Home Project

A friend and neighbor of mine also happens to be an incredibly talented interior designer - and bargain hunter.  

I have the best friends!  

She has been helping me with our home interiors and recently found this lovely bargain buffet.  It just needed a little love.  

Now, I am not a DIYer but with her support and experience, I decided I was up for the challenge. 

My enthusiasm was pretty strong the first day or two.  I deglossed the whole thing and then using spray paint, primed it white.  I then painted it (with spray paint again) in gray and began sanding it by hand to distress.

So easy!  Right?  That's what I was thinking.

I should have known... it was just a little TOO easy.

See the design on the doors?  For some reason, the one on the right popped through when I began sanding by hand.  Grrr.  And there was a little bit of bubbling under the paint on the left side.

OK - no problem.  I can handle a little extra work.  

I taped around those areas, borrowed a friend's palm sander and sanded down the right door and the left side all the way to the wood.  I then re-primed and re-painted those areas.

The next day, I removed the painters tape.  Now, anyone who has done such a project is gasping.  Yep.  The tape stripped the paint right off too.  If you ever consider doing this type of work and have to tape over newly painted furniture - pull the tape off THE SECOND you finish painting the other areas or you run the same risk.

It was at this point, I almost threw in the towel.  I was so disgusted with my stupid mistake.  Thank goodness I wasn't doing this alone or the buffet would still be sitting in my garage.

But after a little reassurance and coaching from my friend, I went back at it... hand sanding the paint peeled areas to smooth and then doing a little re-touching of paint.  Once I started the distressing and then antiquing process, it actually added more character to the piece.  

Another friend of mine recently refinished some furniture too and used a glazing process which was beautiful.  I used shoe polish for my antiquing look.

Finally done!  

Almost.  When I purchased this piece, it had an unattractive mirror attached to the back.  We removed it and bought a piece of broken granite with plans to have it cut to fit on top of this buffet making it a truly usable piece of furniture.

The guy who was doing the cutting has been near impossible to reach.  I called him almost every day for two weeks straight before Thanksgiving.  Then played a game of tag for one whole day trying to meet him at his business to pick it up.  No luck.

After Thanksgiving, this little game continued.  I had almost given up and pretty much decided it looked fine without a top. 

See, this is why I don't DIY.  It gets to a certain point of complicated or time consuming and I just quit.

Finally today I reached him.  And not only did I get my granite top, he DELIVERED it!  Yahoo!

Before

After

I'm so excited!  Even though I had a few first-timer troubles, the whole thing really didn't take very long and was well worth the trouble for the beautiful outcome!

It's a Christmas Miracle!

It's picture day with Santa at school today so I dressed the kids in some holiday sparkle.  Because I like to torture myself, I asked Sydney to stand by the tree so I could take a pretty picture of her.  

AND HERE IS WHAT SHE DID!!!!

I almost passed out.  Thank goodness I didn't because I would have missed this.  It only lasted a moment.  No time for fancy camera settings.  I'm not sure what got into her but I like it!  I think perhaps she was distracted with the excitement over her sparkly red shoes.  Whatever it was, I love it!  Hopefully I'll get more cooperation like this - but I'm not holding my breath.

Fletcher on the other hand - well, he is regressing...

Warning to fellow bloggers!

There are size limits on the photos you upload - and Blogger does not automatically reduce their size as you are uploading.

Unless you're a Google+ user, that limit is probably 1 GB.  That's a lot of storage - but depending on the size of your individual photos, you will run out fairly quickly.  Did you also know they are all stored on a Picasa web album?


Now, you're probably sitting there thinking - well of course there's a limit.  Doesn't everyone know that?


Maybe they do.  I know I certainly felt like the only turkey out there last night when I got a warning that I had exceeded my limits.  Blogging comes with a lot of learning curves so it's not uncommon for me to feel like a dunce.


But then I spoke with a fellow blogger friend this morning who I consider to be much much more savvy about these things than I - and even SHE didn't know this little fact until another friend told her recently.


So - in hopes of saving someone else out there the pain that I just had to go through.  Here is your warning!  Reduce the size of your photos before loading them to your blog.


And if you run out of space, let me know.  I found a fairly quick fix to the problem.

Cousins

Oh what fun the cousins had together!  I love that these guys are so close in age (Sydney and Finn are only 3 days apart)... it's going to make holiday gatherings like this really special for many many years to come.

They love to pile up in Grampy's chair!

And what would a family gathering with this crew be without a Pat pile-on!

This scene was a bit puzzling.
Me:  "Torr, what are you all doing?"
Torr:  "Playing hide and seek"
Me:  "Who is looking for you?"
Torr:  "Finn"
Hmmm.  OK.

This was Sydney's version of "hiding".  We have some work to do there.

Fletcher tried to get in on the game too.

They shared bedtime stories.

And naps too.

Sisters

The night before Thanksgiving, we Fletcher sisters escaped the chaos of Grampy's house - leaving all the guys to handle the kiddos - and went to Jami's house to prep most of the Thanksgiving meal.


What a fun time we had!  It's rare that the three of us get to have an uninterrupted conversation these days - much less a complete evening together.  


There was some serious cooking - and serious laughing - going on in this kitchen.  

The next day we attempted a sister photo.  And I thought photographing the kids was hard!

I think a girls trip is in order!

THANKSGIVING!

So so so many things to be thankful for!  We made our biennial trip to my hometown of Franklin, NC for Thanksgiving.

This was Fletcher's first time on an airplane - but might as well have been Syd's too since she was too young to remember the first.  

They were soooo good on the plane.  A little iPad and Dora go a long way!

Super excited to see Grampy!

Traditional Thanksgiving morning Turkey Trot.  It was more of a stroll really.  35 degrees this year!  

Followed by the traditional turkey fry!

4 generations have eaten on these high chairs!

Finn Finn the garbage bin!  He's our lone veggie eater.

The meat eater.

Post Thanksgiving meal family togetherness.

Homemade bow and arrow for squirrel hunting.

Poor sick Fletcher was not feeling the leaf pile.  But made up for it later in the week after a belly full of turkey!

 

Thanksgiving may be my favorite holiday of the year.  It kicks off a whole season of celebration.  Family gatherings, thankfulness and food without the stress of gifts.  The calm before the storm of Christmas.  Time seems to slow down a bit on this one day of the year.  Or maybe that's just all the turkey in my belly slowing ME down.  

It's tough being so far from our families but weeks like these, away from the craziness and distractions of day-to-day life, really help us reconnect.  

We were all especially thankful to spend this holiday with our dad (Grampy) before he went in for major surgery to replace a stint in his abdominal aorta.  He is in recovery this morning (December 1) and doing great.  Thanks to so many who have called, emailed, FB'd and prayed!