The desk is finished and it looks GLORIOUS. Definitely some satisfaction in doing it yourself (although it would have been nice to save the grand-and-a-half that we payed the jacka$$ painter to do it). The paint smell is SO strong right now that you can get high from walking into our backyard, but it does look great. We’ll give it a couple of days to “off-gas” and then we’ll put the furniture back out there. I’ll post one last photo once everything is set up again, and then I promise I’ll shut up about the darned deck.
The second D.I.Y. agenda item for this weekend was to stain our front door. It is a beautiful wooden door with beveled, leaded glass inserts and sidelites on either side. It’s gorgeous, but it takes the full brunt of the afternoon sun and we hadn’t done a thing to it in the 4 years that we’ve lived here. The polyurethane coating was GONE and the wood was faded and starting to crack. Our house isn’t palatial, but it’s comfy and the front door was certainly not making a good first impression.
Hubby attacked it with plastic “steel wool” today and then Boy, Girl and I stained it (taking turns). Tomorrow night, Hubby will put a fresh coat of polyurethane on it. It already looks 150% better than it did, even without the polyurethane.
Not quite sure why I’ve gotten this home maintenance bug lately, but we do go through periodic spurts like this. Next up: painting Girl’s bathroom a beautiful, rich, dark chocolate brown. She just got brand new “teenager appropriate” bedding that has some really pretty colors in it: burgundy, pumpkin, brown, gold, acid/lime green and turquoise. It sounds weird, but it’s really pretty. The coordinating shower curtain has the same colors (though it’s a different fabric), so the brown will look very nice. The old salon that I used to go to had chocolate brown paint on the walls in the shampoo room and I always thought that it was really pretty and rich-looking, so that project will be next.
Bonus photo of my very comfy new hiking boots. We all bought new boots today and have been wearing them around ever since we left REI. They will be all nicely broken in by the time our Alaska trip rolls around.
(sorry if I blinded you with my Caspar the Friendly Ghost legs!)
Are those really your legs??? Whats up with the scar? Good story?
I’m also in the home improvement mode. I think because I don’t dare go outside in the heat… I stay inside and work on stuff. I moved the handles from the right side to the left side of our refrigerator and freezer… after suffering for the last 9 months. I just got the tools out and started at it. Mike was here and felt a bit sorry for me I think and pitched in, too. Robert did help too at the end. Have to give them credit or they won’t help me next time.
We really need to get together sometime soon. Where does the time go? I’m going to call you NOW and book dinner. Later!!
Those really are my nasty ol’ scarred-up legs. Not a super story on the scar, but semi-noteworthy…When I was about 7 – 8 months pregnant with Girl, I had a little fender-bender in Hubby’s truck that bent up the right front fender. There just happened to have been a really big hailstorm not too long before that and all of the body shops were swamped and couldn’t take his truck to be fixed for a couple of weeks. During that time, I walked into the bent-up bumper and gashed open my knee. It was pretty gross – blood spurting and all. It didn’t hurt at all, but Steve was mortified and felt awful (he went straight home afterward and hammered down the bent bumper so that the sharp part wasn’t sticking out anymore). We had just been out to lunch with my mom (we were treating, because she was updating our wills for us, because of the baby) and it happened as we were dropping her back off at her office downtown. There just happened to be a Dr. that worked in her office building and he fashioned a bandage out of a (clean) dishtowel from their office kitchen. Did you remember that I used to work for a plastic surgeon? We called him and he met us at the hospital and stitched me up (no anesthesia, because of the baby). I couldn’t bend my knee while it was healing and was on crutches (NO FUN when you’re pregnant) and couldn’t drive for a few weeks. I was really lucky that it didn’t hit any tendons or anything that messed with the functionality of my knee, so my knee works fine, it just looks ugly. Sometimes people ask if I’ve had knee surgery…I wanna say, “yeah, knee surgery with a can opener”. If I had knee surgery and my surgeon left me with a scar like that, I think I would sue…
Anyway, that’s the story….
AND we would love to come to dinner. We’re about to eat right now, but when we’re done, I’ll grab my calendar and call you right back.
XOXO and thanks,
L.