Plethora of Projects

In 1973 when I was five years old, my mother used to regularly visit some women from our church. One of these ladies had an antique table that she kept covered with a cloth. My mother asked if she could take the cloth off and look at the table because it was so beautiful. The woman offered the table to my mom. She said it was over 100 years old and she was tired of it. She traded my mom this table and four chairs for two different chairs. My dad spent a lot of time stripping it down and refinishing it. When my grandmother passed away, my mother got her table and this table was passed down to me. I have had it in my kitchen for about 22 years.

Over the years, the table has had lots of use. It is soft pine and you could see the grooves where my siblings and I did homework. You could see jam that couldn't be washed out of the creases. You could see glitter that just wouldn't go away. You could see lines from when I cut pasta on it. Some of the legs were chewed by a former dog. Some of the pieces were coming loose as were some of the screws.

Here is a close up of the top.

And here is a closeup of the bottom.

There was a lable that said Northern Tacoma on it. I found an interesting article about furniture making in Tacoma.  You can read it HERE. Interstingly enough, my mother's brother spent many years living in Tacoma.

I have wanted to refinish the table for several years, but I wanted to make sure we were finished moving before doing so. Since we are not able to go out anymore, I decided to take advantage of the time. I sanded the table all the way down to the natural wood. It was quite the job.

I wasn't sure how to tackle the legs because of the design.

Fortunately, David did most of the legs. He is much more patient and methodical than I am.

When David took over the table work, I decided to go to work on the chairs. We no longer have the original chairs because they fell apart years ago. The chairs we are  using now are some my dad purchased a at yard sale several years ago. They were painted an ugly gray. He stripped them down and refinished them, but they were still in rough shape.

I did not want to do anymore sanding and I planned to paint the chairs, so I used liquid sand paper instead. So much easier!! It would only work if painting because it doesn't actually remove varnish. It just dulls the surface so the new paint will stick.

I found a blog with chairs the color I liked. It said one coat would be enough, but that was a lie.

After two coats, the chairs looked great. I was so excited.

By then I was on a roll, so I decided to also use the liquid sandpaper to redo a desk. This desk was handmade by a gentleman in Houston who gave it to us about 17 years ago. It is HEAVY. It is really solid, but it was looking very worn.

I did all the painting under the gazebo with a cardboard backdrop and plastic floor liner. It was a pretty good little workshop.

We rearranged a bit to create more space and realized that the hutch also needed to get painted. The hutch is part of a bedroom set that was given to us by a neighbor about sic years ago. It is also very well made, but worn out.

David and I then refinished the table. It is so beautiful! We didn't know what we were doing so we probably should have used some kind of buffer on the table. The finished surface feels a little rough, but it looks beautiful and we are happy with it.

We also decided to paint a little red bench that was red. We painted it white and distressed it so the red would show through. It's super cute.

The new look is so much brighter and open. We love it so much.

Here are some before and afters.

Baylie caught the bug and decided to paint her headboard and dresser. I wasn't convinced about the purple, but it turned out amazing.

Here's a before (it's from when we had company so it's messier than normal).

And here's the after.

 

I made garden boxes out of wood we had in the garage.

David and the kids planted tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers.

David and I made mirror frames out of left over chair rail that was in the garage.

We let the kids paint theirs. I love it.

We bought a pressure washer and washed the entire house. It looks so good! We still need to do the driveway.

I planted a few herbs.

I have found some old fabric that we've been moving around since Houston and made a bunch of table cloths and runners, and now I'm working on a bunch of bean bags for the family trading post. I'm trying to do projects with stuff we have around the house rather than spending money.

Next, I'm hoping to get David to help me paint the hallway, kitchen and the kid's bedroom. One thing at a time!!