Stripping...the layers of my life

Soooo...I'm stripping the floor-to-ceiling floral wallpaper from one of our bedrooms.  Not my idea.  I think it looks as good today as when I put it up ten years ago, damn it.  But, whatever.  My work hours have been cut and I've got a little time on my hands.  It is a painstakingly painful process.  Even after the actuall wallpaper is off, the damn glue is coating everything and tiny bits of wallpaper are sticking to it like toilet paper lint on the butt of that Charmin bear. 

But it's strangely like excavating an archeological site.  As the layer of wallpaper comes off I remember other wall treatments, color schemes and uses for the tiny room.

When we first moved in it was a storage room.  Only two kids and not much furniture so we really didn't need to utilize it.  But soon I was able to decorate it for a nursery with colorful balloons on the walls in bright shades.  Then my little baby girl grew and the room became a toddler's room, filled with toys and a big-girl bed.  Another baby came, there was a shuffling of rooms, and it became my eldest son's bedroom.  The walls were painted steel gray and a giant space mural covered one entire wall.  More shuffling of rooms and it became a bedroom for my youngest daughter and the space mural was covered by those ubiquitous blue flowers. It was soon pressed into service as an office for me as I worked full-time from home.  Then just a spare room as the kids started moving out and I got a job outside the house. 

I never realized how that room has mirrored my life--young mother, older mother, working mother, almost-empty nester.  And now I'm stripping it and getting it ready for another incarnation.  I'm not sure yet what it will be...but I know I won't be putting up any more damn wallpaper.  That stuff sucks.