My youngest is nine today....wow!

Carter is NINE today. It really is amazing how fast the time goes when looking back. I thought I would quickly select a few pictures of him through the years, ya right.  I thought it would be quick. I thought it would be easy.  Think Again! Here are a few of the highlights...Remote control lessons with dad.

Love, love, love this hat on him, just makes me giggle.

Turning TWO, what is there not to to happy about.

One of the many bumps and bruises. I think this is the one I came home to after being in South Africa.  He got nailed my a metal door at the school gymnasium. OUCH!

OOOO, this was a biggie. He pushed the iron over with the palm of his hand.  We had to go to the doctor everyday for 2 weeks.

When we had first moved to our house in Michigan he was able to run under the counter tops on the island, he never took into consideration that he grew taller. This on almost required surgery.

The third birthday

His first ride on the motorcycle. Of course they only went like 5 miles an hour.

How sweet is this. We had been home bound for 2 weeks with the snowstorm. Martha loves his Carter.

And another. I got nothing. Don't remember. Oh, wait this is where he fell out of bed and showed us the next morning.  He either never cried or Bob and I sleep pretty hard.

Preschool buds

You have to admit, pretty impressive.

But he cleans up pretty well!

That's my Carter! Happy Birthday Baby!

The Boys of Culpeper

Sam is home. I really missed him while he was gone.  The house was strangely quiet and I think that is funny because Sam is a really quiet kid, compared to the other two.   He went to Hillsville, VA to spend the weekend with his buds from Culpeper.  The boys grandparents have a farm and they spent the entire weekend playing football, fishing, riding in trucks, playing in the woods, chasing the cows. The list goes on I am sure but that is what we have heard so far on the way home before he fell asleep.

He is sunburned, scratched, banged, bruised and very happy to have been able to spend the weekend with his best friends. His father and I hated to take him away, I know he wanted to stay. Heck, I wanted to stay. Cannot wait to see you on Mother's Day!

Goodwill Chair meet Anie Sloan's Old Ocher

My five dollar Goodwill chair.  It's original plan was for Sam to paint it and to try and sell it on Craigslist. I was itching for something to paint so I decided to put a coat of Old Ocher on it and use it as my new desk chair.

My support staff here, crack crew that I have.

This is two coats of the paint. This thing seemed to take forever with all of the "round" parts. After I painted it I used my very fine sanding sanding block to sand the edges... I also smoothed some rough spots.

I liked the white but it was too "Shabby Chic" and white, even though it really is a creamy color, it just would not go in my home.

Because the chair was originally brown and I scuffed the edges the brown looks so pretty coming through the white.

In my mind I knew what I wanted and the minute I put the dark wax on the leg I knew it was wrong. Well Crap!  I considered painting over it because you can do that with AS paint but I chose to stare at it for about 10 minutes and decided the heck with it I am just going to do the whole thing with the dark wax.

And I ended up really liking it.  I put the dark wax on and then took a terry cloth rag and rubbed the crap out if it.  Buffed it, rubbed it, sawed that rag back and forth  to really get the dark and the white to show through.

While I was working on the chair Sophia made the never ending double batch of chocolate chip cookies for Sam to take to Hillsville, VA

The dark was really gave it a pretty patina.

Even mistakes with Annie Sloan paint aren't really mistakes after all.

Painted Maple Cabinet with Annie Sloan Paint and Wax

From Each Day....

I finally finished my other projects and was able to start on the maple cabinet I bought on Craigslist.  This is the cabinet I found down in Hendersonville on an old dairy farm. Picked it up for $50.00, a very good deal if I do say so myself! The cabinet on the left is an old buffet I picked up this weekend at Goodwill, that is a whole nother project all together.

Martha is supervising the project. Doesn't she look sporty in her pink booties?  Trying to keep her from scratching and licking is a full time job. Drives me crazy, but I digress, back to the task at hand.

Annie Sloan paint is very different from any other paint I have ever used. In fact it breaks all the rules of regular painting. You use very little paint, almost like dry painting and you use the cheapest brushes you can find. You know the chip brushes you find at the hardware store for a $1.00 each? Use those. There does not seem to be one set direction that you brush either, just get it covered.

This is one of the drawers after paint, before distressing and wax.  The color I chose was Graphite. As I was painting I was a little bummed at how light the color was (the photo is making it even lighter) but I still did not have the dark wax on it yet.

Top of the cabinet and it looks a little darker than the previous photo.

The paint I used. This is a quart can and I ended up using a little less than a 1/3 of the can. I also bought the Annie Sloan dark wax and a bottle of the lacquer. The one thing about the Annie Sloan is that I could not use the paint and then use a  different brand, the formulas will not play well with each other.

After the entire cabinet was painted I took my sanding block and distressed the edges fairly lightly, I did not want to distress it too much.

The top drawer is just the paint, bottom drawer is after the distressing and wax. I hesitated on using this photo because the way the light hits the wax in the photo makes the finish look gray and hazy and is not an accurate representation of the finish. The finish actually turns black.

Sophia helped me add the wax to the surface and I was glad to have the help.

Notice the super cheap brush, it was pretty much nearing the end of its life. "Oh, Martha quit licking your paws!"  See what I mean, constantly having to fuss at her.

Here it is painted and waxed, it does need a coat of lacquer but I want to wait until the pollen is out of the air before I tackle that.

Very excited that I was able to use the same hardware, that does not happen very often.

Finally a place to display some of the plates that I have.

The color plays well with the Ubatuba granite in the kitchen.

The finish is a lot like a piece of Scandinavian furniture. It has a lot of depth, not at all like the dresser that I did for Carter's room.

I really enjoyed working with this paint and am really looking forward to attacking the piece I just bought at Goodwill, thinking it will look great in red?

Even my son who HATES Goodwill asked to go today so he can find a piece of furniture to refinish and sell.

This is what it looked like in the beginning. A real 60's looking piece of furniture. Didn't do much for me.......

Until the next time!

Craigslist Dresser and Mirror Redo

I finally finished the dresser and mirror for Carter's room. I found these three pieces ( not the magazine holder) down in Sylva, NC.  The same place that I found the nightstand that I refinished, see photo below.  I paid $110.00 for all three pieces. Not the best deal, but not terrible. I really wanted the nightstand the others were just a bonus.  They were not in terrible condition, just looked dated, scuffed up and icky.

The mirror got a wipe down of de-glosser and two coats of black paint with primer. 


The dresser I had originally started stripping it down and was going to stain it. Half way through that process I said the heck with this. The wood was not pretty and it was going to look a lot better with a few coats of black paint. I also was going to distress it  but figured a 9 year old boy would do enough distressing of it on his own.

This is the night stand that I refinished that was purchased with the dresser and mirror. You can check out the refinishing process here.

The drawers after one coat of paint and drying.

I replaced the hardware with new. I would have liked to have cup pulls on all the drawers but for some reason, that of which I cannot figure out the bottom ones are a different size. Top 12 are 2 1/2 inch centers and the bottom 4 are 3 inch centers. Why, I have no idea, have they used different sizes. DRIVES ME CRAZY. Every piece of furniture I have refinished has had this issue and it makes it tricky finding hardware.

I finished the desk yesterday and I will post pics as soon as I get them taken.