Worth the Wait

It all started when….

I took home a dresser, as a freebie leftover, after helping out with a family garage sale.

You know the moment. The, its free, I’m sure I could fix it up and use it, moment.

That was about, um…..4 years ago or so.

Now, attempts have been made. But, the weather or pregnancy  or a good TV show kept getting in the way.

In fact, I picked this dresser project up a few times over the last year.

One such time was written about last fall called, Scrapping the Crud Off.

They look fine, but, using free recycled paint doesn’t always work out so hot. Like it didn’t in my case so much. I mentioned this this previous post that it may be “getting too cold”…it was.

Back it went, to the depths of the crowded garage for another two seasons.

Summer came. There I was, faced with the real deal. Do this project or put it in a bonfire.

Have you ever been there? I CAN’T get rid of this DIY dream or I’ll finally be admitting I FAILED! So I just did it.

Before-

1. Lightly sand and wipe with a cloth to get the cowebs off, I mean, to prep the wood.

2. Slap on paint. Roll the fronts. Use a foam brush to blend in drips on the sides.

3. Spray those knobs outside! I bought cheap wooden ball knobs. Just mow your lawn after your done.

4. Make it customized. I attached a wood-chip bumble bee, purchased from a big “fabcrafart” store, to the top drawer front. I drew bzzzzz lines with a sharpie pen.

After-

Still looking for the screw to the last knob. I tried to tape it on for the photo. Seriously, I did. What a fraud. But, as it should be, the knob fell off during my photo.

Better-Than-Trash Dresser Redo has Behr Cottage White Latex paint and Kylon Black Satin spray paint.

P.S. I think I’ll add another bee and some more bzzz lines. It needs a little more pizazz.

How about, 4 bees for my 2 (soon to be 4) children busy bees? Sounds good. Any reason to go to the fabcrafart store, right?

Phase one: Treasure the present. Feel the room with your eyes and heart. Take pictures.

Phase two: Talk about setting what “is” into the what “was” category. Nuts and bolts of the moving plan can be discussed.

Phase three: Firm up memories. Remember when you did this or that, here and there…

Phase four: Make doing things in the room special by doing them, one final time.

Goodbye blue ceiling with Mama's painted clouds.

Molly waves goodbye! Notice their faces are bittersweet.

Goodbye Molly's crib. Soon you'll be reborn as the twins' crib.

Goodbye dresser/changing table. We did have fun jumping off of you!

We are deep in the midst of giving our main level a face lift.  Thanks to my father-in-law (fil) Phil our new flooring is installed! It is so much better than the previous dirty carpet. [That will be his new blog name, Fil Phil.] It is so fun to see plans spring into realities.

We are over time, over budget and overwhelmed. We’ll manage but I can tell that I have some heart work to do as I seem to be fumbling a bit with my patience and grace during this challenge.

Kids

Meanwhile, my little guy just turned 4! We had a doughnut breakfast around a patio table in the middle of the living room to celebrate. His Super Hero party will be coming when I can have a tool-free floor again.

Kitchen

This morning I botched a double batch of apple oatmeal cookies I was going to send to Texas. What? Who knew that 1 cup of baking soda is not the same as 1 tsp.? Yikes!

Yes, that is my refrigerator in the living room.  So technically this is a picture of my kitchiving room.

Decorating

I moved my dresser into the kids room and made a mock diaper station on the top. Nice move. No pictures yet because it’s “nap” time which really is more like WW 3 this afternoon. We are going on 45 minutes of battle…still no quietness from either of them. Geesh!

Things I want to do but it might be too late (too cold):

• Paint a rehab dresser and place it in my room.
• Re-purpose a office hutch topper into a toy storage unit for the new living room.
• Fix up a $5 (garage sale find) bookcase for all the littering kids books reproducing in my home!

Sneak peek at my dresser rehab.

Bin-a-Week is making a cameo in the background.

That’s us lately. Have a good weekend.