the Mice Will Play (if they could think of something good to play)

Hubby's away this week and NORMALLY I would have dived into a big project the minute his boots marched out the door. This snuck up on me, though, and I don't have anything ready to go! Well, there is one project I am considering for the pool area, and I do need to plant flowers, but those can be done while he is here. I need to use the time he's gone to work on some of those huge, messy projects that require a couple nights of cereal for dinner and paint smudges on a lot of stuff, sometimes including a cat.

I'll show you a couple of things I've done this past week, I suppose. And maybe it'll inspire me to do something bigger.

I got a great little pedestal table for twenty bucks on craiglist. Bought it off a young soldier just moving here whose wife asked him if they could get a REAL dining set now. Things go full circle.... :) It was hunter green on the bottom and an oak-y color on top. Not bad, but not what I was looking for.
I sanded it down to remove most of the stain on the top and just enough of the paint off the base to allow new paint to stick, and voila!

We used to have a little bistro table from Pier 1 there. It was fine, but this one is so much better. It's a little bigger and will work great in a kitchen nook if/when we move and feels like it belongs.

I left the top kind of stripey. I know it may not appeal to everyone, but I really wanted it to have a worn, unique look. I left some areas with the oak stain, took some all the way down to bare wood, and left others in between.

Cleaned the whole thing with my TSP surface prep spray. Then I stained the top with a walnut stain that I let sit for a good 15 minutes before I wiped it off. Two coats of stain and 2 coats of polycrylic.

The base is black spray paint! Satin finish. I distressed it a little bit here and there and then wiped some of the stain on the distressed parts. I may do one more coat of that.

I'm thinking a white geranium would be pretty in that spot. And now even I like to sit there and have breakfast!

I also finally finished Joshua's knight tunic. Here he is as King Edmund (I know--I like Peter and Caspian better, too. It's an ongoing discussion around here..)

Finally, these are not mine. But isn't it a great idea? I am thinking I could whip this together in an afternoon--the floor of my closet will be so happy!



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