When we first saw this arguably charming but definitely neglected house seven years ago, my husband and I couldn't decide whether or not we should take on such a daunting project.

"Let's make a list of pros and cons," he suggested, so we each sat down with a pad of paper and began scribbling. My first entry under the pro side was "writing room." I could finally have a space of my own in which to create, to reflect, and to hide my Sharpie pens and chunky notebooks from my kids. (My husband repeated his first pro as his second, third, and fourth, too-- space for a big screen tv!!)

We ended up buying the house, but my dream of escaping to what would be my tiny writing room up in the attic remained a fantasy for quite a long time. I was too busy dealing with the catastrophes that were happening on a regular basis in every other part of the house. (The first six months alone brought us a host of problems that read like a list of plagues-- Fleas, Dead Furnace, No Water In Second Floor Bathtub, Half of Front Porch Suddenly Falling Off, Baby Possum Stuck On Roof, Kitchen Light Fixture Inexplicably Crashing to Floor, and Mysterious Thumping Noise Often Heard Underneath Dining Room Table.)

More time passed with still no progress on my little sanctuary. I'd be down in the basement, mopping up rainwater from the latest flooding, and fantasize about my room like it was some faraway exotic destination. I cut pictures out of the Pottery Barn catalog to give me inspiration on how to decorate it once I was finally ready. I envisioned a clean space with a Zen-like quality, streamlined to accommodate a sleek desk and chair, with little else to distract from my pursuit of creativity. One day on a whim, I bought an interesting vase at a cool gallery to hold my pens and that inspired me to finally haul myself up to the third floor. I think I wrote ten words before I heard the familiar "Mom! There's something wrong with the toilet!"

As it turned out, the vase was only one of the very few things I purchased to furnish my writing room. Almost everything else in here is a hand me down, usually from one of my daughters' bedrooms when they no longer wanted it. (Which explains the Sleeping Beauty motif on an old nightstand that now serves as my filing cabinet.) This room has become the cats' favorite place to sleep, so their beds litter the floor near my desk, which is a rescued table from my mother's basement. The dented bookshelf was left here by the previous owners, because it is simply too big to get out of the room.

And then, most unexpectedly, there are Blanche and Maude, the vintage life-sized wooden mermaids (although, come to think of it, who can be exactly sure what life-sized is when talking about mermaids?) that flank either side of my window. These were obtained at an antique show when I stopped in front of them to tie my gym shoe and the dealer said with a desperate edge in his voice, "Give me twenty bucks for the mermaids and you can take them. I'm sick of dragging them around to every show." How could I say no?

So that's how this odd scrap of a room came into being. The best part of working in here is the feeling of safely being tucked away and not being able to witness the dishwasher leaking all over the floor or the doorknob falling off the front door again. If I ever manage to come up with a best-seller, I'll use part of my newfound riches to buy that desk and chair. The Sleeping Beauty nightstand and sad bookshelves will both be tossed out immediately. The mermaids, however, can stay.