Redo Revisited...for the last time! (Finally!)

It's no secret that I have been working to refinish a buffet for quite some time now. When I realized I wasn't going to meet my deadlines...there may or may not have been more than two....I settled with, "As long as I'm making progress each week....". But in reality, my garage was starting to look like a furniture graveyard.


{yea...and see that table to the right? thanks to some family friends, I found my next project! after the bench of course (not pictured, soon enough)}

So, I decided it was time to get the job done. Plus, I really had the perfect motivation. My main squeeze's (SWL) big 3-0 was right around the corner. I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to get the buffet finished, in it's new home, and top it off with a new flat screen tele and make the grand reveal on his birthday. Still, while I have since finished the buffet 100% it was not in time for my man's milestone. I did however snag the flat screen as his gift. I was nervous beyond words to give him his gift. #1- flat screens aren't cheap (who knew?). #2- we do NOT spend money like that without talking to each other first (definitely purchased the shiny new tele on the down loooow). #3- did he even really want it and was it a good enough "big 30th" birthday gift??


{me before giving SWL the television (sporting some pretty cool gold framed glasses, don't hate)}



{my sad display since I didn't finish the buffet in time and i couldn't seem to find a roll of wrapping paper big enough to wrap the box, lame.}



{me after the big reveal, SUCCESS!! he loved it!! phew...}

Anyway, back to the real reason for this post. Now that there was a flat screen sitting on the floor of the living room, begging for a place to settle in....the real motivation started to kick in a bit. Who wants a shiny new tele sitting on the floor?! Comon'! I grabbed my gloves, paintbrush, stain, and mask and got down to business. I went with a deeper stain for a rich finish to stand out next to the orangey-colored brick in the living room.



{One coat in. A bit more red-tone than I was going for...but that was settled with a second coat.}

After a couple coats, a few touch ups, a run in with a spider, and a couple "Why didn't I just buy a new buffet?" type thoughts, my good friend Mr. Buffet, you know this guy, was finally finished. Complete. Donezo. Finito, muah! Shelves, drawers, doors and all!!

It has actually been living in it's spot for about 4 weeks now, but we all know how awesome I was at posting last month...Nada. I was having some issues getting the hardware in place so I wasn't totally ready to share the news anyway. The screws that came with the new hardware weren't quite long enough to make it through the door and into the handle...something I should've checked before I bought the handles. BUT, easy fix. New screws were acquired, a little elbow grease assistance from my big sis, SYL, and the handles were put in place. I am in lurrrrvvvvv with my "new" used piece! Check it out, how'd I do?



{love love love the decision to go with the Pottery Barn inspired pulls}



{still working on figuring out how exactly to store the DVD/Cable Box in a hidden, yet functional manner. Can you guess what movie that is...might be one of the best love stories ever!}




{Ahh...feels so good to be done!}

Thanks for sticking around to see if I would ever even finish the thing or post about it again! Totally worth it, right? ;-) While I'm feeling pretty accomplished and enjoying my beloved buffet, I know I still have at least three other pieces of furniture calling my name (creepy). For now, no mention of what I might get into next. I think I'll only share progress updates, it might actually get done that way!

As always, thanks for reading!

Until next time...

Total Bust...well not completely, I guess...

So, as you all might have noticed there is nothing posted about any kind of excitement from being finished with the buffet redo. It's because I failed....I didn't meet my deadline of January 31st. But I have been working on it. It's just taking way longer than what I anticipated.

Over the summer, back when I first purchased the buffet, I was in the middle of like 4 other projects and so I only sort of started working on the stripping of the buffet. I chose the top because it was flat and easy to work with at the time. I put the stripper on and you could see it begin to work almost instantly, even though the jug says to wait for about 25-30 minutes. Here's an example of what I'm talking about from another piece I was working on. Those bubbles were like perfection, it meant the stripper was doing its job and I was on my way to a "new" piece of furniture.

(This table is now white and lovely, you see, because the stripper worked. Hmph!)

But I never got the bubbles with the rest of the buffet. I don't know what is going on but so far it seems like all the buffet is doing is soaking up the stripper. Awesome. I even let it sit for the entire amount of time mentioned in the instructions...and nothing. When I start to scrape its like I might as well sprayed the thing with water! Extremely frustrating.

At first I thought the issue was the kind of stripper I chose. I was out of the old, so I opted for the "environmentally safe" choice. It did "okay" but took forever....and while the smell was way more bearable and I felt better about cleaning my supplies and throwing things away, I couldn't take it. I broke down and bought some of the "real deal" stripper. The stuff that has to be "disposed of properly". (I hate it...I do.) But when I gave that a shot thinking, "I'm in business now! Bwah hahaha", nothing. More soaking up, waiting, and a whole lot of no real results. Here is what I got...

(One of the doors from the buffet..all butchered up now, sad.)

A sorta, kinda, half way there, but not really done door. What the?!?! So, here I am...and I need your help. Names of strippers (ha), tips that work, anything....please? This was supposed to be easy, well not easy, but not this hard.

I'm quite discouraged and thinking I might have ruined a perfectly good piece of furniture just because I wanted it to be a different color. Tear :*-( Any advice, or pointing in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.

Until next time....

Treasure...?

While I will say my progress is not what I thought it would be at this point, at least I can say there has been some in the buffet redo department and that I fully intend on having the project completed by my deadline (January 31st, 6 days from now...). I have also decided no photo updates until it is complete, because really I shouldn't be blogging about it right now...I should be working on it. Buuuut, here's a little something to keep you interested.

While I was disassembling my lovely masterpiece, cleaning, and what not, I made a discovery. I found these tucked in the back of the buffet, under one of the center drawers.

A rubber band, an old poptop thingy, some old coin wrappers, and a black and white school photo (the most interesting of the bunch).

Whether you can call it treasure, I don't know. But fun to make a find just the same. Alright, that's all you get for now...more to come...in no more than 6 days to be exact. :0) Wish me luck!

The one and only, ever curious, and totally excited (can't you tell?) helper, Riley.

Until next time...

Simple Solutions

For a while now I have been hounding my hubs to get a "recycling center"... fancy for " small bins to throw your trash in at home until you take your trash somewhere else to throw in bigger bins". Yea, so it took me a while to come to the realization on the whole "seriously, they are just bins" idea. I thought I needed the ones with labels, holes specific to what you were throwing in the bin, color coordinated, slanted lids, yada yada...you know bells and whistles. But once again, "seriously, they are just bins".

So, shortly after Christmas, the hubs and I made our way to Lowe's because, of course, what happens after Christmas...SALES! We weren't specifically looking for anything that had to do with recycling. But we were looking for things to help us get organized. Along the way we came across a great deal on bins like these...
Regularly this little ditty is about $14 and we snagged it (along with as many we could find and thought we might have a use for) for only $5!! Five buckaroos, is way cheaper than any piece of a recycling center I could find.

As for labels, well my handy dandy label maker set to the largest letter option worked fine for me.

A grand total of $20 later, plus a few labels and my recycle center was up a running. It may not be as small as other options, but it saved me a good chunk of change and the bins are big enough to hold all the garb that we are throwing in until we can make it to the "bigger bins" to unload!

Hope this inspires some simple solutions around your ranch! Do you have any to share? Until next time...

PS- there has been some progress on the buffet redo...more to come on that later!

After doing some reading, thinking, taking a 45 minute power walk to think it over some more and then feeling like I might have actually stumbled on the first piece to reaching my goal of being organized - I decided to write it down. Here it goes...

It starts with how you think, can you believe it? At least with me it does. My thoughts, how I view my organization (or lack there of) and my perception of others "organization". I throw quotations around the word organization here because of the following reason and this is exactly my first point. I find that often I compare my life to others and more times than not I allow myself to continually come out on the end of drawing the short stick. For example, it doesn't matter that the entire weekend I might've cleaned and straightened the house, planned the meals for the coming week, and washed the dog, come Monday if I see anyone that looks like they might be slightly more put together than I feel, I start comparing and losing. For all I know, the person(s) I am comparing myself to could have done nothing all weekend and be totally NOT put together and only look like the have it all figured out.

So this is my plan. My first step to "Organizing Me" is going to be changing the way I think and feel about the lists that I check off (completely or partially), the time that I spend relaxing, and how I stack myself up to those around me. Really, it isn't a competition...and it shouldn't feel like one! I do it to myself and its time to stop.

It's not necessarily about "coming out on top" when I compare, it's more about realizing that there are differences in everyone's life and accepting/appreciating what makes my own unique! I'm committed...I'm in need...and I'm ready! So for the rest of this week (and hopefully the rest of my life) I am going to make a conscious effort to change the way I think and look at my life compared to others.

Until next time...

Have you ever had one of those weeks where you are moving through the days, sun up - sun down, get up - go to sleep, everything is happening just as it should so you aren't really paying attention to what day it is? This week, that is me. Chugging along, making lists - checking them off, heading to work - filling in my timesheet and heading home.... I was just fine. Then the week decided to jump up and slap me right in the face as if I weren't paying enough attention to it. All day I've been thinking it was Friday...FRIDAY! Until, just now, while chatting with some friends I realized I still have half a day until I get to be excited about Friday! Hmmmph...total devastation.

I think this feeling really encompasses my entire Fall season thus far. I can't believe we are half way through the month of October, I can't believe Halloween is knocking at my door and I haven't even finished putting out all of out Fall/Halloween decorations (not to mention I haven't pulled together my costume yet?), I can't believe the family is already trying to make plans for Thanksgiving...and then Christmas?! I can't believe I have already started shopping for Christmas. Who does that? Now?

I feel like I have to plan ahead, but I want to slow down. When I take the time to sit and enjoy doing nothing, I feel guilty and 10 things come to mind that I could/should be doing. I have a planner in my purse, a ginormous planner stuck to the fridge, my blackberry calendar is full, there are post-its in every place imaginable as reminders for things I have to or might want to do...WHAT THE HECK? I've got all the supplies to be organized and yet I feel as if I am being swallowed by the "tools" that I have in place.

This is what I feel like now...

This is where I want to be...
Ahhh....doesn't that just make you feel good...

I need tips, real hard life tips for getting, being, and staying organized. We'll see where this goes...but over the next couple weeks (or months, it might take me the rest of the year to really get in a groove) I'm going to read up, listen up, and search out ways to live an organized life. I'll share what I find helpful and will be more than happy to take hints that might lead me in the direction I am so desperately seeking...so please, comment away!

Falling into Autumn

With the Fair finished and gone (tear) it seems that Fall has wasted no time stepping up as being the next big thing to happen. I love this time of year - crisp mornings, just warm enough evenings, football, sweaters, hot drinks, beautiful colors, baking smells...all deliciously irresistible - the list could go on and on. This time of year is also when I get the real itch to jump into more DIY projects than usual. Things like purging the house of all items unused or no longer needed, baking...lots of baking (you have to pack on for winter warmth right?), decorating, moving furniture around, etc. This year I am trying something I have never been brave enough to attempt before - stripping, sanding, and re-finishing/painting furniture!! I am pretty excited. One - its a project and Two - I am going to have "new" furniture in the house!

I started the first project a couple days ago - this lovely table that I found fo' FREE! along the side of the road one day when I wasn't even looking. (Suhweet) I thought it would go great with what I have planned for my sunroom (that which is currently empty minus the dog crate).

My first "to do" - sand it...well I tried (by hand) and thought I was doing good with the little bit of elbow grease I could drum up. But as soon as I dusted it off it was like I had never touched it. Extremely sad face. So I waltzed down the street to borrow an electric sander (I think I'm in love) from the Clarke's (Thank you sooo much!). After about 10 minutes of that I realized I was going to need more than just a sander soooo (again) the Clarke's gave me some stripper! Uhmazing...if you haven't stripped something you should. I think I might strip every piece of furniture I own just to give it a new a refreshed look! Check it out!



Anyway...so this is about as far as I have been able to get with my craftiness. I do have this lovely piece that I scored from the local thrift store that I have grand plans for, so stay posted!

I'll keep you all updated! For now, just a quick hello and happy Fall! I hope this season is as inspiring for you as it seems to be for me :o) What are some of your favorite Fall happenings??

~HAL