I'm sorry. I didn't mean to stay away this long. I would say that "we've been busy" but it's really just that we've been doing "life". We celebrated ProLife Day (January 22nd) by celebrating 17 years of The Professor being in our life.
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| A cozy pair of hand knit fingerless gloves from Sunshine! |
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| Reading a card from Rain |
He's growing into such an amazing young man that we are honored to call our son . Shortly after our celebration, Sean headed off on a business trip to Boston. The Boston that was just shut down by record amounts of snow…
yeah, THAT Boston!
Before he left though, he built a new countertop for the dry bar. We have wanted to get rid of the white laminate countertops for a while and create something that would match the built-in side opposite it.
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| Before with the old white laminate tops… they were not always decorated with such pretty food. |
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| During... |
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| ...more during... |
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| Done… just needs to be stained. |
I have discovered that I am not a staining kind of girl. It was terrible. It smelled. It seemed so arbitrary… what the color looked like in the can vs. what color it turned the wood. I had to mix stains to try to match the already stained side but then try to figure out number of coats. To condition or not to condition was another agonizing decision. And then don't even get me started on the oily polyurethane problem that had two master carpenters and the customer service rep at Minwax scratching their heads! It's done now and I have decided it will be a cold day in you-know-where before I willingly take on another staining project. Even though it turned out really nice! Home improvement projects should not be traumatic.
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| After! |
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| Both sides. There is one tiny piece of trim that needs to be put back on underneath the tall countertop. It had to be removed to get the old countertop off. |
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| Looking from the dining room into the dry bar. |
Since my husband still wasn't back after the third coat of poly dried, I painted these mason jars as therapy… to make up for the trauma of stain.
Ahhhhh… beautiful paint. So tidy, so predictable, so comforting. These are a set of ombre colored jars that I intended to use as vases on the new bar or just for fun because they are pretty. I
used this tutorial if you want to paint some pretty jars too or if you need some paint therapy.
