Attempting a DIY furniture remodel

One of the things that we actually sacrificed when we bought our house was storage space in the kitchen. Our apartment had a small pantry and open space above the cabinets which helped a LOT. I've been struggling since we moved in to make the current storage and counter space work and it makes me go a little insane. So, when I was out yard saling a few weeks ago I decided to see what I could do with this piece:

It was an old Broyhill buffet table with a decidedly 1990s flare. Clearly outdated but in good condition and a very solid, heavy piece of furniture (thanks to dad for coming over to help move it in!). I was a little skeptical until late that night I realized that I could probably take off those ugly long wooden handles and add some updated hardware.

And sure enough, they could be unscrewed easily and didn't leave any damage that couldn't be fixed. Yay! The first step was to sand the whole thing down with a fine grit paper and fill the holes left by those wooden handles with wood filler.

Then the whole thing got a coat of primer.

I went back and forth about what to paint it. I considered all white, white with a black top, or doing white with a marble look top (using a Giani Granite kit that I was considering for the countertops). I finally settled on white with a black top although I was a little unsure of the results. I did the edging between the two colors by hand (I never have a good experience with tape) and touched up with a very small art brush. Unfortunately, I didn't get pics of the in-between steps but after three coats of paint, 2 coats of Polycrylic plus an extra for the top, adding the hardware on and Nate putting it together, this is what the final product was:

It's not perfect and there are some things I will definitely do differently next time, but I am very pleased!! Next time, I would drill holes for the new hardware before painting. We ran into trouble with the drill wanting to jump around and being able to wood fill would have been good. I also had to touch up some paint. I missed the part of the directions on the Polycrylic that said to sand between coats so I would do that. I think I'm going to do one more coat painting from the back to the front so that I can go the whole way without having to lift the brush because that leaves marks.

Here's the cost breakdown:

Table: $35

180 Grit Sandpaper: $3

Satin black paint: $3 (I just bought a sample and the polycrylic made up the shine difference)

Glossy white paint: $3 (I had this but that's probably how much I used)

Polycrylic by Minwax: $4 worth of a $18 can tops

Pulls from Target: $10

Screws for pulls: $1.30

Total: $59.30 at most

I have things like paint brushes and a roller (I rolled the last coat of black to hide brush marks which worked well) so I didn't count those in the cost. If you were going to, the best thing to get is a Wooster 2" slanted brush with a rubber short handle. It's the best and about $6. All in all, I'm very happy with the end product and feel like $60 is a bargain for this much more space to work with. 

Before:

After: 

Snapshots of the last year

I didn't realize how ridiculously long it's been since I posted on here! Here's a bullet point update on our life since last May:

• I quit my job and went back to school in May to finish my MBA.
• June 20, Izzy turned one and we got to celebrate with a bunch of family and friends!
• October 13, I finished my MBA in HR, but we had no time to celebrate because...
• October 4, we closed on our first home! A three bedroom townhome that had a distinctly 1970s feel which we are step by step removing :)
• October 13, we moved everything in with the help of tons of friends, my dad, and my grandpa.
• October 16, Nathan left for two weeks in China...and I began the task of unpacking with a toddler tornado underfoot.
• November 26, I can no longer say that I'm sick or just exhausted and finally take a pregnancy test. It turns out I was already five weeks along (denial anyone?)
• December 25, we hosted our first Christmas at our house! Connie and Dave and Kayla and Chris were all able to make it so we had a full house! 
• February 18, we found out it we're having another girl. Can't wait to meet our Eleanor Grace!
• May 26, Izzy graduated to a real toddler bed! Cannot believe this kiddo will be two in six days. It's amazing to watch her grow and learn and see her (very strong) personality come out.
• Mid-late May, I FINALLY got some energy back and suddenly realized that we are WAY behind on house projects and I'm totally unprepared for a second child...time to kick it in gear! Since then, we've painted the dining room, redone a buffet table I found at a yard sale, finally installed thresholds in two doorways downstairs, and a ton of smaller projects and organizing. Oh and we were given a piano!

Ok, I think that covers the major events :) Here's some pics.

Izzy's first birthday-cake smash

Our first meal at our house

Christmas at our house-sharing the news of baby with the ultrasound pic

Izzy and I sliding while visiting Grandmama and Granddaddy at Easter

Our family Easter Sunday

Izzy's first trip to the strawberry patch-she loved every messy bite!

Izzy's unsuccessful night in a crib converted to a toddler bed. 

A much more successful night in her new (to her) bed with a rail and bear of course.

Izzy being domestic in the middle of all my house projects.

Blessed are those who mourn

I just started reading the book Give them Grace. The authors begin the second chapter with an account of God creating this world and all its wonders and the devastating consequences of the fall. I've read about it a hundred times, talked about it, shared it with others, but for some reason it struck me tonight. Why? I want to shake Adam's shoulders and ask him this. Why did you give up a beautiful, unmarred world? Why did you reject a perfect relationship with God? How could you not be satisfied with walks in a garden of paradise with the Almighty who just last week created heaven and earth and bestowed their care to you? Why did you choose pride, doubt, suffering, chaos, separation from God, uncertainty, toil, and soul rending pain when you had been given joy, peace, love, a helpmeet, a friend in God, and a dream world? I mourn the loss of God's beautiful, untainted creation in all its glory. I mourn the loss of sinless humanity and hearts that naturally love God and desire communion with him and with others. Why? Because when faced with a choice of everything one could desire from God or to be a god, humanity chooses the latter. Adam did and in him we all did. Don't flatter yourself into thinking you would have been different, would have risen above temptation, scorned the serpent's slippery words. Adam represents everyone of us and none would have chosen differently. And so I mourn that I was born into a world of darkness, an enemy of God.

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted" (Matthew 5:4). Even as I mourn, I am comforted that God is the Healer of the broken, the twisted, the angry, and the mourners. This world with its evil still has so much beauty because even in our flawed state, you can see the Hand of God. Creation is his artwork and we are his image, still yearning to be loved by Him.  Our sin shows our desperate, crushing need for our Savior. The fall and the taint of sin are only the first chapter of the story and the next tells of God's amazing plan to send a Redeemer to bind our broken hearts and restore a right relationship with God. I am comforted because I know there is more than this earth and I know this earth is not my home. I'm here now to glorify God and to show the beauty of his grace to love a sinner who continually chooses suffering, toil, chaos, and pride over Him. One day, there will be a new earth that will be paradise. I find great peace in knowing that it is his design that we mourn so that we may know the loving comfort of his arms.

the Blessing of Baptism

 Izzy couldn't stop staring up at Clyde.

This post has been delayed but I don't want it to go undocumented. On March 17th, we baptized Izzy. For a couple of born and raised Baptists, this was a pretty big deal and the result of a few years of study, questions to pastors, and much prayer. It was such an amazing and unexpected blessing. God continues to show us the true meaning of his Covenant and our covenant community. I don't believe that baptizing Izzy saves her or guarantees her future salvation, but I do believe that it provides an amazing blessing and hope for her and us and our families. Hundreds of years before Izzy was born, God made a promise to Abraham to be his God and the God of his descendants and that promise holds true for Nathan, me, and our children. He is faithful to his people. I do believe that there is a very real blessing for children raised in a covenant home. Being raised by believers and being raised to know God does not promise Izzy salvation but it does bless her and give us a very great hope of her future salvation. It is a reminder to us although that her salvation is in God's hands, and that our parenting choices, good or bad cannot impact it. God can and will use us to draw her closer to him, but He doesn't need us and we cannot get between her and God. What an encouragement it is also to know that we're not doing this alone. Our church and our families have committed to come alongside us in our parenting and to help raise Izzy. They have a right and a responsibility to show her the grace and love of God in their interactions with her and our family and how they live their lives. I don't think that my words really capture the joy and encouragement that we received from her baptism, but I hope they give a glimpse of it.

Nate and I wrote a blessing for Izzy which we read at her baptism and that I hope we continue to pray often:

Isabelle, may the Lord bless you and keep you and show his love to you through these broken vessels that are your parents and your church. You have an infectious light and joy that we pray always marks you as a child of God. May the grace of God so fully saturates every fiber of your being that it pours out into the lives of those around you. May it overcome your weaknesses, devastate your pride, and continually point you back to Christ.  Take comfort in the covenant promises that are yours in Christ, knowing that Yahweh is your God and you are his beloved child. Know that nothing in all creation can separate you from his love.  Love indiscriminately and with abandon those who love you and those who hate you, seeing the image of God in all people. May you discover the richness of relationships with believers, sharpening each other, carrying each other’s burdens, and loving each other with the love of Christ. May you delight in His Word and find your strength, your purpose, and your joy there. Know that you have been set free and need not rely on your own goodness for righteousness. Rather, as you grow in the Lord, learn to draw ever more deeply from the well of grace found in the Gospel and live by the Spirit, allowing Him to transform you into a woman who is patient, kind, faithful, gentle and self-disciplined. Izzy, we pray daily that you will know that you are loved and that his grace is sufficient for you.

Here are links to a few of the articles we read on Baptism with varying degrees of helpfulness:

http://www.fpcjackson.org/resources/apologetics/Covenant%20Theology%20&%20Justification/Ligons_covtheology/07.htm

http://www.michaelspotts.com/post/11666835786/infant-baptism-bogus-or-blessing

http://www.apuritansmind.com/covenant-theology/dr-jonathan-edwards-on-baptism-part-2/

http://equip.pcacep.org/why-baptize-infants.html

Thankful

I tend to get really frustrated at what I see around me and to think it's a bit hopeless. I believe that our basic and constitutionally endowed freedoms are under attack in America. I believe that human depravity is finding new ways every day to wreak havoc on our order and our lives as seen in the Boston attacks. I believe that the voices of individual thinkers are becoming drowned out by the mob voice of group-think and irrational emotionalism. I tend to have a "the world is ending and there's nothing we can do to stop it" mentality when it comes to matters of politics and evil.  But the other day a comment made in passing gave me a brief moment of perspective.That comment made from habit, that it could be a lot worse, reminded me....it could be a lot worse. And that thought made me thankful.

I am thankful that I live in a country where violent attacks on innocent lives are still greeted with horror and a degree of surprise, rather than being an expected daily occurrence.

I am thankful that we have amazing hospitals and emergency personnel that respond immediately and effectively to save lives, whether on the clock or not.

I am thankful that my daughter can still grow up to vote in a democratic nation and that her vote will count as much as any man's.

I am thankful that we still have an organized government that protects the lives of its citizens both at home and abroad.

I am thankful that I can still make so many decisions without government interference and that the music I listen to, shows I watch, and words I read have not been censured.

I am thankful for the freedom to worship my God with my family and to freely and joyfully impart the love of the Father to my child.

I am thankful for every church and organization that seeks to meet the basic physical needs of hurting people here and abroad.

I am thankful that we are not all the same and that our diversity is by God's design.

Most of all, I am thankful that my God reigns sovereign over all these earthly issues that I get so passionate about. I am thankful that one day every knee will bow to him. I am thankful that his sacrifice secured a future in heaven for his children where there will be no tears and no death. I am thankful that he is the true Healer, Provider, and Protector.

Heaven on Earth

This post has been on my mind for the last week and the events in CT today gave it new meaning. Anyone who knows me knows that “emotional” and “compassionate” aren’t generally the first words people use to describe me. If you’re looking for someone to empathize over your favorite shirt getting ruined in the wash or the hangover headache you have this morning, I’m not your gal. However, the truth is that when it comes to the really serious stuff, I actually empathize almost too much. 

We live in such a broken world and it’s easy to think that sin and sorrow have won out. You don’t have to look far to find people who are hurting, sick, despairing, stressed out, and desperate. Even without senseless tragedies like the shooting this week, pain and loss are all around us. Within my own small circle of friends and family, I’ve seen loss of relationships, finances, health, loved ones, and joy. It’s really easy to get caught up in all the loss and pain of those we care about. Sometimes watching them go through these things is worse than going through it ourselves. 

It hit me this week that I’d gotten wrapped up in all of it again. Wrapped up in the stress money troubles in our home and my family, wrapped up in the pain of people I care about, wrapped up in the tragedy in Newtown and the crushing agony those parents must be feeling. It would be so easy to get angry or bitter or cynical or numb. God reminded me of a few things though. First, this world is not our home. Life on it is messy but these “light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all” (2 Cor. 4:17). Our true citizenship is in heaven (Phil. 3:20) and, once there, “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain” (Rev 21:4). I know it sounds cliché, one of those things you say like “everything will be fine” or “it’ll all work out.” But it’s a lot more than that. For one thing, everything is not always fine and it doesn’t always work out but this is a guarantee, a promise from the One who cannot lie. We have to get it through our heads that while the choices we make here on earth are definitely important and can have eternal consequences; our lives here are only one tiny dot in the picture of eternity. Our short time here is supposed to be spent glorifying the God that we will get to worship forever one day. 

God didn’t say that our troubles here were unimportant or that our pain isn’t genuine but he called them light and momentary troubles because they are so brief in light of eternity. This brings me to the second thing God reminded me of this week. We’re studying John 1:1-14 at church and it’s talking about God becoming flesh in the body of Jesus. It reminded me that God is not a puppet master sitting up in heaven removed from our struggles. He put on flesh and walked among us, knowing pain and temptation just like us. Hebrews 4:15 says that he has “been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.” When his friend, Lazarus, had died, he wept even knowing that he would raise him again because he felt the same pain we do over the loss. He emptied himself and took on the appearance of a man (Phil 2). He didn’t stop there, but took on the pain, the loss, the struggle, and the weariness of being a man. Ultimately, God wrapped in flesh, the all-powerful, all knowing Master of the Universe chose to submit himself to death on a cross so that we can have this hope and promise of heaven to give us strength and healing on earth. That is very real and something that we can hold on to and take joy in knowing.

Homemade granola bars for moms

My favorite snack lately has been homemade chewy granola bars. I recently got the book Mother Food at the recommendation of my friend, Amber Casbohm. Most women know to eat oats to increase their milk supply but there are actually a lot of other lactogenic foods. This snack can combine quite a few of them into a healthy, tasty bar. I got the recipe from smittenkitchen.com and have tweaked it just a bit.

1 2/3 cups quick rolled oats (if gluten-free, be sure to use gluten-free oats)
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup oat flour (or 1/3 cup oats, processed till finely ground in a food processor or blender)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2-3 cups dried fruits and nuts, processed if you prefer smaller bits (for nursing moms, a combination of any of the following: dried apricots, figs, dates, cashews, peanuts, pecans, almonds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds. I also like cranberries and cherries and more fruit than nuts.)
6 tablespoons melted butter
1/4 cup honey, maple syrup or corn syrup (I usually use honey)
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1 tablespoon water

Mix together all dry ingredients, including nuts and fruits in a large bowl. In a small bowl or the measuring cup you melted the butter in, mix the wet ingredients. Then, combine them all in the large bowl until well moistened. Smitten Kitchen recommends an 8x8 pan but I usually use something a tad bit bigger or even a 9x13. Line it with parchment paper or use a non-stick spray. Then press the mixture into it with a spatula or your fingers. Bake at 350 for 30-40 minutes until golden brown around the edges. Let cool completely. I recommend sticking it in the fridge until cold to completely set it so it's less crumbly. Cut with a serraded knife. You can store separately in small separate baggies or plastic wrap. They keep for a few weeks. These are a great snack for kids too!