I Got All DIY on My Kitchen Table

If you know me well, you know, half the time I can't be arsed to put on anything more than a t-shirt and a pair of comfortable jeans, let alone actually *do* anything.  It isn't that I am lazy.  Actually, generally by nature I am extremely lazy.  It's not my best trait and I do try to curb the habit. Let's be honest though, if I could just curl up on the couch and sleep for a day or read a good book, I would pretty much never leave my house.

BUT! I did something very handy this past weekend.  With the help of my very crafty and very not lazy next door neighbor, I refinished my kitchen table.  It was in dire need.  We bought the table when La was about 2 years old.  She is now 11.  It was covered with every single art project we had ever done.  It had remnants of breakfasts and dinners that couldn't quite be wiped off with a hot soapy wash cloth.  It was frankly a mess.  And that is putting it nicely.


So we started off thinking we were going to need to sand this oak monstrosity down in order to refinish it.  However, my other crafty and quite handy neighbor told us about a furniture stripper (not the kind that takes money as tips) that we should try out.  I call it "agent orange" but it's real name is Citristrip.  It will take the stink off a skunk.  That old finish didn't even stand a chance.We did end up sanding most of the legs ourselves and using the "agent orange" only to get into the grooves that we couldn't quite get our sandpaper down into.  In all it took us about a day and a half to get the entire table down to bare wood.

Afterwards, we sanded the table down with 120 grit sandpaper to get it as smooth as a baby's butt.  That took quite a while and my arms burned from never having used those muscles before. Then we tac clothed the table and got it ready to stain and paint.

I ended up painting the pedestal a mossy green.  It looks so gorgeous.  However, we accidentally used an oil based  paint instead of a water based paint.  Let me tell you, it is not easy to work with an oil based paint.  I still have it on my ankle and that crap isn't coming off anytime soon. It does look lush though.

The top I decided to keep an oak color.  We used a product that my neighbor had never used before.  It was a stain and poly mix.  When we opened the can it was grey.  *insert panic moment*  There was no way we were putting this on the top of my table with the amount of time we had put into it sanding it without testing it.  We ended up finding a spare piece of ply wood that we tested it on, and guess what?  It worked.  it looked like oak.  Just not in the can.

So we put two coats of the stain/poly on the top of the table and on the decorative edge. Oh I forgot to mention the decorative edge.  Let me tell you how much of a pain in the rear that was to strip and stand.  Now wait, don't let me, cause I will be here all night.  Then we put two extra coats of clear poly on top of the table.


In total, we spent 3 days refinishing the table.  Then we let it sit for a couple days to cure and harden up.  Guess what?  It was completely worth it.  Now, I want to do an old dresser that I have sitting in my hallway.  Lord help me, I might not be lazy anymore.

Asking Too Much?

A couple days ago I lost my temper with my girls.  It normally takes an awful lot to make me lose my temper, but that day I turned into a raving lunatic.  It was a slow burn that turned into a meltdown, building for days before I finally lost it.  I generally don't ask a lot from my children.  In fact I am pretty laid back about chores.  They have to keep their rooms clean, La has to empty the dish washer, they have to keep their belongings in their room and not junk up the downstairs of the house, they need to keep track of their outdoor toys because they tend to share them in the neighborhood, and they have to do random tasks I ask them to do- such as feeding the dog. It isn't a lot at all.

Well, for the past week or so, when I have asked them to do simple tasks, they have done just enough to say they have done it.  It has been very shoddy work.  La unloaded the dishes in such a manner that when I went to straighten out the mess she had made in the cupboard I nearly got brained to death by two falling dinner plates. KiKi lives her life in a perpetual state of IDGAF (I don't give a frig) is always half assing her chores.Well, this day, I had asked them to pick up all the Hama/Perler beads that they had been using outside with their friends. They once again, they decided to only do just enough to say it was done. They just weren't counting on my already foul mood.

When I came into the back garden and saw all the patterns for the beads scattered across the grass I lost the plot.  These are patterns that I had pinned on Pinterest for them and printed. So they had cost me time and money in the form of all the paper and ink that were invested into these patterns. I was not impressed to see them in my yard scattered and wet because someone had also decided to mess around with the garden hose. So angry.

After I had finished screeching at them for five solid minutes and telling them both to dry up the tears because they weren't going to make me feel a bit sorry for them, I grounded them for the rest of the evening. This for them was the tipping point.  Oh no, not the scolding they they had just gotten, but being told that they could not go outside for the rest of the evening, that killed them. Wails of "That's not fair!!" echoed from the walls of The Bungalow.  In their eyes, I was the enemy because I had grounded them for something that "isn't even a big deal anyway!" ya know cause it's just paper. They just did not understand that it wasn't about the paper.  It was about the halfway done state of the tasks I have assigned this week.  Tasks that haven't even been hard.

Maybe I was hard on them.  Maybe I have higher expectations than I thought I had. Or maybe, just maybe, I am getting to that point where good enough just isn't good enough.  I want it done right; the first time. I don't want to have to fix it.  I don't want to ask the children to fix it again.  I just want it done.  I want them to put the right amount of effort into a task the first time.  I don't think that is too much to ask, do you?

Finding My Voice Again

I was going to write a post apologizing for my blogging absence, but I'm not.  I think we are all adults here and know that life happens.  I got busy.  I had writers block.  I lost my mojo.  We have all been there as bloggers.  Burnout happens.