Restored Country Style Table

I love country style tables & Greg hated the table we had because it was too short for him to fit his legs under. So began my obsessive pinning of country style tables and plans to have someone (preferably the little bro) build it for me this summer. Well lucky for him I spotted one on a for sale group that had good potential. I made my father-in-law & hubs drive up with me in the wind & rain to take a look and pick it up. It fit Greg well and 3-5 tarp wraps later we were cruising back to our house.

The table sat in our garage for a bit waiting to get it's facelift. The plan was to sand it down, reinforce weak areas in the legs and table top as well as fill in some of the cracks. Then stain and polyurethane it. All went very smoothly.

Suggestions for supplies:

• Electric detail sander
• Minwax stainable wood filler
• Minwax gel stain (this stuff is awesome, it goes on easy & you truly just need a small can!)
• Minwax polyurethane - gloss/high gloss (read the gel stain can to get suggestions on which one & gloss will wipe assist in wiping the table off.)

My mom was a trooper doing this, I had ideas, but this far into pregnancy wasn't really able to help much. She sanded, stained & polyed it all. We do suggest multiple layers of poly to make sure it is solidly covered and can handle being wiped off. 

Then I had to find some chairs to match. At 1st I was thinking of trying to match the wood, but a suggestion from a friend to do a solid color & not match changed my mind. So I looked for darker chairs that actually match our kitchen island stools. Couldn't be happier with the results!

Sanded & ready to stain

Half stained

Ready to go!

Backyard Refresh

Well it was a long time coming. We planned to get the fence & deck stained & repainted early in the spring but rain & work schedules haulted that plan. So after a couple months of storing all the paint & stain the garage we can say it's done! My mom & dad took on the deck with the thickest paint I've ever seen...specifically deck paint so makes sense. While Greg took on the fence...the whole fence...in one day. I believe he now regrets the one dat thing but boy does it look good!

After nearly 2 years of dogs running across the decktop a the paint makes it look brand new. And the fence took on its first stain well. It's amazing what a coat of paint  or stain can do to give it all a facelift.

Operation: Garage Organization - Part II

When scanning Pinterest, I had seen that someone took an old file cabinet, painted it & used it as a sorter in their garage. I was skeptical of this, because I didn't think it would be tall enough to full hold a broom up.

But I had an old file cabinet at my discretion, so I decided to give it a try. I took out the drawers, wiped it all down, getting the old dust & grease wiped off. Then used 2-ish bottles of flat Rustoleum to cover the entire cabinet shell & extra where the rust was starting to show a bit. Once dried on, I hauled it into the garage & set it on some extra fence post pieces & tried it out. It's surprising how deep a file cabinet is when you set it on the backside & it works perfectly as a sorter for our garage items & sports supplies.

BEFORE

 IN PROCESS

AFTER

IN USE

Operation: Garage Organization - Part I

We have a lovely finished garage, meaning all the studs are dry walled in & finished, as is the ceiling. There is a lot of extra space in front of the garage, which is whey I hadn't worried about the lack of storage on the walls until just recently. I wanted to get my bike up off the ground & a few other things the dogs felt were necessary to carry into the yard on occasion. So started the planning, the sketching & the estimations.

After about a week of planning, and brilliant plans that then were cancelled due to issues we'd find, between my dad's idea, mixed with my discovery, I sketched up a plan using the Fast Track System from Rubbermaid. It is a modular system that will let you add hooks & have the ability to move them around as well as add shelves into it.

The sketch looked great, I headed to Menards with the exact number of every item I would need, folded down the seats & used my car like a truck & brought them all home. What I thought would be a 2 hour project took on a new life when it took us parts of 3 days due to not having a charged drill, the right size drill bit & troubles finding the studs. But we succeeded, we rescued a lot of ground space by getting things off the ground & I had to open the door several times in the hours after completion just to look at it, because I was so happy it worked out.

BEFORE

 AFTER

Up-cycle TV Stand

I have had in mind a style of stand I wanted for our upstairs living room, but wasn't really all that excited to pay for a brand new one, especially after we ordered a couch & chair. So I planned to go thrifting with my mom, but a for sale group I follow on Facebook had an option come up 1st.

Here's the $10 purchase before:

Here's the after sanding it down, giving it a fresh coat of black paint & removing the doors.

It fits the living room perfectly in terms of size & simplicity. I am happy with how it turned out, initially I had planned on leaving the doors on, but they had some issues with the hinges & I think I enjoy the open feel, especially knowing the fabric crates I have will slide in to the bottom shelf area. The project wound up being $15. I'll take it!

Fence Facelift

Our yard is fully fenced in & it's awesome for Sadie, but we own very little of it, so can't control the state of the fence, most of them are lovely. One of them if I ran at it, I could have run through it completely, so we grabbed a roll of chainlink fence right after we bought the house & stuck it to the poles on our side to make sure we didn't have a runaway pup on our hands. However, the part that we do own, was gray & kind of unattractive. So I got it in my head that staining it would be much more appealing.

Little did I know, that sanding would be significantly more intense than anticipated. We grabbed a pack of sandpaper sheets when we were going to start the project because we weren't able to hose off enough to make it look like good wood again. So we started sanding...with small sheets...by hand. Bad decision, it took forever, my hands hurts, my arms hurt & my fingernails were getting sanded down as well. 

Left - After Sanding | Right - Sanded Needed

Well, 1 week of evening work we had the biggest section of fence done & it looked stellar. So we took a 2 week break. 

Then it was time to do the smallest section. I decided to venture out on this section on my own. I am a perfectionist when it comes to painting, I apologize, but this is a trait that comes from my father, so I can't help it! But during the 1st section, I couldn't handle watching Greg stain, it was dripping, he held the brush all wrong & I was stressed! So I let him help sand & then asked him to let me stain by myself. And it was done!

This weekend I finally was able to crank out the last part, got up early, sanded...added band-aids to my fingers...everyone of them actually because hotspots popped up all over. Hosed it down, let it dry & then finally wrapped up the day staining. It looks so much more appealing, love looking at it from the swing!

Steps:

1. Hose it down in JET setting

2. Sand until you can see the wood grain again

3. Hose again to get the dust off

4. Let is dry

5. Stain (with proper technique & no dripping stain!)

6. Relax in the swing with wine or coffee