Before and After: Dresser #1

With the beach house quickly nearing completion, we are no doubt scrambling trying to get all of our furniture ready for move-in day.  On my to-do list the past week has been to refinish two dressers that we'll use in the bedrooms.  My mom found these at the yard sale that my church had.  Apparently they've been hiding in the attic of the church parsonage for some time.  I'm glad this is the year they decided to sell them because any other year we would've passed them by!  The best part is that they are both solid wood and in GREAT condition.  I think we ended up paying $80 total for both of them. I finished them both up this past weekend, but right now I'm just going to show you the one we'll be putting in the master bedroom.  I forgot to take a true "before" picture, but I did find this one on my phone from when my mom originally texted me a picture to get my approval before purchasing.

She's a beaut, Clark.  Obviously, the drawers are not in the right slots and if you look closely, you'll notice that the drawer pull on the bottom left doesn't match the others.  Didn't bother me since I planned on switching those out anyway.

First steps were to remove all the hardware and get to sanding.  With the straight lines of this piece, it would've been a good one to do a fun pattern or something on.  But, since we already have two patterns going on in this room, we decided to keep it plain and simple.  Plus, with the neutral color we chose, if we end up having to change the bedding soon we won't have to repaint this piece.  (With us renting the house, we have no idea how quickly things will have to be replaced from wear and tear.)

All that said, I decided I still wanted to slightly distress the edges so it wouldn't be too plain.  The brown stain that was already on the dresser would make a good base coat, so I was able to paint my cream color directly over it.  No, I did not prime it.  Luckily this piece took the paint really, really well.

When I paint a piece of furniture with drawers, I prefer not to paint the insides.  I find it helps keep it from sticking.  I just paint the outside of the base and the fronts of the drawers.

Surprisingly, I was able to get away with just two coats of the cream on this piece.  Love it when that happens.

Because I only wanted to lightly distress the edges, I sanded by hand.  The electric sander often takes off too much too fast and before you know it, you've removed most of your paint job.  I used a sanding pad to brush a little of the cream paint off the edges.

A coat of polyurethane finished off the paint job.  For this piece, I used water-base poly so it wouldn't turn the cream color yellow.

This dresser was sailing along smoothly, so it was only a matter of time before I hit a snag.   The snag came with finding new hardware.  The bottom four drawers needed 3 inch drawer pulls, but the top two drawers (with 2 pulls each) needed pulls that were 64mm.  It's no problem finding pulls in either of those sizes.  The problem is finding pulls in both of those sizes that match.  Neither Lowe's nor Home Depot had anything in both sizes.  I'm sure they exist, but my 38 second online search didn't return any good results and I gave up.

I found this drawer pull at Lowe's and crossed my fingers that it'd be my solution.

It's a 3 inch pull so it lined up with the holes on the bottom four drawers, no sweat.

Here it is with a set of holes on one of the top drawers.  See how the pull is longer?

The solution was in the round discs that came with this drawer pull.  My plan was to drill new holes spaced 3 inches apart and then hope, pray, cross my fingers that the disc covered the original holes.

I lined my drill bit up right on the outside of each hole.  I was the only one in the woodshop and you better believe I was muttering under my breath.  "Please don't let me screw this up."

It wasn't pretty and it took a few tries, but eventually I was able to widen the holes.

Moment of truth: would the disc cover the original hole and where I had now chipped the paint?

Shazam!

I am so proud of my rig job!  Of course, you can totally tell what I did from the inside of the drawer, but who cares?

Once I saw that worked, I was able to stop holding my breath and realized...the dresser was done!

Before I show you the end result, let's remember what I started with.

And here it is now, sitting in the attic until it finds its home in the beach house.

I said it once and I'll say it again:  She's a beaut, Clark.  A real beaut.

Weekend In Review

Even though nothing spectacular happened, this has been a really great weekend!  The weather was nice, we got to sleep in, I got lots accomplished, and there was nothing we HAD to do.  I love a weekend like that. Friday night we party-hopped.  We started out the evening with a surprise party for my friend Kim.  (You may remember that I have helped with a few rooms in her house, seen here, here, and here.)  I actually remembered to bring my camera and guess how many pictures I took....one.  Whomp, whomp.  Me and the birthday girl?  Nah, just a picture of this balloon.

Happy birthday, Kim!  Don't worry, I won't tell anybody how old you are...

Doc and I ducked out of the surprise party early because we had 9:00 dinner reservations.  Yes, 9 PM.  Yes, I had to take a nap after work so I could stay awake long enough for dinner.

The meal was good, but the company is what made it so great.  We were joined by 16 of our favorite people.

  

  

  

 

Since our reservation was so late, we met up for pre-dinner drinks.  A few of the guys got things going with some Jameson and Butterscotch Schnapps shots followed by an orange juice chaser.

The bartender swore that the combination tasted like pancakes.  I think that sounds disgusting but those that gave it a try said it was pretty good.

I really have no comments about this next picture, but I do feel that it should be posted.

The weather was so nice Saturday that I got up and went for a long morning walk.  I spent the bulk of the day working in the shop and made good progress on a lot of my projects.  I even finished a couple that I'll show you this week.  (I promise I'll post more than once this week...)

That afternoon we stopped by my brother's house to check out something he'd been working on.  We had Lolli with us, which absolutely thrilled Bren.  She LOVES Lolli.  I'm not sure if the feelings are mutual.  Bren likes to hold Lolli and it's usually not in the most comfortable position for poor Lolli, so it looks a little something like this.

I know these picture are awful quality - I was using my phone - but bear with me because I think they're pretty funny.

So Bren likes to hold Lolli but Lolli doesn't really love it.  At one point, we walked in Bren's room to see her standing on her bed, holding a squirming Lolli, and smiling at herself in the mirror above her dresser.  I guess sometimes you just need to see how you look holding a puppy dog.

A few minutes later, Bren got so excited.  "I put her in my box!  Now she can't get away!"  The "box" she was referring to?  Her laundry hamper.

Poor Lolli.

We're dog-sitting my parents' dog, Henry, this weekend so we had him with us too.  Bren had Doc put Henry in the "box" with Lolli, but she decided he made the "box" too heavy so he had to get out.  You know what's coming next, don't you?

Bren got in the "box."

Oh man, that girl cracks me up.  (This morning at church, she had on a headband of feathers that she'd made in Sunday School.  "Hey Bren!  Are you a little Indian?"  She told me no so I asked her what she was.  "A chicken!")

Tonight, after getting out of the shower, I walked in our bedroom to see that Doc had taken a page out of Bren's book.  I saw this on the floor.

Doc had a smirk on his face and even Henry was sitting on the bed, looking a little smug.  I got closer and sure enough, poor Lolli was trapped underneath.

Before anyone runs off and reports us to PETA, let me assure you that Lolli was not harmed in any of these laundry hamper escapades.  She's perfectly fine and is as wild and crazy as ever.  I just won't be surprised if she runs under the bed the next time I start doing laundry.

I'm pleased to say I have officially started my Christmas shopping AND our Christmas cards have been ordered.  I don't know why, but having those ordered makes me feel so much less stressed!  I'm excited for the next few days: 3-day work week, Thanksgiving food, and getting to see all of our family.  Should be a good week!

Beach House Update

It's that time again...time for another Beach House Update! [applause]

(That was done in my TV announcer voice.)

Yeah.  Moving on.  The last time I updated you, all we had was a big ol' wooden box of a house.

I am pleased to say we've come a long way since then.

Now THAT looks more like a house!  The hardy plank is up and has been painted a nice shade of brown.  The double-doors on the lower level will eventually be painted a nice shade of red.  Fun fact about the neighborhood: the designer made a bylaw that says no house can have "plain" railing.  I guess that would be just one horizontal rail with evenly spaced vertical slats.  As you can see, ours is not that fancy - just two horizontal rails at the top with different spacing between the slats.  Some houses in the neighborhood have gone all out - I've seen diamonds and squares - and even fish! - in the railings.

The picture above is from when my brother and his wife were in town checking on things a few weeks back.  They got some interior shots too.  This wall below is in the middle of the house and faces the living room and kitchen.  The square cutout is a game niche that will have shelving and the door right next to it leads to the half bath.

Here's a picture of the upstairs.  Still not much to see, but at least the drywall's up.

And here's a peek into the master bedroom.

Those pictures were all from oh, I don't know, the week before Halloween, maybe?  Obviously I've been a little behind on the updating.  But the good news is we got more pictures again last week.  The builder sent us a new invoice and attached some pictures.  Funny how he felt the need to prove progress was being made so he could get some money. :)

The exterior still looks pretty much the same.

Look!  The hardwood floors are in!  They haven't been stained yet - that will happen near the end - but they'll eventually receive a nice coffee stain.  This is the living room and kitchen and the wall pictured above with the game niche is to the right.  The stacks of wood are for the planked walls.  It'll be hung on the two walls pictured that don't have drywall.

Another shot of the upstairs hallway.  This one's from the opposite end of the hall as the picture above, and obviously the floor has been added.

While Nick and Beth were in town, they were given the task of picking out the tile for all the bathrooms.  It's already been installed in the master bath, even though the grout wasn't done when this picture was taken.

Sadly, that's all the pictures I have right now.  I'm getting very excited to see the house.  The countdown to it being finished is on!  My parents are making a trip next so maybe I'll have even more progress pics soon.

Oh, and I'm staying very busy trying to get things ready for when we can finally move-in.  I have lots of projects going on right now that I can't wait to share.  They're all in different stages and I want them to be completely done before I post pics.  Hopefully I'll wrap some of them up soon!

Baby Shower Paint Night

I'm a little behind on this post, and if you follow Allison's blog, she's already beaten me to the punch, but late is better than never, right?  (That was a lot of commas.  Someone should probably take a red pen to that sentence.) One of my besties from college, Sarah, is less than two months away (!) from having her first baby and, naturally, we wanted to shower her with gifts.  Here's the thing, though: Sarah doesn't really like to be the center of attention.  So the typical sit-in-a-circle-and-watch-while-I-open-gifts type of shower just didn't seem like the right thing to do.  Plus, the baby's room has been undergoing renovations in preparation on his/her arrival, and it needed some good art for the walls.  Enter Baby Shower Paint Night. 

I managed to rope Allison and Jenny into hosting with me (just kidding, they volunteered...I think).  A while back we had all attended a guided paint class (seen here, and I even went back again for another class) and while we were there, we saw a big canvas that had just been painted by a group for a wedding shower.  Well, if you can have a wedding shower painting party, then surely you can have a baby shower painting party, amIright?  We set the plan in motion and got to work.

Sarah has not spilled the beans yet about whether she's carrying a boy or girl (I think it's a girl.  No, it's a boy.  Wait.  Girl, final answer.)  so we needed our invitation to be gender neutral.  I ordered the cute template from this etsy site.

I chose the yellow giraffe because I knew it would match the table cloth I planned on using. 

I have to give props to Allison because she came up with the menu and really carried the weight when it came to food prep.  All pictures from this point forward were taken by her...I stupidly forgot to take my camera with me to the shower.  D'oh!  Anyway, here's our food setup.  See the giraffes on the table cloth?  You better believe I displayed one of the invitations so noone would miss their matchiness. :)  Allison made rice krispie treats with cake batter, complete with sprinkles to make them colorful and festive.  She also whipped up a batch of lemony cupcakes topped with a carmelized (I think?) lemon.  Fancy!  In the middle is a homemade (again, by Allison)  onion dip with chips and veggies.  On the end are two different skewers - that's where Jenny and I come in!  Oh yea, we assembled those skewers like it's nobody's business. 

Here's a better shot of the skewers.  Allison came up with the ingenius idea to make everything easy to eat so we wouldn't have to bother with plates and utensils while trying to paint.  She's a smart one, that girl.  In the foreground are pasta skewers.  They had cherry tomatoes, snap peas, and tortellinis, and then they were marinated in a mustard sauce.  Yummo!  In the back are the fruit skewers arranged in the colors of the rainbow.  You can't have a painting class without a little Roy G. Biv. 

Also on the food table were cookie favors that I ordered.  I don't have a great pic of them, but they were shaped and painted like little artist palettes.  Cute!

Our party group was small, just some of our old friends from college.  Here's the mom-to-be, Sarah, with her old college roomie Dana.  Can't believe we've all known each other for over 10 years!  I remember meeting Sarah and Dana early in my college career when we all pledged the same sorority, and now they're both mamas!  Love these girls!

Kendra showed up with all smiles and ready to get her paint on.

As everyone arrived, the professional artist, Maria, encouraged us to write notes to the baby on the back of the canvas. 

Maria and Sarah had already done lots of emailing back and forth to design the canvas for the nursery.  Sarah sent her a picture of the baby's bedding and Maria based her design off of it.  After she explained how we'd do the painting and gave us the go-ahead, everyone just stood there.  Who would go first?  So we played Rock, Paper, Scissors to figure out who our first three painters would be.

Sarah, Dana, and Roxy were the lucky winners!  They grabbed a brush and got to work.

You can see in the picture below how Maria had already drawn out the main design of the painting.  It had a big tree with lots and lots of leaves drawn in with a texture medium.  We were instructed to start with the background and work our way forward, so the sky and ground got painted first.

Every few minutes or so, we rotated out painters.  Emily jumped in after the first three to do some blending in the sky.

Here's an upclose view of the canvas at that point.  See the little bird in the tree?

While waiting to paint, we all did a pretty good job of stuffing our faces with all that delicious food!

Kendra and I finally decided to tap in and went to work on the ground.  We kept switching sides to evenly mix her bright green with my dull green.

After the background was done, it was time for leaves, leaves, and more leaves.  We passed out colors and everyone was responsible for making sure their colors were evenly spaced out.  Sometimes it got a little crowded while painting.

Wasn't long before we were almost done!  We saved the bird for last and debated over what color to paint it.  Should it stand out or blend in?  We voted blend in.  Kendra was charged with painting it a solid creamy white.

And Dana got the honors of adding the accents to it.

Pretty bird.  Yes, can you say pretty bird?  Pretty bird, yeah, pretty bird.  (Name that movie!)

Our finished masterpiece!  I can't wait to see it hanging in the nursery!  The awesome thing about this painting is that it's not a baby painting at all.  Yes, it will look great in there with the bedding, but if Sarah ever wants to move it to the living room, it could totally work there too.

We're a pretty good group of artists!

I tell you what, this was my kind of shower...painting, eating, and just hanging out with good friends.  It beats a stuffy shower any day!  I highly recommend having a party like this if you have someone you need to shower.  It was lots of fun!

A Trip to Topsail

So, I may not have mentioned it, but last week, Doc and I went on vacation!  And what a glorious, lazy vacation it was (lazy vacations are my absolute favorite!).  Doc's parents actually planned their vacation first, and part of it included a week stay in Topsail Beach, NC.  They had a 3-bedroom house all to themselves, and extended an invitation to us to join them.  Did I mention that the house was right on the beach?  Um, yes please!  It didn't hurt that we also had a buy-one-get-one-free coupon for a free plane ticket that was about to expire.  Dontcha just love it when everything aligns like that? I would say that 90% of my beach experiences have been on Florida's white sandy beaches.  Not having ever been to a beach in North Carolina, especially in October, I didn't really know what to expect.  The verdict?  I can't wait to go back.   Doc and I were only able to get away for an extended weekend, so we had just 3 full days of beach time at the end of the week's rental.  Bill and Pat relayed the weatherman's message that cooler weather was a'comin, so we packed our warm clothes.  We lucked out, though, and our first beach day was in the 80s, nice and sunny with a good breeze.

This was the from right outside the living room doors.

Since it was October, there weren't many other beach-goers.  We didn't have it completely to ourselves, but we definitely didn't have to fight for a prime spot to put our chairs.

Did I mention that we packed our warm clothes?  Doc had thrown in some workout clothes but my bag was nothing but warm pants and fleece pullovers.  I may have had to borrow his shorts for the day so I didn't roast on the beach.  Real cute...  As keeper of the camera, I made sure there were no pictures of that.

Here's a view of the house from the beach.  Topsail Beach is on a small strip of an island in the Atlantic ocean.  You can't really tell from this picture but all the houses on the island are built up on stilts.  Several were still boarded up from Irene's visit a few weeks ago.  There were houses on both sides of us, but they're cropped out of this picture.

The crazy thing to me about this beach was the big difference between high tide and low tide.  One morning, when we woke up, the ocean was all the way up past where we'd been sitting the day before.

But then, by that afternoon, it was back down.

The differences in the tides made the sand on the beach a lot more packed down and firmer to walk on.

The high tide also washed up lots and lots of seashells.  When we arrived, Pat already had a great collection going, and she was nice enough to let me pick out some of my favorites to take home.

You know what else I thought was weird?  When the waves crashed onto the beach, they were really foamy.  Maybe it's like that everywhere and I've just never noticed, I don't know.

I could probably be ok spending everyday like this.

On the other side of the strip of island is the intercoastal waterway.  One evening we walked out on a long pier over the waterway so we could watch the sunset.

The Boy and The Dad.

We got there just in time to see the sun go down, and then we started losing light fast.

My lighting in this picture is not very good at all, but I kinda like it that way.  We were watching all the crabs in the water.

Speaking of the waterway, here's a fun fact for ya: one of the only two ways onto the island is over a swing bridge.  The other entrance has a draw bridge.  Instead of pulling up like a draw bridge, a swing bridge swings to the side.  This particular swing bridge swings every hour (I think) so that boats in the waterway can pass by.

This is a dry dock near the swing bridge.  I wonder how they get the boats up there and back down into the water.

One morning when we woke up, the fog was so bad we could barely see the ocean.  You can't even see it behind us in the picture below.

As predicted, the cold weather moved in.  We were still able to take walks on the beach each day, but it was a little too chilly to just sit out there.  That was ok, though, since we needed to be inside anyway to watch the ND/Navy game...

Now, I admit that I'm not the biggest football fanatic so maybe this make sense to die hard fans, but here's what I don't get...see this pile of players?

The ones in the navy uniforms aren't the Navy team.  What??  How am I suppose to even try to understand what's going on when the announcers keep talking about Navy and I automatically look at the guys in the navy uniform but that's not them?  Wouldn't it make more sense that way?  In stead, Navy is the team wearing a white jersey that says "Navy" on it.

It's like they're trying to convince you that their jersey is navy blue.  (Like all those Victoria Secret Pink clothes that say pink all over them when really you just want to say, "um no, that's blue.")  Clearly a female was not consulted when they were deciding who would wear what color jersey for this game.  (And don't even get me started on the fact that the Fighting Irish don't wear any green...)

So, since the Navy team wasn't actually the navy team and therefore I couldn't follow it, what did I do instead?  I finally finished this beast of a book.

Life by Keith Richards.  I say "beast" because it took me FOR-EH-VER (name that movie) to finish it.  I read it on my kindle so I didn't know how big it was when I started it.  It has to be a million pages long.  (Just looked it up and it says it has 564 pages.  Pretty sure there's a digit left off that number.)  Don't get me wrong - it's a fine book and I'm sure some people love it.  But for me?  Torture.  I was determined to finish it as part of my resolution but I wanted to quit so many times.  I guess I just don't have a lot of interest in guitars and drugs and rock and roll.  And I'm sure Keith Richards doesn't have any interest in woodworking, sock monsters, or fall decorations so he probably wouldn't like a book about me either.  Me and Keith?  We're just two totally different people.

On our last night of vacation, I snapped this shot as the sun was going down.  Can you see the moon?  It was so pretty that night!

Sunday morning we had to get up and hit the road early so we could make it home in time for Trunk or Treating.  That didn't stop me from setting up my camera and the timer so we could get one picture with all four of us in it.  Proof that were there together.

Thanks for inviting us, Bill and Pat!  We had a great time and can't wait to do it again.  :)