Refinishing 101

Do you have any furniture around your house that you hate? Well I did. This was Amber's hope chest. Truly a vestige of the '80s --oak veneer, floral print seat and all. GAG!!!! The beauty of it though, is that it is cedar lined and makes a great bench and a place to store blankies. (yeah, I said blankies, got a problem??) Since we are living in this rental house, space has been at a premium. We really needed to get it out of the loft where the TV and the toys reside. This project was all Amberly's idea, I am just the laborer.

Here are the supplies we used. This was all purchased at the home depot. It cost about $60, it would have been much less, but all of our painting supplies were in storage, so we had to buy a few brushes and a roller and roller pan. The biggest cost was new hardware for the front of the chest.

First, I had to carry it down the stairs to the back patio. I felt like Emmett on Breaking dawn setting up for Bellas wedding.

We removed the pad, removed the old handles and the hinges. Then sanded the bench down. I used 100 grit and a vibrating sander.

The boys LOVE power tools.

Like my socks?

The next step was to paint a primer coat. This stuff was STICKY, in retrospect we probably didnt need to sand the bench first. The primer coat did a good job of keeping the wood grained pattern covered.

We let this dry and went to pick out our fabric for the bench. Then we decided to go see "This means war" --GREAT FLICK. We had a fun date. I am glad the weather is so nice out we were just able to leave it on the back patio until the next day.

The next step was to paint. We used a color called beluga (black). It took two coats.

While the paint was drying, we recovered the old bench pad. We left the old fabric on and just covered it. We picked out a fun color and pattern. we were tired of living in taupe. I was happy to have an excuse to use my staple gun. This fabric cost about $9 at hobby lobby in the upholstery fabric rolls.

We thought the leopard print might spice up the bedroom a little bit.

After the painting came the antiquing. This basically means sanding all of the edges and corners, to make it look like its been in your family for 100 years.

This shot shows how I propped things up. I turned a laundry basket upside down, covered it with a dropcloth and then balanced the chest on top of it so we could get the edges easily.

Next we placed a poly-acrylic clear coat. It was pretty fast drying. Then reassembly of the hardware and hinges.

Here is the new handle next to the totally 80's old one.

FINISHED

Then I hauled it back upstairs twilight style---and VOILA!! A beautiful antique hope chest. Now blanket storage and place for me to put my shoes on.

Interior Shot:

Right at the foot of the bed.

Now sweetheart wont have to jump so high, and Michael wont have to lie and cry.

I am super happy with how this turned out. We had a great time together working on it. I cant wait for the next project. Maybe Amberly can help me restore the jeep.....

Halloween preview

This year we decided to go with the Alice & wonderland theme. I enjoyed watching the movies with the kids again. I must say that I like the original one best.

After a long day in the heat watching football / cheer. (I am very tired of the heat) We had very little time to throw on our costumes and run to our ward party. I worried that we would all be sweating to death in our costumes. VERY different then a halloween in Colorado. Abe wouldn't wear his coat and Michael ended up taking his costume off as well. It was too hot even at 7:30 at night.

John is my little King of hearts. I am obviously the Queen of heart. "Off with your head!"

We got Cassidy a great Alice costume.

Luke wanted to be twiddle dee. He was making funny faces all night.

Michael is the Cheshire Cat. I know: he is not the right color. but really... who cares. He liked getting the smile painted on his face but it didn't stay on long. It DID out lasted the hat/ears. He would only keep THAT on for about 3 minutes at a time. This is a picture of us going through the trick or treat line. Notice his hat is off the little stinker.

Abe is the Mad Hatter. His costume is "Baller" We will get some good pictures of him at the next one. This is just a preview.

Football is going well

As you can see. Abe has become one of the coaches. Luke enjoys that.

Luke has improved a lot. We only have one more game for this season then we are into the playoff. I hope they do well but also secretly would not mind if they lost.

Cassidy is a cheer Captain. She is on a good squad. They look so good. Cassidy is great at learning cheers quickly. I think we found her talent.

John and Michael are being such good supporters. every Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. They deserve a trophy also in the end I think.

Football season is here!

Luke is growing up. He started football this week. He is soooo little compared to all the other boys. He is on the Mity Mite team. They are the Cowboys. It is a hot time to have your first football practices, but he is adjusting well and is sleeping like a baby after those tough practices. They go from 6-8 every night for 2 more weeks. Then 3 nights a week. He is definitely getting conditioned. It was 108 degrees when practice started. It is like watching your kid workout in a convection oven.

Doing calisthenics:

Baby Michael likes to watch practice.

Topping off the tank!

He gets his helmet and pads this coming week. Come and watch practice some time, its fun, its HOT, but SUPER MOTIVATING!

Here is a link to flickr if you want to see the rest of them.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/55210775@N02/sets/72157627360207790/

Happy Fathers Day to ME!!!

This was the best moment. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!



Seriously, the kids and Amber gave me a great fathers day. Breakfast in Bed and some new clothes. John said that next year we should have a fathers day Cake. Its like having 2 birthdays.

Little Archers

This is what we do when we dont have a boat in the summer time. Just lay around on the lawn. We decided it was a good afternoon to shoot arrows. It was alot of fun. Luke is just getting better and better.

Amber has a new horse to ride:

Cassidy is really good. Just working on her form.

Luke was able to do this several times from 5 yards (drill the target), now he is back to the 10 yard line and still trying!

Spring has Sprung.... Finally!

It seems like winter has been unwilling to release its death grip on is. This last few weeks it has been a COLD may. Finally it has started to warm up. We cannot wait until our house sells so we can move to AZ. We decided that we should put our garden in even though we dont know when the house will sell. You know how things go... you put the garden in, or paint or fix something up..THEN the house sells. So we are trying any trick or superstitious jinx that will speed up the process. That, and we love planting.

So here are some pictures of the family diggin around in the dirt.

Luke tried to wipe his face with a muddy glove!!

Look who got her braces off!

plus some shots of my Irises. I hope they transplant well in the Valley!

Michael loves his tunnel! Isnt he soooo cute!

And finally.......

I got the boys the greatest book of all time and I am reading it to them. I loved this book when I was a boy. I was super stoked to find a copy illustrated by Alan Lee. Luke loves it so far.

I think the illustrations really make it come alive.

I hope you enjoyed our update. We finally got a new short distance lens for our camera, so we hope to do more postings.