Sunday was a pretty momentous day for us here on Harmil Way, even when you take into account our diminished standards. After a year or so of preparation, Joe finally moved into his own room with an actual full-size bed. Naturally, there are pictures.

At Joe’s request, the room is decorated with a space motif, complete with space linens, space bedspread, space lamp, space pillow (which Joe calls “1-2-3, Yay!”) and glow-in-the-dark space wall decals that we haven’t applied yet. The space theme also dictated the color of the walls: blue and orange. According to Joe, this color scheme is required to capture the essence of traveling through space. Both colors ended up being a bit stronger on the walls than they appeared in the store; I take solace in the fact that, with luck, I will not be responsible for painting over them.

Our cleanup efforts were not limited to painting. Julie rented a Rug Doctor and gave the carpet a thorough cleaning: in all the years the room had been used as a spare bedroom and, later, an office, the only member of the family who paid much attention to the carpet was Maggie, and her standards of care were shockingly low. After a few cleansing passes with Nature’s Miracle and the steam cleaner, the carpet is in much better shape. Long term, it’s still in need of replacement, but it’s no longer completely appalling.

We did encounter one significant wrinkle during the rehabilitation of the room, however. As we were washing the walls in preparation for painting them, I went to work scrubbing the baseboards as well, thinking that we’d touch them up. Things were going along swimmingly until my thumb actually went through the wood. It appears that Joe’s room, at least, is infested with termites; further inspection revealed more baseboard damage, as well as an actual termite who poked his head out of the damaged wood. He’s dead now.

Obviously, we will need to do something to address this issue. We’re not yet sure of the scope of the problem, so we don’t know if it can be treated locally in and under Joe’s room, or whether we’ll need to have the whole house tented. Complicating matters is the fact that Julie’s online research on the effects of termite mitigation on pregnant women and fetuses revealed that some studies have found a increase in brain tumors among children who experienced prenatal exposure to the kinds of pesticides used to kill termites. With that in mind, we’ll likely leave things alone for the next couple months and figure out what to do after the baby is born. Hopefully the house isn’t reduced to sawdust by the end of September.