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By MARQUES G. HARPER [email protected]
Saturday, December 07, 2002     Page: 1D

So the wait is over. Here it is.
   
The coats of fresh paint have long dried and turned a dark paneled room
into a bright one. New carpeting has been installed, replacing aging tiles.
    Gone is the treadmill, banished to the garage. No more tan wall-mounted
telephone with the long dangling cord. It was replaced by a sleek cordless
phone. Gone are the Don Ho glasses, souvenirs from a 1970s vacation to Hawaii.
   
Rice Township resident Sandra L. Roskowski’s “guest room/exercise room,”
a box-car-shaped basement room, has finally found itself, taking on a new
identity based on the desert and the cultures of India and Africa.
   
“Oh, what a transformation,” Roskowski said after seeing the revamped
room for the first time a few weeks ago. “This is beautiful. Never in my
wildest dreams did I think it could be this beautiful.”
   
Aware of the soaring popularity of home-makeover television programs such
as The Learning Channel’s “Trading Spaces” and “While You Were Out,” we
invited readers several months ago to submit a photograph of the ugliest room
in their home and a letter explaining why it needed a major update.
   
“I haven’t the foggiest idea how to begin to tackle this overwhelming
task,” wrote Roskowski, chosen as our winner because her room appeared the
most structurally sound and was loaded with potential. In 1990, Roskowski
bought her split-level from her parents, who had the home built in the early
1970s. “The room’s latest acquisition, a braided rug, was definitely a major
faux pas on my part. It creates an optical `daymare’ as well as nightmare. …
What was I thinking?”
   
While redecorating a room can be pretty costly, we aimed to complete the
makeover of Roskowski’s “ugly” room on a slim budget. So the Times Leader
chipped in $627 for the project, while advertisers and a team including an
artist, painter, interior decorators and an interior designer offered their
services and merchandise to cover the rest of the cost.
   
Unlike “Trading Spaces,” we didn’t allow ourselves two days but a month
and a half. And to some extent, we were willing to negotiate what could and
would stay put in the room. (Roskowski wanted most of the furniture to stay.)
   
When we started the project in mid-October, Roskowski’s room was a
hodgepodge of dark wood paneling, tile flooring and wooden furniture, which
was mostly bunched in one corner.
   
Measurements were taken and a design scheme hatched. And a bulk of the
basics – painting the paneling (a service donated by B&M Painting of Dallas)
and installing the cream-colored carpeting (donated by Fashion Floor of
Kingston) – was completed early on in the eight-week project.
   
During a rainy Saturday afternoon in November, the team, led by Times
Leader employee and interior decorator Rosa Thompson, carried bags and boxes
and a suitcase of tools into Roskowski’s home and spent hours adding the
finishing touches to seal the deal on our “Help My Ugly Room” makeover
contest.
   
The transformation was complete after artwork, lamps with beaded shades,
draperies and bedding were installed that afternoon.
   
To give the room some drama, an oasis look was selected for the overall
theme, said Thompson, who runs Innovation Decor of Forty Fort.
   
“I like a mix of things,” she added. So that meant the room took on other
cultures and influences, blending the desert theme with hints of Indian
temples on a comforter, bamboo poles and tables, exotic plants and animals
such as elephants, zebras and leopards. To add some flair, a canopy, made of
netting and hung from bamboo, was affixed to the ceiling.
   
“This room was a little challenging because it had three doorways and the
outside door made four,” said Pam Swierbenski, an interior designer for
Interior Accents in Dickson City, who also worked on the project. “The room
was so cut up like that.”
   
If Roskowski had received a bill for the work, the total cost would have
been $3,327, including installation charges.
   
But redecorating a room doesn’t have to be such a costly endeavor,
Swierbenski added.
   
That’s if a homeowner works out a plan, takes measurements of the room and
skips impulse furniture or decor buying, she said.
   
While Thompson purchased lamps for Roskowski’s room in St. Louis, there are
other options and local home stores and department stores where homeowners can
find the perfect pieces to outfit a revamped room.
   
“Paint does a tremendous change in a room,” Swierbenski said. “Sometimes
just moving furniture around” will do the trick.
   
As for Roskowski’s room, her furniture was reused – and moved around –
during the project, and that dropped the overall cost considerably. A
mint-green slipcover with a zebra border was made to fit the bed’s headboard,
giving it an updated look. Matching window finishings, pillow shams and
premade drapes (donated by J.C. Penney) in a similar style and color were
added to the room.
   
Going with a slipcover is a more affordable way to get around having to pay
$1,000 or more for new sofa, said Sandra Serhan, a Harveys Lake resident and
an interior decorator for Sandra’s Slipcovers & Sara Sheen Draperies.
   
Roskowski’s old, white Formica dresser was given new life when Dallas-based
artist Cindy Trudgen painted a mural on the front of it. The new look of the
dresser matched a director’s chair and a larger painting that was hung above
the bed’s headboard.
   
Trudgen said a homeowner doesn’t need to be an artist to revamp an older
piece of furniture or give flair to something plain. The only thing needed is
patience, she added.
   
“What took the longest was the dresser,” said Trudgen, who has painted
murals, furniture and portraits for other home-decorating projects. “The
painting behind the bed I did in a day. The chair I did the morning” the room
was finished.
   
To redo the dresser, Trudgen said she lightly sanded it before applying
paint and a protective sealant. It was that simple, she added.
   
As for Roskowski, the French teacher at Crestwood High School joked that
she might move her bedroom to the revamped basement room. Or she said she
might consider her friend’s request to have an “ugly room party.”
   
“I always knew that china closet was in the wrong spot,” Roskowski said
while standing in her remade room. “I just can’t get over it. It takes my
breath away. It’s truly beautiful. I can’t believe it. What a
transformation.”
   
Marques G. Harper, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 831-7324.
   
TIMES LEADER STAFF PHOTOS/S. JOHN WILKIN
   
Sandra L. Roskowski, a Rice Township resident and French teacher at
Crestwood High School, sits in her newly revamped guest room. Roskowski is the
winner of the Times Leader’s `Help My Ugly Room’ makeover contest. The project
team, which included an artist, designer and decorators, gave the room an
oasis theme.
   
This dresser was once white and showing its age. Dallas-based artist Cindy
Trudgen repainted the piece and added a mural that matches a director’s chair
and a picture hanging in the basement room of Sandra L. Roskowski’s house in
Rice Township. The space was completed with a mirror and other accents such as
a lamp with a beaded shade and plant in an elephant-shaped vase.
   
Ready-made drapes complement a Roman shade and a trunk cushion by Sandra
Serhan of Sandra’s Slipcovers & Sara Sheen Draperies of Harvey’s Lake
   
and create a cozy sitting space by the bed.
   
A painted director’s chair and potted plant were added to the room. The
china closet was emptied of vacation souvenirs and filled with decorated
picture frames, gift boxes and other photographs.
   
Sandra L. Roskowski didn’t know what to do with her basement guest room,
which was once a dark space because of wooden paneling. The room was a
`hodgepodge of furniture styles,’ Roskowski wrote in a letter to the Times
Leader.