kitchen table

My mom and dad came out for Jack's baptism, which happened to be the week before we left for spring break. My dad likes to stay busy, so I thought we could refinish my kitchen table together while he was here. I ended up having a TON to do (of course, what was I thinking!) and couldn't help him much, but he got it mostly sanded down and then when I got back I finished the project.

Here's what it looked like before:

We bought it from our neighbor before we left Utah, she didn't have room for it and we loved its big bulky sturdiness. It came with different chairs. The chairs are another story for another post.

After sanding it down, this is the beautiful wood that we found. I think it is alder, and it is such a gorgeous color. Well, I wanted to keep it very close to the natural color, so I went to the little woodworking store here in town to get advice, and I was told to use an oil-varnish blend for a finish. I bought the stuff, came home, mixed it up and put it on, but as it dried it turned very very orange.

I cried. And then had to wait over a week for it to cure before I could strip or sand it off again.

In the end, I used a milk paint white wash and then went over it with wood stain in a driftwood color. I then finished it with polycrylic and wax.

I LOVE the way it turned out! And, I love the way it looks with my chairs. It only took me 5 weeks.

I linked up to MISS MUSTARD SEED

Happy Spring!

Here are a few pictures from my yard from a few weeks ago. We have had so much rain, and it has been hard to have to stay indoors so much, but the plants have been loving it!

I planted tulips for the first time in many years! I didn't even want to bother because of the deer, but my neighbor had gorgeous tulips, and told me the trick was to sprinkle the deer repellent around the shoots as soon as they started to come up! I did, and then repeated the application after each rain (which was pretty much everyday!) and it worked!

These hellebores are so gorgeous and easy, and start blooming in February!

I love these magnolias, they make me so happy!

And of course, life would not be complete without bleeding hearts!

These pictures are actually from a few weeks ago, the garden looks totally different now!

zinc dresser

i'll be attempting this one someday soon. very cool.

image via restoration hardware

faux zinc dresser from freckled laundry

pantry before and after

my pantry was one of the last areas in my house with those darn wire shelves. it's hard to tell, but Erin had just reorganized it like a week before this picture was taken. it just wouldn't stay neat. i really wanted to "fix"it, but so many other things were higher up on the list.

Eric finally persuaded me to have California Closets come in and put in new shelves for me. this feels like cheating to me, after all, i am perfectly capable of building shelves, and i even like doing it (not to mention that i'm a cheapskate.) but, with starting school, i knew that having our family's food strewn all over the kitchen for two weeks while i finished up the project would not have been fun, so i relented.

i wanted to wait until i got all of the stuff put away and labeled to post about it, but i just couldn't wait any longer! i love it SO MUCH!!!!!

back to school

i started school a few weeks ago, and have neglected to blog about it. i was very nervous, after all, it's been almost 20 years since i used my brain, and i'm almost old enough to have birthed some of my classmates. i don't know what i was so nervous about, like my neighbor said to me when she found out i was going back, "if i had the work ethic back then that i have now, i could have been a rhodes scholar!" yeah, youth is wasted on the young.

anyway, the classes are not hard (statistics and french). the stats class is VERY elementary, it's mostly just learning ABOUT statistics, not a lot of real math. and french is a lot of memorization and homework, but fun.

in fact, the whole thing is fun. it's energizing and uplifting to be learning new things (and to realize that i'm still smart) and to be around lots of other energetic people.

for christmas i got a new laptop for school, and of course had to make a cute laptop case out of my very favorite (discontinued, darn you IKEA) fabric.

i also made a little pouch for my cord, isn't it so cute?

new e-zine!

I just saw that Janell, the creator of one of my favorite blogs, Isabella and Max, is launching a new e-zine! Click here to subscribe!

penguin classics

Talk about delicious AND good for you!

penguin classics hardcover books available from amazon.com