Thanksgiving Break

Last week was a little crazy. On Monday I spent the whole day cooking in the kitchen for Thanksgiving. On Tuesday I ran around and did errands until about 2:00 when I started sanding, staining, and painting my kitchen furniture until 12:30 that night. The next day I got up and worked on my kitchen table for hours before finally getting one coat of stain on and packing up and heading to Arco in a snow storm. The roads were actually pretty decent until we got to the Craters of the Moon and they were really bad there until we got to my parents house. Chase and Rachel and Kelsey and Justin also came home for Thanksgiving. That night we had soup and pie and watched Fargo. Thanksgiving day my mom had dinner all ready by mid morning and we ate at 11:30 as usual and it was good! We just hung around the rest of the day watching TV, chatting, eating,  and working on a puzzle (or rather I would get a puzzle out and Justin would work on it). That night we played some games which included experiencing a first in the game of Rage which we have been playing my entire life. I won a hand with all of the free cards. It was crazy! I didn't want to win that hand by the way. On Friday Trisha's family came out to spend the day. Our kids finally had some cousins to play with. We just chatted with them until they left and then we left around 4:00 that day as well.

When I got home Friday night I had time to put on a coat of polyurethane on my red benches and then I went to bed. On Saturday I painted most of the day straight. This project is tedious and time consuming and exhausting. This week I just need to paint the bottom of the table and the benches and a couple chairs white and then put on three coats of polyurethane on them. Phew! I don't even know if it's going to look good when it's done. I think I'm hoping that my imperfect work will look "rustic" rather than "homespun." We'll see!

Kelsey and Justin have been here today since around 12:00. They have an early morning flight to catch in the morning. I think after the kids go to bed we may play a mean game of Settlers of Catan. Wish me luck finishing this dang kitchen furniture transformation. I need stamina to power through.

I painted my bar stools red. I used homemade chalk paint. I hope the claim is true about not needing to sand or prime. I guess I'll find out in a few weeks if all of the paint chips off. I stained the top of the benches dark.

I tried to strip the kitchen table and it was so stinky!

As you can see it wasn't really working. I went to Home Depot for a consult and they just told me to sand it down.

I sanded it down in the house! Look at the dust pile on the piano. This is a summer, outdoor project!

I had to quarantine the kids while I was using the stripper on the table. This is a summer, outdoor project!

My mom having some bonding time with the kids, (forcing them to sing with her on the piano). Ha.