Starting over..

First off I would like to apologise for being away from the blog for so long. It's been hectic around here lately! Over the last few weeks we had a new roof put on the house. It was well over due since the old roof was ugly, wavy, and leaky! During the replacement of the roof we had a run in with bad weather that caused flooding in the attic, the half bath we have been remodeling, and the front wall of the house. The roofing company had insurance to cover all of the damage but it has still been very stressful and a little sad since we were so close to the finish of the half bath. So we will have to gut and redo it all over, replace lots of insulation in the attic, front wall, and in the spring replace some siding. Right now we are worried about what we can't see inside the walls that had alot of leaking since mold can be so dangerous. On a good note the finished roof turned out beautiful. I promise new posts will be coming your way soon!

French Side Table: Before and After... sort of

Last week our new neighbors threw this French Provincial side table out to the curb. When I saw it I ran in the house, got the dogs, and took them for a walk to get a better look. Like a nice neighbor I waited until it was dark to sneak over and take it.. but it was REALLY heavy so my loving husband went over and got it. Do I sound crazy? I though I took a before picture of the table but I couldn't find one so I guess I forgot. It was painted a glossy black that was pretty banged up. It even had the drawers still full of socks..

I decided to paint it cream and strip the top and stain it but the top turned out to be heavy plastic. I thought it was odd since the rest of the table was wood. I started to paint the top but didn't like the look. So I thought for a little bit about what I wanted to do and remembered a picture I had seen on Pinterest. Antique sheet music! I had been collecting it for a while to make some wreaths as gifts and It sure came in handy for this project too.

I used a mixture of glue and water to apply the sheet music to the top of the table and decided to add it to the drawer fronts too. After the glue mixture dried I used a very sharp paring knife to trim the excess paper off the table top and drawers. I sealed the top with a good coat of light and dark wax.

I loved the way the original hardware matched the color scheme..

Pretty curvy legs...

Here is a glimpse of the top...

I had quickly snapped all the pictures above right before I took this table to the local antique market so this was a not blurry picture of the top I took a few days before.. 

I hardly had the side table out of the truck before someone scooped it up. It turned out so pretty and I'm happy I saved it from going into a landfill somewhere. I would say this little table had a very happy ending!

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sharing at:

http://frenchcountrycottage.blogspot.com/

http://www.frommyfrontporchtoyours.com/

http://www.stonegableblog.com/

http://missmustardseed.com/

Refinishing Hardwood Floors: Part 2

After sanding, we crawled around to look for holes and gaps that needed to be filled in. This is where all the bags of saw dust comes in handy! We took some of the left over saw dust and mixed it with plain wood glue to make a paste. We filled all holes and big gaps with the paste and it dried to the exact color of the natural wood. We smoothed out the filled holes with a palm sander. After cleaning up all the dust for what seemed like years we finally started to stain! We chose Minwax stain in Dark Walnut to match with all of the original trim. 

We started from the top of the stairs and worked our way down to the first floor. We wore latex gloves and used terry cloth type staining sponges to apply the stain. We applied the stain on the wood planks in rows of 2 or 3 and wiped up any excess after letting it sit a few minutes.

I love the way the floor took the stain in the dining room! It took a day to stain the floors. Can you believe it only took a gallon of stain to finish the floors! We bought six gallons thinking they would just soak up every drop but they didn't! We let them dry for a week, we could have started the polyurethane sooner but since we only had weekends to do projects we had to wait. 

We used a fluffy "sheep wool" attachment  to apply the polyurethane. Since it was in the middle of December opening the windows weren't an option. So we wore respirator masks because polyurethane is STINKY and put large fans in the doorways to keep air moving.

After two coats of polly we were finished! It took three weekends to finish the floors. After renting sanders, buying stain, sealer, and supplies we spent under $300 dollars. It was hard work but so worth it! We saved thousands doing it ourselves and it looks great! We refinished the floors before we moved our furniture in the   house and I highly recommend it if you have that option. 

We are so happy with the floors. I cant wait to show you complete decorated rooms one day!

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