Feeling Handy

Two weeks ago, we made our FIRST trip to Canton EVER! I know, I've been in Texas my whole life and I've never gone, and that's crazy! Well, we had a good time! Hattie came home with this tutu...
and we came home with an unfinished wooden cedar toy chest.  All in all, it was a great day trip!

Once we got home, I became focused on staining and sealing the toy chest so that we could start using it!  Jeremy and I had been looking for a toy chest for a long time (to help consolidate the abyss of toys in our living room!), but they were all incredibly expensive and not exactly the style we wanted.  Our lucky find in Canton gave us the exact style of toy box we wanted, and we could make it match our house by finishing it ourselves!  Yea!  Well, I don't have a "before" shot of the toy box, but here's what it looks like today:

After I stained and sealed Hattie toy chest, I decided I would do the same thing to her play table and chairs!  This table and chairs set was handed down to us from a sweet family who had received them from the church back in 2003, when the children's ministry purchased all-new furniture.  Long story short, this table and chairs were ancient.  They had been used by who-knows-how-many generations of children at the church, and they were very good quality--however they had marker stains all over them and they weren't all the same shade of stain either.  I spend a whole evening in our garage hand-sanding them to remove the finish in order to stain them...after all that work, the stain only beaded up on the surface of the wood and I realized I needed something stronger.  The next day, I borrowed a friend's power-sander (yes, you read that right...I used a POWER tool all by myself!) and worked for 2 hours on the chairs and table.  I was COVERED in dust, but this was the result!

Ahhhh!  Nooooow, I could start staining!  It was SO much fun, I was practically racing Hattie through her bedtime routine each night so that I could change clothes and work on my project in the garage!  After several nights of working in the garage with the June Bugs flying around (gross), I finally finished!  Ta-Da!

You would have thought I had given Hattie the world.  Between her new toy chest and these chairs and table, Hattie doesn't know where to go first!  She said (in her animated, breathy, squealy voice), "Ohhhhhh, Mommy!!!!  You did SUCH a good job painting!!!"  I still have two more chairs sitting in the garage, waiting to be sanded, stained and sealed, but I'm going to take a little break this week.  Even so, I think I have discovered a new hobby!  I REALLY enjoyed refinishing these pieces!  I wonder what we could try next?!?