Shaking Off The Dust

The twins are now 3 1/2, if you can believe it.

In some respects, it feels like it has been for.ev.er since they were born; and in other respects, I can't believe how quickly it's gone.  I was only just getting the hang of parenting twins when we found out (unexpectedly) that I was pregnant with Nathan, and in the blink of an eye I was, quite suddenly, a mother to three children under the age of 2.  Add a full-time job into the mix and, well, you can imagine how the last few years have seemed a little foggy.

I don't know how to say it other than to say that I feel like I'm slowly waking up from a long nap.  Things seem brighter, and happier somehow.  I am enjoying spending time with my children, and laughing with them, rather than constantly changing them and feeding them and rocking them to sleep and worrying about whether or not I was giving them enough attention.  

And I don't think I'm the only one that is noticing.  The kids seem happier lately.  (And by happy I mean they are only screaming, crying, and fighting 75% of the time, instead of 90%).  Michael surprised me with flowers today...a token of affection that I haven't seen in years (not that he's not affectionate....but we have definitely felt too busy and overwhelmed for any romantic gestures).  And colleagues at work have been so complimentary lately, too. I can't tell you how happy this makes me, since three and a half years ago my post-partum depression was so bad that I felt I would never be happy again.

I know I still have many busy years ahead.  But I certainly appreciate how far I've (WE'VE) come.  :)

Rehabbed Dressers

During this whole big-kid-room transition, Nathan wound up with the bum end of the deal -- no bedroom furniture.  It's a long and involved story, starting with us not knowing his gender when I was pregnant and therefore buying white furniture, and ending with us deciding that the white furniture that occupied his room would become Charlotte's.  You probably don't want to know the details -- you only need to know that he was furniture-less.

As I was relaying this story to my Mom, she mentioned that she had some old dressers that I might like to use.  They had been in my sister Audrey's room.  As I mentioned in my previous post, we are definitely being cost-conscious with these room-redos, but I also LOVE the idea of reusing and repurposing furniture.  So I went shopping in Audrey's old room, and much to my delight, the two old dressers were charming and small,  just like Nathan's room itself.

But they needed some work.  My mom bought one of them at an auction back in the 70s.  Even then, it needed some work.  I'm sure it dates back to the 30s, at least.  Somewhere along the line the top had been damaged and was replaced with a thin piece of wood -- that piece was now stained and splitting at parts.

 The front of it appeared to be in pretty good shape, though:

The other piece of furniture was a dresser that had been in my family for a while.  My grandmother had bought it second-hand, so I'm not sure how old it is.  Probably around the 30s as well.  I have LOVED this piece since I was little, especially the detail on the top drawers.  This one needed some work too, mostly on the top.  There were some watermarks and stains:

Both pieces have beautiful dovetailing at the corners of the drawers.  They just don't make 'em like they used to!

So I had my work cut out for me.  And I was pretty nervous about it, too, because both of these pieces are so special to my mom.  I didn't want to screw it up.  Here's what I did (sorry I didn't take pictures -- I wasn't sure anyone would be interested!  Next time I'll know better....)

1.  Sanded both pieces down with coarse sandpaper.  It took me about an hour.
2.  Went over both pieces with fine sandpaper to smooth it.
3.  Conditioned the wood with Wood Conditioner and let it sit for 15 minutes.
4.  Applied the first coat of Minwax Stain in Walnut and let it sit for two hours.
5.  Applied another coat of the stain and let it sit for two days.  It took a REALLY long time to completely dry.  I don't know if I applied it too thick, or the humidity affected it.
6.  Applied two coats of Polyurethane to protect the wood.
7.  Bought some raw wood drawer pulls and stained them in the Walnut as well.

They turned out so much better than I anticipated.  I'm so happy that we used these pieces rather than spend on money on something new.  Nathan's room has such "cottage charm," and these dressers fit in perfectly.  Here they are in their new home:

These pictures don't do them justice.  I know, I'm terrible at taking photos.  Katie needs to give me some pointers.  


Anyway, I'm not sure I'll ever buy a new piece of furniture again.  Rehabbing was fun!

DIY Oars, Pottery Barn Style

You may have already learned that raising children is not cheap.  First there are the diapers.  And the clothing that they outgrow every month or two.  And the food that they consume -- I swear, the amount my children eat rivals that of large teenage boys.  And then there's the daycare issue.  So when we decided that it was time to get Charlotte and Gavin out of their toddler beds and into "big kid" bedrooms, we knew we wanted to do it on the cheap.


Michael and I love working on a project.  In fact, I often tell him that I think our marriage is best when we are working towards something.  It could be anything: picking out a new perennial for our garden, looking for Christmas decorations, whatever.  We love having a goal.  So the two of us (okay, mostly me)  were giddy with excitement at the thought of decorating the kids' rooms.  A project!  And a fun one!


I've been spending the last few months scouring flea markets and Etsy looking for treasures to make the rooms perfect.  I definitely could blow hundreds of dollars, easy, on Pottery Barn quilts and bookshelves.  But that doesn't fit with our whole three-kids-in-daycare situation, so it was important to do it on a shoestring budget.


Neither room has a "theme", exactly.  Gavin loves being outside, so we decided to decorate with things you might see at a summer camp.  I decided that I really wanted a pair of oars hanging over his bed, like these from PB:

But Pottery Barn is not cheap (side note: how do they get away with those shipping charges?  Ridiculous!).  So after a few months of looking (I never thought it would be so difficult to locate a pair of old oars!) we scored a pair for $18.  Here they are as they looked when we bought them:

We are using primary colors in Gavin's room, so I bought some Rustoleum spray paint in white, navy, and red.  I painted the larger oar white:

And then I added some blue painter's tape so I could paint some random red stripes:

I wanted to personalize the smaller oar a bit.  First I painted it navy, and then made a stencil of the number 5 to paint on the paddle.  I printed a 5 I liked on the computer, cut it out, and then traced around it with pencil:

Then I painted the five with yellow acrylic paint.  The nice part about this is that I knew I wanted to distress the oars, so I didn't worry too much about paint drips or perfect lines:

 After the paint dried, I got out some coarse sandpaper and went to town on those babies.  Here are my little beauties now:

We're heading to the Depot this weekend to find appropriate hooks to hang them with.  I can't wait to see how they look on the wall!  And we're one step closer to finishing the room...can't wait to show you!