curvy french end table....

i hope everyone had a wonderful holiday weekend.  we did.  we stayed home but went cherry picking on sunday.  i had no idea that the orchard that we did our apple picking at every year also had cherry trees.  we picked 14 pounds of sour cherries and about 4 pounds of queen ann or ranier cherries. 

i've never made a cherry pie before but it is don's favorite so i tried my hand at it.  

unfortunately, we hacked into it before i got a picture of it.......

so worth it.....i have never made a pie that turned out so well.....

it was perfect.

i also made a 4th of july tart using refrigerated sugar cookie dough with cream cheese filling and fresh fruit.....

another winner.....

and just as tasty....

it literally took me about 15 minutes after i had the crust baked....

okay, enough about food (i'm getting hungry!!!)

i got this table at the local goodwill for $9.99.  i loved the lines and the fact that it was a tall end table.  a lot of the end tables that i have done in the past were short. i think this is the best size to be next to a sofa 

and the perfect height for a lamp.

it had a crack across the table top which was glued and clamped.  

i was dying to use the chalk paint in the paris grey on a piece of furniture and i thought that this table would be perfect.  i ended up using it as an accent color because when i opened it it looked way darker than i thought it was supposed to.  i am wondering if i got a mislabeled can and i emailed the stockist but have not heard back yet.  

i used old white for the body of the table because i thought the grey was too dark to be painted completely with it.

  i distressed it and waxed it with annie sloan dark wax.

 it gives the furniture the most beautiful shine and it is so smooth it feels just like butter.

now i just have to find out if i got the right color in the right can.......

but i love how it turned out.

the kitchen table and chairs.....

are (just about) finished....

they started out looking like this

as i blogged about here.

i just need to wax the pedestal.  i was too tired today and i wanted to show you how it turned out.

we both love it.  no one else has seen it yet so we haven't gotten any unbiased opinions.

i painted the apron of the table and the two stripes on the pedestal for some visual interest and to tie in the chairs with the table.

you can see that the top of the table has been waxed but not the apron or base.

the table has the leaf in it right now but we usually just use it when we have company.

it has already lightened up the space and we love it. ( it looks less blue than in this picture.  the other pictures are more true to color.) i am still trying to decide if i want to paint the ball in the ball and claw foot in the blue as well.

we still have to paint the cabinets and replace that crappy piece of crap flooring....i'll give you the 411 on that flooring disaster soon. 

i used the annie sloan chalk paint in old white for the table and i used a mixture of old white, louis blue and duck egg for the chairs. 

i also used minwax paste wax in clear for the table top.  it worked beautifully.

i am working on this piece next..

i got a gallon of the prettiest pale pink paint for free so i thought i would try it out on this little desk.  

i found three of these chairs the other day at goodwill for $5.00 apiece. 

i think the seat cover alone is worth $10.00, don't you think?

snort!!!

i got three of them.....and painted one of them with the old white chalk paint.

i found some cute pink and white pinstripe fabric for the chair seat.  i can't wait to see how they both 

look together.  i'll share that in an upcoming post.  

i hope everyone is having a great fourth of july weekend....

we are!

uh-oh......

it all started out so innocently....

i wanted to lighten things up in my kitchen.  

it's a little dark even though we get a nice southern light in this space all year long.  

lots and lots of natural light made us not afraid to paint our kitchen cupboards black about 5 years ago. 

it kinda scared my dad though, because when he first saw them he asked me if we were 

"going goth"..... 

the cupboards started out your typical builders grade oak....

boring.....

so during my pottery barn phase of house decor, we painted them black.  we also painted our kitchen table and chairs. they used to be a dark oak which wasn't bad, but i thought they looked much better in black.  which they did...except that dust shows up on every black surface 3.7 seconds after you dust them....so i used tablecloths a lot.

but now i am in my light and bright phase of decorating and i wanted to change things up a bit.  

so i painted that table and chair set....

it's not finished yet because i haven't sanded or waxed them yet but i am 

already loving how they lighten the space up.  

and we were both amazed at how the detail in the chair backs showed up with the new lighter paint.

here is a chair in paint progress....note the cool dragon thingys in the corners of the chair backs....

even thought i have had this table and chair set for almost 30 years

(10yrs really, cuz i'm not that old)

i never noticed the detail in the backs of the chairs.  when i bought the set, i bought one of each of the styles of chairs that they had so each has a different design.

 because i'm weird like that....

i will be distressing the table and chairs lightly.  and yes that is paint on the floor under the table leg but we already have this

 new flooring for our kitchen waiting to be installed.

so we also decided that we are going to lighten up the cupboards too.  my plan was to paint the upper cabinets white (or off white) and the bottom cupboards a medium gray.  

i think that if i paint both the uppers and the lowers white, the countertop will make it look 

like just too much white. and i am sure that we don't have plans to change the countertops out

in the very near future.  not that i don't want new ones because i do and i have even 

plotted setting a hot pan on them and burning them to get new ones...

but i am don is much more practical than that.....

so......

since we decided to paint the top cabinets white, don decided to get started on them....

while i wasn't home to supervise....

and i came home to this...

painted with this.....

(insert long, loud scream here)

i had been extolling the benefits of this paint (which i used on the table and chairs) to don 

and excitedly told him how you can paint over any type of finish

without having to prime, sand or prep your surface first.  

in his mr. oblivious  mind, 

this was the perfect medium for the cupboards....

i had to do a lot of double talking to get him to understand that this was not the best medium to use unless he wanted to pay way more coughcoughthirtyfivedollarsaquartcoughcough than he intended to for this little project without actually telling him how much more!!!

so, it's back to regular paint and primer for this job....

phew!!! that was close.

garage sale results......

since i only held the garage sale for one day, (baseball got in the way) i didn't make a ton of money.

most of my big stuff got sold though and i was glad to get it off of my hands.

these guys, however, made a killing on the lemonade stand.

i set up everything under the tree in our front yard after rethinking the placement i had originally set up.

if you look at the top picture, i had the tables set up in front of the shed on the left so i could screw the chalkboard into the shed wall. (shhhhh!! don't tell don i did that, he'd have my head on a platter}.

i don't know what i was thinking, you have to set up a lemonade stand at the beginning, right?....

we got the other chalkboard out of the house and used it to advertise the flavors of our cupcakes. salted caramel and rainbow cupcakes.

who wouldn't want to buy the rainbow cupcakes that the kids helped me bake the day before.  you 

know, the day..... 

they sold out first!!!

there was also banana bread and brownies.  halfway through the garage sale, austen's friend nick made some break and bake chocolate chip cookies because we were running out of goodies.

everything sold.  at first the bigger kids (austen and nick) were afraid to ask potential customers if they wanted any cupcakes or lemonade when they approached the lemonade stand.  

so they recruited this one

the three year old....

to do all of the talking for them.  she turned out to be their ace in the hole....

she asked every single person who showed up that day if they wanted a cupcake or some lemonade.  if they said no, she would ask them if they wanted a brownie or a cookie while following them around the driveway.  

she was so darn persistent cute and sweet that even the ones that said no at the beginning 

bought something from the kids before they left. 

the kids took turns manning the station and were very good about being responsible.  their responsibility paid off well...they made $35.00!!

they learned a lesson about business, persistence and how customer service pays off.  one lady gave them $10.00 for a 25 cent cup of lemonade.  she told them that they were doing a great job.  another young man gave them $5.00 and he told me it was because he remembered that someone did that for him when he was little and he never forgot how happy it made him.....

it touched my heart and the kids were thrilled!

all in all, we had great weather and a very successful day.  

all of the chaos from the day before i preparation for the sale was well worth the happiness we all felt at the end of the day.

the real life.....

this is what my life consisted of today.....

there were, at one time or another, 9 kids in my house

using my couch cushions and decorative pillows as a fort and/or armor... 

for an epic nerf gun war.

things got out of control pretty quickly

what is this, you ask?

besides a really dirty front door rug?  how about the front door handle

which ended up on the floor

how does a handle just fall off of the door?

since we are having a subdivision garage sale tomorrow and i will be participating, i made some 

goodies for the kids to sell....4 dozen cupcakes, a pan of brownies and banana bread which resulted in my kitchen looking like

this:

and this:

aah, a little visual reprieve....

nope. back to real life.....

the dog played it safe and hid out in his cage during all of the madness...

and what could be more craptastic than all of that?

the email i got from my girlfriend that said 

"good morning! 

your baby is now a high schooler"! 

yes, austen graduated 8th grade and hence is done with middle school.  he had his recognition ceremony 

tuesday night....

and today?

he turned 14.  fourteen!

and my stomach is sick.  he was just in kindergarten....how does this happen?

he is too young to be 14!

happy birthday buddy, you are a rock star.