I have done a lot of testing with the Annie Sloan Chalk Paint and Soft Wax in regards to durability on a table. I have a sample that I have let water, coffee, smoothies, and various foods sit on for hours at a time. The liquids have remained as a "pool" and never soaked in. I was able to clean with soap and water very easily but also tested Windex and Simple Green very successfully. As a professional finisher for over 12 years (and have been dabbling for 20!) I have found the Annie Sloan products to be the easiest to use and the most durable. I will still take out my professional spray system and use other paints and clearcoats if my clients insist, but after I show them how durable the waxed Chalk Paint is and how much more affordable, they are sold everytime! Enjoy the process!

Ok, three of my favorite voices around here--Palimpsest, Ideefixe and Oakleyok--have pretty well covered all the bases, but just to recap... The three biggest causes of Decorating Remorse--other than watching TV decorating shows & wishing you had done something other than what you already did, I mean--are Being in too big a hurry & buying something just to have something (rather than have nothing), Worrying about inconsequential stylistic labels & categories, and Buying brand new pieces. I did without a sofa for five years rather than buy something merely to be have something to sit on, I don't worry about what style supposedly goes with what, and I never buy anything new. Well, almost never. The most expensive thing in my house is an early 19th century sofa, for which I forked over 850 of my hard-earned dollars, and the two-months-long diet of peanut-butter sandwiches that paid for it was worth every bite. The second-most-expensive thing I ever bought was also the only thing I've ever bought new: a gigantic 3-piece arched mirror set out of a popular catalog that looked very handsome in the photo but which turned out to be a piece--well, three pieces--of junk, which I should have predicted, since, Hello!, it was in a popular catalog. All I can say is I must have been on Nyquil that day. Anyway, I seldom make mistakes, but when I do, I don't brood & beat myself up over them, so I hauled them down to the service entrance lobby of my building and in a few hours, they were gone. The sofa I'll have forever.

Mostly on CL, and occasionally a garage sale. But .... as painted furniture has become trendy around here, the prices of vintage furniture has skyrocketed! People assume their piece will be bought, painted, and re-sold, so original prices are double what they used to be. I even see in ads: "This would be great painted!" (ie, this big hunk of plastic wood with glued on medallions is worth all the monies now, thanks to you painters!) I'm really wanting to take a trailer to NY (where my husband is from) and fill it up! Also, my neighbor is from Belgium, and I teasingly asked her to ship me back antiques next time she visits family (not to paint, but to resell as is). She laughed; she knows I'd end up keeping it all. :D

I have considered it! What I run into is-his room has one wall w/the living room, two outside walls, and the fourth wall is the closet butted up to son's bedroom closet in son's room. So just the one wall w/a regularly used room. Son's has the bathroom. Daughter's has the bathroom, living room and kitchen. The living room at least is a "quieter" room to be next to-there's no cabinets or pots and pans, shower, flushing, water running etc. If he was in the kids' rooms and had been off work only a couple hours and the three of us were using the bathroom trying to get ready for school, or in daughters room and we were in the kitchen getting lunches/breakfasts..ugh. We don't tiptoe around, nor is there excessive craziness in the morning but still, it's loud. He would balk at moving. His room *is* a skosh bigger, however! (enough that all of her clothes and all of mine would fit in it, and I wouldn't have to store them in the hall closet and our son's room, *and* she could still have a small vanity) Personally, it makes sense to me for all of us to round robin it-he go to son's room, son's to daughter's room, and daughter and I go to his room. He could put the bed against the exterior wall that faces the neighbor, under the window, which would put it as far away from the bathroom as possible, or under the other window, which goes to our backyard, tho it would be a bit closer to the bathroom. Round robin makes the most sense. Positive it would be a no-go. Not that I won't try tho!