Dresser

When we adopted Isaac, we had no furniture.  Like none.

Well, a pack and play, but that's not really furniture.

About 8 months earlier, I found a dresser on Craigslist that was maple.  It was gorgeous, and would work for a boy or a girl (depending on the finish).  I emailed the listing, and told my husband that if it was available... I was buying it. 

I don't think he believed me until he came home and saw it sitting in the garage.  And it sat there... for months

I was looking around for inspiration, and found Kim's version, at To Much Time On My Hands, and the amazing dresser she had done.

Now that I had my inspiration, my Mom and I got started!  (she came into town when we got back from Kentucky with our son).

We could have sanded it, but decided in the interest of time, we would just strip.

This was the set up in our garage (the towel hanging down was to block the sun on the drawers that were being stripped)

I should note that we did this on one of the hottest days of the year (literally, it was like 108*!)

We had looked for several days online and at thrift stores for a bookcase to match that my Mom could get for his room, but couldn't find one that was solid wood.  We went to an furniture store that had all 'raw' furniture, that still needed to be finished, and got him a 6' bookcase to stain at the same time.

We matched the stain as close as we could to his crib set (that will turn into a toddler and full bed eventually too)

I couldn't convince my husband that the rope pulls were awesome, so we painted the existing knobs black after we sanded them down really well.

I hung them upside down so that I could spray paint them on all sides.  I used some old (cheep) spray paint,  because I figured that the if the knobs wore, it would fit in well.

(sorry for the crappy photos)

I love the way it turned out!

Woodsy Hanger

Since outfitting our son's room on a budget is the name of the game, I've been doing and making what with the smallest cost possible   We needed something behind his door, and so I started thinking.  Since his room is mostly woodlands, I searched under that and found these:

 

http://www.shft.com/shopping/timber-tree-hooks

Awesome, but still cost money, and I figured that I could find something in my favorite spot ever.... the woods on the backside of our subdivision.

So, I popped my son in the stroller, grabbed my big tree cutter's and ventured to the far side of the neighborhood.

I cut a whole bunch of random sticks, mostly "Y" shaped ones, that could have a 'hook' like part, as well as two straight ones.  I tried to pick wood that had fallen, and already dried out, so I wouldn't be working with green wood.

I didn't know how bad the saw would tear up the bark, so I put masking tape around it, the same way I've done in the past when I cut through my counter tops.

This is what they looked like when I was done, pretty smooth cut!

They were all cut, and lined up, ready to go! 

My husband was worried about them having bugs in them, so I put them in a 1:1 bleach bath... and then laid them out in the sun to dry... and then came out 15 minuets later to white sticks!  Oops!  We mixed different shades of brown paint with water to thin it down, and 'painted' various colors back onto the bark.

Once the paint was dry, we used some poly to seal the hooks, (and to keep any bugs that survived the bleach bath IN).  We put the coats on thick and heavy with big bristled brushes.

I love that she wanted to help make something for her little brothers room, she's the best big sister!

Once the poly was mostly dried (I only waited a few hours), I laid the two long sticks out, and arranged the shorter hooks on top of them.

I drilled pilot holes where each hook would go.

Drilled the screws in part way for all of the hooks to get them started.

I'm so proud of how it came out (because in all honesty, I had NO idea how it would turn out... but I figured it didn't cost anything, just used some supplies I had on hand, so if it was horrible, I could just pitch it!)

 We hung it once we found the studs, and haven't had any problems yet!

Garden :(

Between the adoption of our son, and a month of 100+ temperatures, the garden got out of hand... big time

The night before the first frost, this is what the tomatoes looked like.  

Holy crap!

My Mom was in town, and we picked a ton of green tomatoes, and, of course, fried them that night!

And... I have some beef with the guy upstairs... what is the purpose of this NASTY bug!  

I hate tomato worms... especially when I don't know they exist until AFTER I grabbed a vine to pick it up to get some tomatoes underneath....

ewwww!!! 

July 6th

Sweet Potato Re-do

This was what our sweet potatoes looked like....  So, before we got to much further into the growing season, I decided to just scrap the whole thing, and start over!  I went to the local nursery, got three more slips, and talked for a while.  I discovered that sweet potatoes don't grow exactly like regular potatoes, and so the tire tower wasn't the best method, at least the way I was doing it.  They suggested that I stack all three tires, and plant on the top, so there is space for them to grow down.

The new sweet potato slips

We mixed a combination of peat moss, compost, humus, manure, and top soil.

We did it wheelbarrow by wheel barrow, tire by tire....

And in the end, we planted the three new plants!

Our tire tower !

We also decided to move the little Anaheim Pepper plant that was in the middle of all my tomato plants.  Being a first year gardener, I had NO idea how big the tomato plants would be, so I planted this little gem in the middle of them...  He is completely shaded where he was at.  I took the biggest shovel we had, and dug the dirt all the way around it. 

I tried to make sure I got as much dirt as deep as I could go!

I hope he's happy in his new pot... he's a couple weeks behind, but hopefully we'll still get some peppers off him still!