Before & After

So this is the last post about the buffet since there has been so many. I was looking through old photos from when we purchased the house last night and stumbled across this photo.

If you look closely you can see that one of the drawers were chewed on all corners by an animal. You can barely tell there was ever an issue now. Here is a better photo of the complete buffet.

We sanded and stained the woodwork around the windows above just to make sure it didn't look mismatched. I just thought I'd share this with everyone

Ta Daa!

Here are a few blurry photos of the buffet. We just have one more pull to put on a drawer and then we are completely finished. Speaking of finish, the finish is alot more vibrant than what it looks like in the photos. The blur and sun make it look a little dull.


What do you think?

I ripped out the closet in the hallway. Eventually this little area will be part of the bathroom expansion when we get the 10-15k we need to redo it. Probably next pay check. (yeah right)

Atleast there is finally some light in the hall.

I also finished scraping wall paper- Finally! Next week we'll start priming the hall walls and painting the ceiling. We are going to wait to paint the walls and trim until we have refinished the floors. I really don't feel like dusting off walls.

I almost forgot. Here are some pictures I took of the dogs the other day. Tito is at the doctor today because he has some mites that have almost cause him an infection. I'm waiting to hear more details but I feel so bad for the poor guy. His little eyes was really swollen bad.


Roscoe is doing good. These guys are really expensive too. I love my house and I love my dogs. Why do the things we love cost so much?

Great news!

On Friday I am meeting with a professional landscaper to have the plans for the front and side of my yard laid out. I am really excited! She is charging $70 per hour so my cap for her is 4 hours. She'll just have to cut a few corners. Quentin and I will be putting all of the pain staking labor into it, I just want a good design and plants that flow with one another. I can only do so much. Sometimes you just need the extra edge of someone who has more knowledge than you. Yes, I admit I don't know everything- there you have it. Curb appeal is so important and we currently have NONE. Of course this is going to be a project we work on over the next couple of years but I want to get a good head start this summer. Now if we could only get some more nice weather so I can actually work outside without freezing.

OK, I'm sure you are sick to death of seeing pictures of the buffet- but here it is with the poly and all- the finished product!

Happy Earth day!

I hope everyone does something special to take care of our good earth today. I'm happy to hear that people are still reading the blog. I was almost certain you had all given up on me. I'm posting a bunch of pictures today!

The stain is complete. He is what a bad photo of the buffet looks like- I took it without day light.



The final photo is the color change between the interior and the exterior of the buffett. I'm psyched to get some poly on there.




The stairs I'm working on are next. There are atleast 60 staples in each step so I continue to pull them whenever I think about it. I've also been scraping the wallpaper in the upstairs hallway so that the glues doesn't get all over what will soon be our gorgeous new floors.

And last but not least, the ugly floors left under the carpet we tore out. The floors in the office look pretty similar. We will be paying someone to come in and do these. It shouldn't be too bad.

I'll keep everyone posted on the stair progress- Grr....

More Progress!!!

Sorry I haven't written a thing in what feels like months to me. We finished sandy the buffet! We have begun the staining process. Rather than changing the color of the wood we decided to keep the exterior of the buffet the same color as the rest of the wood- which is an antique walnut. We did a light cherry wood stain the we aren't thrilled with but it adds more depth to the buffet and highlights the glass shelving area. It still looks better than having the entire buffet the same color. The old stain was darker on the interior and you caould barely see what we had in there without opening the glass doors.

Other than that I raked 18 garbage back of leaves from the yard with a few left to go. We are also pulling some type of weed bush with HUGE roots. They seem pretty hard to get rid of but I've gotten some good advice about cutting them about 6 inches underground. I'll post yard photos on the next blog (which will be soon!)

Here are the beginning photos of the stain. Once we are finished- we'll have 3 coats of top coat to protect the buffet with a medium sheen.

It's more work than I thought

Sorry I haven't written anything for awhile. I don't have anything to blog about. Who knew sanding a buffet would be so time consuming. I'm not even going to post any pictures because our progress would bore you to death.

We stripped the wood inside the doors on the buffet to try and save some time sanding. It was a good idea, huge gobs of black goo came up from the wood. I'm assuming it was dirt and oil over time. Unschlacked wood absorbs oil over time so my guess it just got gross. Anyhow, Hopefully within the next 2 weeks I'll have something great for you.

I'd like some new stain with a side order of shine

So this weekend I began sanding the buffet, what a task. Eventually all of the trim is going to need sanding and stain as well. The current stain on a majority of the wood work is a darker walnut. It's something that doesn't necessarily need to be completed immediately but something that would make a HUGE difference. Of course there are paint splatters, scratches andscrapes throughout. There also isn't much of a shine to it.

I want to get all of the big messes done in the first year or so, so why not just begin the sanding now? Here is where the problem comes in. I am stumped on what color of stain to use on the wood. Should I do a light cherry, a dark cherry? The possibilites are endless. I want a deep dark rich red, but then again a medium cherry might be nice. Does anyone have any suggestions?

I may just end up going with a dark cherry stain to keep the woodwork looking classic, yet giving it some vibrance. I'll post some pictures of the work in progress very soon.

I'm starting to like it.

I'm starting to like the paint. Here are a few pictures of the Living room and dining room (our main focus, which is soon complete... for now).

I cleaned and oiled all of the wood work on the buffet and trim, what a chore! It took awhile but it paid off. We still plan on restaining and polying but now it's not quite so urgent.

Check out the back wall going up the stairs. On my first post you can see the old dark paneling, which I think is definately going to make a comeback soon. ;) Doesn't it look so much better?

What do you think of the LR paint?