since July 1, 2010. The interior of the magic bus looks like Carmela Soprano decorated it in the 80s. The wood is light, the trim is gold, the carpet is a horrid dark seafoam kind of color, the upholstery is a horrifically tacky pattern based on the same horrid green, and the valances around the windows were the same god-awful green pattern with some marbled green trimmed with marbled mauve piping. The dining area is banquette seating with storage built in underneath.

It is bad, y'all.

When we took possession of the bus, I got rid of the bed linens that matched the patterns throughout the bus. Then we covered the artwork that matched the horrible green&mauve color scheme with a print of Sunshine's artwork. The next change I made was the wallpaper border that went through the bedroom and bathroom at chair-rail height. I painted it a bright navy blue.

The next step was to remove all of the ugly ass curtains. Once the curtains were gone, the valances had to go. I assure you that I took great joy in getting that ugly green and mauve shit out of here. An added bonus to removing those valances? The whole place felt lighter and slightly bigger. Amazing what removing 3" of horror did to add space to a room, but when your whole home is less than 250 square feet, well, a few inches means a lot.

I removed the disgusting aluminum mini-blinds from the kitchen and bathroom windows the other day. I covered the bathroom window with a pelt. The kitchen window got covered by a fun piece that Mr. Sunshine likes. I also removed the accordion blind from the small window over the banquette seating in the dining room and had Sunshine hang my giraffe print over the window.

This spring, Sunshine promises that we will rip out the disgusting carpet in the front half of the bus and the yuckky wood floor in the kitchen and put down nice new wood floors. Carpet is fucking gross as hell and I cannot wait to get it out of here. Replacing the floors will involve removing all the furniture that is bolted to the floor so we can get ALL of the ugly nasty carpet out. Sunshine has promised to build an entertainment center to house that ridiculous tv, and add much needed storage. He also brought home a slab of polished granite in a half-oval shape that he promises we'll make a table out of so we can get rid of the ugly banquette seating. I've purged to the point that I can live without the 3 cubic feet of storage we will lose.

This whole ordeal of getting rid of the ugly is a bit like my recovery process. As I work the steps, I identify the ugly and replace it with a spiritual principle or two. Recovery from addiction doesn't happen overnight. And because I'm not a biollionaire, getting the ugly out of this bus isn't going to happen overnight. That's okay today. Maybe tomorrow it won't be okay, but "I'll worry about that tomorrow. After all, tomorrow is another day."

I think that my next step will be to see if I can stain this horrible cabinetry a different color. It's another small, inexpensive fix that moves me forward towards my goal of removing all the ugly.

What I want to know is who the hell decorated this thing?

It is really that bad.