Good grief. I never in a million years meant that my expression picked up (if you will) from my own region was one that was used anywhere else other than in my own region.

My original request--way back up there--was simply to hear what other expressions others might use to mean the same thing. My friend from childhood from the Swedish family always referred to 'readying up the room,' which I mentioned sounded quaint to me as a child. My own family's expression of picking up a room, granted, would sound equally 'foreign' to those outside of my region. The only thing I was suggesting that was in context English-speaking people could figure out this somewhat bizarre expression and realize that I hadn't meant I was going to literally pick up the room, an obvious physical impossibility, but instead would consider other applications of the verb 'to pick up' thereby knowing what I meant when I said I was going to pick up the room.

Then I asked for expressions meaning to straighten a room (and that's one to think about: why? Was the room crooked?). I figured there would be some from your own regions that might prove to be equally confusing to non-English speaking people.

So, let me be clear: I never meant that my own expression of picking up a room was meant to be one familiar to all English-speaking people. I simply meant that it was one that English-speaking people would not find quite as hard to figure out as non-English-speaking people.

Wow chimed in well with blitzing a room. I feel like blitzing my communication efforts today that have certainly been less than effective.