Archive for the ‘home and garden’ Category
This kitchen table has been around the block a time or two. It started it’s life when my parents got married in the early 1960’s. My mom calls it Danish Modern. It originally had a dark stain on it, and it was a good useable table. When I got married in 1991, the table came with me to my new home. Then we refinished it with a very barely stained top and forest green painted legs. It matched our kitchen at the time.
We then moved to another house, and I put a cream colored crackle finish over the green legs. That worked for a bit except that I didn’t put a top seal over the crackle finish and it has been peeling off for the past 7 or so years. The top, with it’s practically bare wood had not held up well to washing, and you could visibly see why I made a rule of no using permanent sharpie markers at the table. The only hope to get those sharpie marks out is some serious sanding.
I still like the stained top and painted legs look, but decided on a much sturdier finish on top.
My husband was a little over zealous with the belt sander. He tried to cover up some of his sander enthusiasm by making a black edge. I’m not sure what I think about it, but I will live with it for a while, and if all else fails, it will become all black some day. For now, it is better than it was before with its peeling paint.
I had never sanded with power equipment, but my husband bought two new sanders for this project, and boy does power equipment make the job easier. I don’t dread sanding as much as I used to. The sanders that he got are a Ryobi belt sander
I’m linking to these blog parties, before and after party @ thrifty decor chick, whatever goes wednesday @ someday crafts,
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I work from home in a sense in that I am an Occupational Therapist that travels to people’s houses. I have my own toys and therapy equipment that I bring with me, so I need to keep all of my therapy stuff somewhere. Our office had been dismantled due to a flood, so I am just getting things put back together, so my therapy stuff is just put in a corner. Here is my organization progress so far. First is the before picture.
Next we have the after picture.
I brought in another set of shelves from the garage, and I used color coordinated pillow cases to cover up the ugly white plastic shelves that I am using to store my toys on. I like using the pillow cases because they are the same height as the shelves, and I use two cases per shelf. That makes it easy to get into each shelf individually. I’m all about convenience. Also, no sewing at all, and I can change the color scheme with new pillow cases.
I am linking this post to metamorphosis monday at between naps on the porch.
Here is yesterday’s summer slave labor job of the day. There was much complaining, but we got some pretty flowers planted.
I have been thinking about these for weeks, since we last went to Disneyland. I am going to give away a little known secret of Disneyland, and I hope that I am not sorry later. There is a little hole in the wall ice cream stand that is off the beaten path and hardly ever has a line. It is on Main Street, across the street from the ice cream parlor. When we go to the big ice cream parlor, and the line is out the door, we go across Main Street to see if the hole in the wall is open (it is not always open). The last time we got ice cream there, my kids ordered cookie ice cream sandwiches. I expected them to give us the ones that are wrapped in plastic and that you can buy at the little carts all over Disney. What they did give us was fresh baked chocolate chip cookies with vanilla ice cream sandwiched between them. It was so good.
The last time we went to Disney, I wanted to get myself one of those cookie ice cream sandwiches, but it never worked out. I have been thinking about them, and today I made my own.
Yummy. I made my cookies from scratch with dark chocolate and mint chips. Oh they are delectable.
This desk was a freebie. It was unwanted in it’s old home, and I usually don’t turn away freebies. It is a computer desk that was used in a credit union. It lived in my daughter’s room for quite a while, but it is huge, and her room is small. It was taking up too much space. I put it in the corner behind the door in my room, and waited to decide what to do with it. It started to accumulate stuff, including a sewing machine, and I thought, hmm, this is a handy place to sew. I don’t actually like sewing, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. 
I started to clean up the space to make it a nice sewing corner, and thought if the sewing machine is going to sit out, it needs to look nice. 
I made a little cover for the sewing machine. 
I made it reversible, so I had two pieces of material and some braiding on the edge that I stitched together.
Now I am trying to decide whether to leave the sides open, put ribbon on to tie the sides closed, or stitch the sides closed. I can’t decide, so it is staying as is for now.
This post is linked to the saturday night special blog party at Funky Junk Interiors and metamorphosis monday at between naps on the porch
Making sun tea today. It’s nice to have the sun do all of the work while I go roller skating with my son’s class for his end of year party.
I put in 12 cups of water, almost 1 cup of sugar, and 4 tea bags. When it was done in the sun, I added 4 cups of ice to cool it off.
I just got this canister
linked to strut your stuff thursday at somewhat simple
, by Bruce Van Blair. It was written in 1974, and has been out of print for a very long time. We lost our signed copy from childhood, but my brother found a copy at a used book store a few years ago and got it for me. He is so thoughtful. So, my 8 year old has been reading this book for his next book report, and has been taking it to school and misplacing it around the house. I don’t want to lose this copy because this book is hard to come by.
Today I did a web search to see if I could find the book any where, and I did find it on Amazon. For $98.00. Oh my. Should my son be carrying this expensive book around with him? Yes. It is just a book after all. Once he is done with it though, it is going in a special place on the bookshelf. Ouch! $98.00.
though, but of course you have to have a kindle. 
Right now, we are in Yosemite, which is a yearly tradition for our family. We bring our bikes and ride around Yosemite Valley.
On our recent trip to Yosemite, my son was walking over to throw some things in the bear-proof trash can. It was dark at the time. As he was getting close to the trash can, the people in the next cabin yelled at him to watch out, that there was a skunk. My son stopped, backed up, and came back. he said the skunk raised it’s tail, but didn’t turn around or spray.
I of course got out my camera to get some good animal pictures. My camera wasn’t focusing because it was too dark, so the kids got out a flash light and went over to the skunk.
Stinky was such a friendly skunk. Turns out, our neighbors in the next cabin have enjoyed bringing stinky camping with them quite a bit. The thing that gave it away was the sound of the motor when his tail went up.
We may have to get us a stinky to take camping too.
Last November was a terrible time for me, and it was made worse by a couple of little (or big) rats that were in the attic. This is a public service announcement. If you hear rodents in your attic, don’t try to get rid of them yourself. Call a professional who can be sure to get the job done. These little fellows decided that they were tired of crawling down from the attic to get themselves a drink, so they chewed through the water pipes. We had a total of 5 or 6 leaks over a span of 5 days. Water dripping from the ceiling. The whole deal. People were called, holes were torn in the ceiling, and carpet was ripped out. Our whole house was packed up, and we had to move out. All of this while my husband was deployed and I had just started a new job. I don’t remember it fondly.
