Telephone Table

When we were in the process of closing up my grandparent's house (Pop's side of the family) I got a hold of this old telephone table.  It's not a family heirloom in the sense that it has been passed down and cherished from generation to generation.  It's a piece of furniture that definitely served it's purpose as a functioning table for a telephone and then spent its later years as a bedside table in my grandparent's guestroom.

telephone before: check out those water stains! 

So, I got my hands on it and used it as a bedside table as well in our first apartment.  Now, here's when you should know that it always had a cloth (doily) covering the top.  The reason being this--->



See what I mean?  It never bothered me because those stains were always covered!So, fast-forward about a year and the table has made its way into our dining room as more of a focal piece of furniture.  After staring and pondering it for a long time, I decided to try to redo the table.  GULP!  Me, being the thrifty person I am, had been seeing lots and lots of neat furniture redo projects on Pinterest as well as different blogs.  Fast-forward maybe another week of pondering, we're into June here and it's a humid and stormy Friday night.  I decide that I'm going to try to tackle the stains and the table.  I start with this technique I saw online for removing water stains from wood.  It required mayonnaise and rubbing it onto the wood.  I wasn't really sure what was going to happen, but I tried it and let it set on the table for 7 or 8 hours.  It maybe worked a bit after I wiped off the goo??  So while it is thundering and lightening outside, I decide to start sanding and actually get a good portion of those stains sanding off the top.  The next day, B and I went to Lowe's and I bought some white satin (I would go for semi-gloss next time) paint and some dark walnut stain.  I was really looking for an antique white color, but had no luck in finding it.  Well, maybe fast-forward once more and after lots of sanding, 3 coats of paints, and 2 coats of stain, here is the finished project. I am pretty pleased!   

finished!

before...

close up of the top.  no water stains!

after :)

House Before

After many promises to finally update and post with new pictures, I am trying to start and follow through finally!

As many of you know, we bought our first home in August 2011.  5 days after closing, I started school and so it has been a very busy time since then!  Our house in a 1920's Dutch Colonial style home.  We are absolutely in love with it!  Due to some time constraints with work, we've done a few little fix-ups around the house since we've moved in, but nothing major thus far.

SO, I've decided to post some pictures of our house "before" and then update with the "after" pictures as we go along.  The pictures below are a bit out of order, but I think you'll be able to have adequate tour of our home all the same.  Enjoy!

bathroom

backyard

garage

stairs

stairs #2

upstairs hallway

bedroom #1

room #2

room #3

looking from back door into backyard

basement

basement #2

laundry and B's shower

our first night at our house

storage area and laundry shoot (yay!)

front door (with all our cleaning supplies)

kitchen #1

kitchen#2

pantry

back door, stairs leading to basement

 

looking into the dining room

Summer 2012

We promise that after a very, very, very long hiatus, this blog is back in action!  We have lots of projects and news to get everyone caught up on, so stayed tuned for updates!  Love you all!

--B and M

**By the way, this is how I feel about being done with the school year...