Projects

The first thing I do after a placement leaves is to do a project.  This time I had the Jolt right after so I had to wait a little longer than usual, like a whole other week.  The first thing we did was put the trim around the built in couches in the pit.   

 The second project we did was the post around the pit.  I honestly thought this would be a quick all day project and be easy peasy.  It was NOT.  It was a huge pain in the rear and the results are terribly boring and very disappointing.   On a more positive note, the only grime and dirt on the post from here on out will only be the stuff we put on it instead of hundreds of people that lived her before us.  I planned on doing it all myself but in the end needed my wonderful hubby to help.  The below picture is before.

 The person who originally installed, stained and varnished this post did an excellent job.  It took forever to get it off.  I bought a sander that had a bag on it so that it wouldn't make a huge mess.  Well, let me tell you something about those bags.....they don't work!! There was wood dust everywhere!! When I say everywhere, I truly mean everywhere, between all the books, ceiling, light fixtures, couches, curtains, every wall upstairs, all the cabinets.  It was such a pain to clean up.  Stain was a whole other story.  I got one that matched the original stain, or so I thought.  Once I put it on, it turned red.  After sanding and a new stain, it still turned red, I gave up and just left it.  It adds another shade of wood.  Isn't that the goal, see how many different shades of wood we can have on one floor?

Here is the end result.

The next project was fun and well worth the time and energy it took to do it.  Every cabinet in the house (except the kitchen) look like this.  They are in excellent condition and solid wood so I don't want to throw them away but I really dislike the look of them. I'm pretty sure the hardware is the original too.

 I took them off and sanded them down.  Once again they were done very well and it took some sanding to get the shine off.

 I added some moldings around the edges, caulked and puttied them, painted them white and added new hardware.

 The countertops aren't my favorite either and I'm not sold on replacing them yet either so I did a temporary fix.  I painted them too.

 I love the end results.  I'm going to replace the sink and faucet to finish off the look.

 Since I was already making a mess and had all the stuff out, I built some shelves inside too.

 My last project was to make new pillow covers for some of the pillows in the house.  I don't hate the pillows but I wanted something more spunky.