Sneak Peek: Stairs

The Lake House stairs are complete!! Here is a little sneak peek picture of how they look from the dock.

I haven't seen them in person yet, but they look amazing here. I will have more pictures the next time we head down there, so say tuned. In the mean time, here is how they looked partly done.

American Watercolors

Alan and I found this pretty book of watercolor prints at a local antique store. We brought it home for about $20 with the intention of framing some.

It came in this fun box and all of the water colors are loose so ready for a frame.

The prints are fun and not something that you see every day.

Like a boy with a rooster!

The only problem is they are an odd size and we weren't able to just pop over to Michael's to grab a few frames.

So it looks like we will have to take the pictures with us on our next trip and see if we can find a frame that will work, probably with a mat. Hopefully, we wont have to go the custom frame route, which is not as cheap as a stock Michael's frame with a coupon! We will see.

Stairway to Heaven

The stairs at the Lake House have been started! It was so difficult to climb down that cliff to make it to the boat dock and even more difficult to clear the cliff of all the brush and trees. But now it is clear and will soon be a breeze to get down! We met my family at the lake on Sunday to check out the progress.

They should be done by next weekend. Aren't they beautiful? There is even going to be a deck 3/4 the way down so that you can sit and over look the lake.

Bennett even liked the Lake House. There was just so many new smells and fun things to explore.

Besides the stairs, I will have another update on the Lake House soon and this one will be all about a boat! Stairs and a boat. Heaven.

Refinishing the Dresser: Part 3

We are so close to being done with the dresser that I can almost taste it! You heard all about where we got the dresser here, followed by Part 1 and Part 2 of refinishing. Now on to Part 3.

We sanded...

Sanded some more...

And sanded even more...

Until we were so covered in dust that it was gross. And I made the mistake of sitting on our white couch. Luckily, I just took the seat cover off and washed it. No harm done.

But that meant that we were officially on the staining stage. We chose Minwax.

We thought the dark walnut color was the closest to our bed color. We took a drawer from our side table in the living room into Lowes to match, because it is similar to color too. Then the staining started.

I stained...

First coat...

Still not quite dark enough for us yet.

So I stained again...

Alan did all the wiping after we let the stain sit for 15 minutes.

Done! Well, almost. But all that we have left to do is polyurethane it and find some pulls. The pulls are going to be the hardest part. We want them to fit the pre-existing drilled holes and we have 8 holes that are 2 inches apart and 4 that are 2.5 inches apart. That means we need matching pulls that will fit both. Ug, pain.

(P.S. You can see the drawer we were trying to match the color to on the right side of the last picture.)

Our New Family Member

Meet Bennett! The newest member to our family.

That's right, Alan and I got a puppy! He sure has been keeping us busy. That is why I have been MIA lately. We are slowly getting into a routine and he is catching on fast.

Now that you have met Bennett here are some facts so that you can get to know him a little better...

- Name: Bennett
- Age: 4 months and 4 days
- Sex: Male
- Breed: Maltipoo (part Maltese and part Poodle)
- Weight: 4.5 lbs
- From: Cumming, GA
- Favorite things: leaves, grass, our master closet, and laying around and napping (as seen in picture 2 and 4)

How can you not love that face! The only sad part is that he has a little cold. Poor puppy. We got him to the Vet right away and his meds have already made him much better.

He just is the perfect puppy for us. We couldn't love him more. So now you will be seeing much more about him around these parts. In the mean time is there anything else you would like to know about our little guy?

Where is the Shade?

That was the question we kept asking ourselves, but not anymore. We picked up some new lamp shades at Target for the lamps in our bedroom. I love these lamps. We got them at TJ Maxx for $39.99 each. I just love the sliver. But I love them even more now that the shades are white!

If you notice below with the original shade, the color is almost the same as the wall!

It just blended in. Matchy-matchy and not in the good matching way.

Luckily, Target came to the rescue with two white drum shades for $16.99 each. It is the mix-and-match large white drum shade. 

Hello shade, nice to see you.

The nightstand decor needs some help now. Alan found the "manly" stoneware jug at Marshall's. I think it was $14.99.

And I found this cute clock for my side from TJ Maxx for $24.99. We didn't have a clock in the room before it so it was a great addition. If you are wondering, Alan and I use our cell phone alarms to wake up in the morning.

What a quick easy change and I am so much happier!

Also, Alan and I are almost done with the dresser! A lot of sanding and staining happened yesterday. So be looking for an update soon.

Refinishing the Dresser: Part 2

In Part 1 of Refinishing the Dresser, Alan and I stripped (most) of the paint off the dresser. There was still a little we just couldn't get out. The groves and corners were killing us.

But we decided to go ahead and move on to the sanding stage.

So Alan got some course grit sand paper and the electric sander.

It started looking better after just one round of the course sand paper.

This weekend we are going to have to work on the last little paint left in the corners and then sand it again with some fine sand paper.

I wish we were at the staining stage. Our hope is to find a stain that will match our bed and our nightstands. We will have to wait and see what we find this weekend.

So it looks like this project in going to have to move on it a Part 3 and perhaps Part 4. Stay tuned!

Refinishing the Dresser: Part 1

Remember this awesome Drexel dresser that we scored from $110 at Bella Vintage Antique Store in Hartselle?

Two weeks after we bought it, we finally got to working on it. We thought that this would be a weekend project. Silly us!

Turns out it is WAY more difficult than we thought. Those pretty groves in the front don't make it easy.

Not to mention, that under all that white paint, we found pink!

And all of the hardware had been painted, at least once, but knowing our luck, probably more than once. So we are thinking new hardware is in order. The first place I will be looking is Anthropologie, of course.

To get started we gathered all of our supplies.

Little did we know that this was NOT enough stripper. We went through this whole container, a container of stray stripper (which we weren't huge fans of), and then another container of the first kind.

So these are just the supplies gathered at the first shopping experience. We had to go back to the store two more times for more stripper. But we didn't realize that until after we got started.

We took all of the drawers out.

And removed all of the hardware. That piece of wood was in this drawer as a divider of some sort, but it didn't go all the way down the bottom of the drawer, so weird.

Then it was time to get stripping.

The top was by far, the easiest part to strip. Paint on the stipper, wait, wait, wait and then scrape like there is no tomorrow.

We think that someone painted pink right over the original finish and then someone else painted white. The crazy part is we only found pink in random places on the dresser. Not on the top, but on the front, but not on the drawers. Who knows what someone was thinking with that choice.

Eventually, we got it down to this look, after many coats.

After one last coat and some heavy scraping, we were ready for some sanding.

The whole process happened over a two week period, because we kept running out of stripper. And of course, like any sane people, we decided to take another week or so break before tackling the sanding project head on. This weekend project is looking more like a month long project. Stay tuned for the standing.