Dresser Makeover

I tried my hand in refinishing furniture this week and now I'm hooked. I found this dresser below for FREE (I didn't think of taking a BEFORE picture until I'd already started priming it). It wasn't the nicest looking piece but I knew it had loads of potential. Here is the dresser as I finished it.

I have been feeling very inspired lately to refinish some furniture pieces. Our bedroom is the last room in our house that hasn't really been touched as far as decorating goes, so I decided it was time to turn our neglected bedroom into a peaceful retreat on a budget. I wanted to start by refinishing an old dresser and building the rest of the room around this.

I had been looking on Kijiji for a while for either a really cheap or free old dresser that could be transformed. I saw this one and had to have it! Although when I called I was so disapointed to find out it had already been claimed (the add had only been posted 5 hours earlier, you have to be fast when it's free!), so I eagerly left my name and number and asked them to please call me if the guy didn't show up. He said he would let me know after 7pm if it was never picked up. He never called that night. The next morning I couldn't stop thinking about the dresser so I put my dignitiy aside and called him again just to check if it had been picked up and to my surprise it hadn't!!! I asked him to hold it for me until we got there to pick it up and that we'de be right over (and by "we" I mean Morgan....). Morgan willingly (meaning I dind't have to beg too much) drove to the most Southern point in Calgary to pick it up for me. He had to drive 30 minutes home with his seat tilted forward so much that his chest was an inch away from the horn (of this he made certain that I know and understand and appreciate). He had a pretty sore back after the drive home athough it was worth it to him now that I was able to concentrate on my project instead of talking to him about my plans for it for another week.

The dresser is solid wood, a very nice size and the drawers are still functioning perfectly. I just sprayed two coats of primer and two coats of "blossom white" spray paint. I was debating whether or not to distress it and give it more of a cottagy feel, but decided to go with the advice of my sister and keep it the way it is - I can always do it later if I want to change it up a bit. I decided next time though I will rent a large paint sprayer (aparently they are really cheap for an afternoon) and get it done much faster and it would probaly do a better job. My spray paint job left some blotchy areas which bug me, but for now it'll do.

I replaced the harware which turned out to be a bit of a headache. I guess the dresser is so old that it doesn't match the standard hardware sizes anymore, so I had to fill the old holes and redrill new ones. The exciting thing about this though was that it left me the option of whatever handles I wanted!!! I had my heart set on the upside down cup shaped ones but found that they were so expensive (about $10 a handle) so I was almost ready to settle on a cheaper style when I found the ones on the dresser at a local hardware store for $3 each! Yay! With a savings of $7 for 6 drawers, that's a total savings of over $42! Though I did splurge on the crystal knobs, which were $8 each - but it was only for 3 drawers, I would never have spent that on all 9 drawers.

The before dresser also had a very interesing flower carving on the top three drawers. I originally was just going to leave it and paint it out white so it would be more subtle. I actually think it would still have been pretty, but I guess I didn't want our bedroom to start going in such a french country direction, so I bought a sheet of wainscoting at Home Depot and they cut it for free to the size of the drawer faces. I grabbed some "no nails" glue and slapped them on - pretty easy!

The dresser isn't perfect but i sure learned a lot along the way. I spent:

$30 on spray primer and paint (if I was using a real paint sprayer and bought a gallon of paint it would have been half the price)

$42 on hardware

$10 on the wainscoting detail

So my dresser in the end cost $82 dollars, not bad since the originaly dresser I wanted for our bedroom (Ikea Hemnes long dresser) was $400.

A Week and a Half of Pure Summer Fun

We had a really great time visiting my parents in Victoria, BC. As I was going through the pictures, I wanted to pick the ones that evoked the best memories for me , or at least the most emotion. Here's Elizabeth jumping into the pool. She's such a dare-devil. I wonder who she gets it from.... This was a lunch with my parents at the White Spot. The kids were pretty good and Mason swalloed a 2 inch piece of bacon whole. Who has time for chewing?

I love this picture. We spent lots of time wading around in lakes/beachy areas. We got some waterguns from the dollar store and had a few duels.

We spent a gorgeous afternoon on the boat with the kids. I don't remember much of the scenery....since we were trying to keep our kids happy and safe, but I loved watching them get to experience a sail on the ocean. I think there will be so many more fun memoreis to come on this boat!

We spent a good portion of our time in my parents pool in their community. Our kids love the water. I think this is more of a Kyle trait.

This picture makes me think of how much my little girl is growing up!

This picture makes me think of how nice it was to have so many "hands free" moments while we visited my parents.

My mom took this shot. This was such a pretty place. The water level was so low we were basically sitting on a river floor. Behind Elizabeth somewhere is rope hanging from a tree to jump into the water with (when the water level is much higher!). It just seemed like the perfect little summer scene. This is my Dad with Mason and some extra clothes on his head.

He knew something was up there, but wasn't sure what. This is some more relaxing and wading around Shawnigan Lake. Mom told me that something like 5 generations have enjoyed this very spot.

We had a wonderful time and are already looking forward to next summer.

Summer Thus Far

So summer has been pretty busy for us thus far! We've done a bunch of things I can't even remember anymore. Since our camera battery was dead for a while and the charger was in the car and so the problem didn't get fixed for a while since I kept forgetting...so we've only got a few pictures of the summer so far (Morgan usually takes care us such things....and he's been working around the clock for a couple weeks it seems!). Here are some of them so far: This was a Sunday afternoon at our friends' Carrie and Tyler's house down the street. Morgan is trying to crack all of the kids' eggs: The kids trying to crack Morgan's egg:

The men: Josh, Tyler, Derek, and Grant. Oh and little Emerson too:

Some of the ladies - Valene and Carrie:

Arm wrestling competitions. Angela has her game face on - I don't. Angela whooped me. No surprise though....I've never won an arm wrestle in my life...excpet for with my whimpy sister.

And this one!!! The first ever arm wrestle I've ever won (other than Leigh). Sorry Carrie, but that says A LOT about your strength....

This was at Morg's work Stampede Breakfast. This picture shows off Mason's dimple chin, which could have been inhereted from both sides of the family. I think Mason looks like an old man in this picture - he was born looking like an old man!

The fam at Morg's Stampede Breakfast. That big bouncey castle was the greatest thing ever. There is an obstacle course for two people to race through. Elizabeth and I raced probably 20 times - we felt like American Gladiators.

This is typical Elizabeth at dinner time. She talks and plays and does everything but eat. We have a big painting of a Tuscan house above our table and every night she points out the house to me as a way of distraction from eating. At some point every night you will usually hear me say "YES Elizabeth, I see the house, that's nice, now get over it and eat. "

Here is Mason pictured on the same night. By the time I scoop out his meal on his tray and turn around for 30 seconds, it's all gone. He is going to eat us out of house and home I swear.

I'm kind of sad that we missed so many summer memories so far due to my lack of charging the camera battery. That's it for now. More to come.

Snugglicious

Today while Mason was napping and Morg was at work, Elizabeth and I snuggled for a moment on the couch. She started giggling and looked up at me and said "Momma, I'm so happy". It was a nice moment.... And even nicer that she isn't old enough to realize that it's at times like this where she would be able to get me to say yes to anything.

Father's Day Weekend

Over this last Father's Day Weekend we visited our family in Lethbridge. It was such a good time! On Saturday we visited Katie at her job (which is a pretty sweet job). She works at the Japanese Gardens and "tours" people who visit, which basically means she tells people not to step on the grass or climb trees or throw rocks in the water etc. Apparently there are tons of wedding parties that come take pictures at the gardens as well as people who come to meditate there. It was very interesting, and since we paid 7$ each to enter the gardens, we wanted to get our money's worth so we hung out with Katie for like three hours. Saturday night we put the kids to bed and while Grandma babysat, we decided to go out on the town! Morg and I were feeling like being young reckless singles again, so we wanted to do a fun night out on the town with Linda, Gene and Katie. Morg put a lot of pressure on Linda to get a fun party going, though it seemed like everybody bailed so we ended up just chilling out at Linda's with her roomies - though Adam and Tyelr stopped by so that was fun too. It was just as well since we are usually tired by 11:00pm anyway... Sunday was a lovely day of church and a yummy big meal as usual. I love my mother-in-law's cooking - it reminds me of the early marriage days when I used to get home form work late and never felt like cooking and so when Sunday's rolled around, so were we by the end of the day. Venus also came by that afternoon with her new fiance and she got the Kyle drilling of questions all about the wedding - so fun! She is so excited and happy - I can't wait for the wedding! Our fun weekend ended with us making the 2 hour drive back home - which is always kind of peaceful (yes even with two kids!) through the prairie roads. I'm glad we had a chance to celebrate Father's Day with family and get a really great 3 generations picture with Morg and Ken and Mason. I'm so grateful for Morg and all he does for our family. He is my rock - he is so reliable and helpful. He is so involved and energetic and FUN. I knew when I married him that life would never be boring. His kids are so in love with him. And so is his wife. Not a day goes by where I don't feel appreciated by him. Thank you for taking such good care of us Morg. Kyle Fam on Father's Day 2009: 3 Generations of Kyle men (I got Morg and Mason matching ties for father's day):

Gene at the gardens:

Morg and Elizabeth making a Japenese kite:

Mason liked the gardens too:

Elizabeth, Gene, Grandma Lorna:

The fam minus Mason, he was in his stroller sleeping I think:

Katie geared up:

We tried to pick up Katie - somehow her size 2 frame is a lot heavier than it looks - it mustbe all that muscle:

Dad!

Happy Father's Day Dad! Here is my cool Dad at the helm of his new sailboat: Due to distance yet again, I was not able to spend Father's Day with my Dad. As I thought about him and thought about some of my memories of him I wanted to write them down for safe keeping: -dancing to anything from his CD collection - Best of Cream, Simon and Garfunkle, Leonard Cohen ("Clooooosing Time") you name it. -playing ball - baseball, basketball, soccer. I always thought it was so cool that my Dad could always play sports with me and keep up:) -watching Home Improvement and Rosanne as a family. -He never let me dye my hair until I was 14. I asked every week from for two years prior I think. He didn't want me to look like a "tart". -Even though my Dad wore the pants in the family, he was somehow a bit more of a softy than my Mom for most (not all) things. Leigh and I always knew Dad might let us do something that Mom would immediately say no to. Except for hair dying. And going to movies with boys. -As a parent/grown up person now, I realize my Dad tought me the value of patience. He didn't usually let us have things right away. He would say "no" and then it would unsuspectingly show up as a birthday gift almost a year later. Like my basketball net, or my 12-speed bike. -working outside, working inside - Dad worked around our house a lot! -Dad working at Grandma's house! -Dad fixing anything and everything for anyone and everyone -Chocloate chip pankcakes -Burger King nights when Mom worked -Dad letting us order our own Burger King meal separately - and teaching us that by paying for them separately we would save a few cents on tax. -patience! Dad had lots of patience for things and rarely lost his temper. He was the parent we would learn to drive with, or help us with math homework. -Dad catching my barf in his hands -Dad brushing my hair in front of the tv Thanks for everything Dad. Happy Father's Day! xoxoxoxox This is a picture of a picture, hence the brutalness of quality:

Miscellaneous

Below are some picture of the last month or so. Below them, I wrote a quick bit about some of the photos. Playing nicely together. Seriously though, check out Mason's thighs...: Elizabeth and her cousin Adele at the Dinosaur museum. Let's keep it G rated girls.

Possin and Kyle kids minus Matthew?

Arbour Lake in a peddle boat - Morg doing most of the peddling.

At Genesis Place - there is no one there on weekday mornings when we go!

They both can't get enough of this,

Eating at BP's at the West Edmonton Mall. She didn't touch her chili.

At the zoo. I guess this pic might have been more exciting if you could see the cool white furry mountain goat I'm pointing at.

We've been up to a lot it feels like lately, and so I thought it was time to record some of it. While I was trying to figure out what to make a post about I asked Morg what he thought I should write about. He thoughtfully replied "I'll let you be the blog creator." He's so supportive.

Since we've been up to a bunch of things the last month so here is disorganized Coles Notes summary.

Dinosaurs:

We finally went to Drumheller after tentaively planning this trip for a year and a half. We met Christine and the kids there (it's half way - sort of - between us and the Possins). It was pretty cool - though the museum was a bit dispointing. After getting our hopes up (for the kids mostly) to go see the "best dinosaur museum in the world", it was borderline lame. You can only see so many dinosaur bones before it gets to be a bit monotonous. It was a fun trip to make though, and it doesn't matter where you are, the kids just love running around anywhere. Also, it wasn't just the museum, the whole city is dinosaur themed - so wierd! Morgan got so sick of me pointing out all the dinosaurs around town. I couldn't get over it.

Edmonton:

We spontaneously decided to mke a trip to Edmonton a couple weeks ago. It was fun to be able to use the word spontaneous again. We used to use that word a lot before we had kids. So we decided the night before that we would head up to Edmonton for 2 days to have our try at staying in a hotel with 2 kids, cruising the West Edmonton mall and going to the water park there. The trip was great, though we both agreed it was just as much work as it was fun, so in that case, the fun/work kind of balanced each other out and we felt kind of "neutral" about the whole trip. Good times, good memories, though we aren't rushing back there next week. We realized perhaps a trip that was half centered around shopping might not be the most fun with 2 kids under 3. So....

Vegas Baby!:

Morg has been working on me for months about going somewhere. Just us. No kids. For the last few weeks he was pushing the idea of Vegas, for only 2 nights, as our 5 year anniversary trip. At first I said no since I'm such a chicken when it comes to leaving my kids behind overnight. Eventually I caved and then it turned into 3 nights (you can't go to vegas and only spend two nights....). We found a deal at the MGM Grand for 59$'s a night and we get to eat all day at their buffet for free - it costs more for us to live at home I think! So now we are so pumped to go and dreaming about our very short getaway without kids. The possibilities are endless! We were both marvelling the other night about how we could literally do whatever we want, whenever we want to. Though I think I will be crying myself to sleep by the third night because I'll be missing my little kidlets, but I think it's going to be such a great time. So, here it is Morg: "you were right". There.

Embarassing moment:

The other day while at the grocery store, Elizabeth grabbed another lady's bum. I don't know where this behaviour came from, I've never seen her do this ever. It was even more emarassing because this lady's bum was particularily....juicy. Thankfully the woman just looked back at Elizabeth, half smiled, and continued shopping/talking with her friend. I shamefully held back by about 10 feet and decided not to tell Elizabeth that what she had done was wrong - literally for a moment I was pretending she was not my kid. I'm such a loser Mom.

Dream Home:

So the odd time when Morg works nights and we are toally bored after dinner and it's raining, I take the kids to showhomes. Elizabeth LOVES showhomes - she knows the drill: take off your shoes and don't touch ANYTHING. We went two nights in a row earlier this week and the next night she asked to 'go see houses'. Anyways, I found my dream home floor plan. It has 4 bedrooms upstairs with a bonus room, and somehow none of the bedrooms share a wall. I could go on, but I won't. Floor plan enthusiasts will understand my excitement - usually there is something you can find about a home you'd want to change to make it just right - but this one had everything on my wish list. So exciting that my dream home exists!

Elizabeth discovered her brother:

Mason went from zero fun to tons of fun in a week. As soon as he mastered the crawl, Elizabeth found she had a whole new person in her life. They have been running/crawling around the house squealing together all week. I always wished my kids would get along famously. I hope they still like each other this much in a couple years. And forever.

Welcome to 2009:

Morg got a flat tire on the way to work last week. Since he was about half way between home and work, he had to walk 45 minutes through country roads at 5:30am to get there. He decided it was time for us to join the rest of globe and buy a cell phone.

Recipe Re-vamp:

I have started a new project. After some subtle hints from Morgan that I always cook the same things, I decided to put together a menu calendar. I have an 8 week rotation with each week's recipes typed out. Along with the weekly recipes I have a weekly grocery list - so no guessing what we are having for dinner and if I have the ingredients. I think it will save us some money in the end too since those "running out for white vinegar" trips always turn into 50$ trips somewhow. I went through all my cook books and picked out all the recipes I've always had intentions of trying but never have. I'm excited to be more organized and Morg is excited for a spiced up dinner menu.

Morg at work:

Morg's had quite the stories from work and he's never really written any down. I"ll leave that up to him one day - plus I'm pretty sure that's some kind of breach of trust for him to write about on the internet. Some of his stories are halarious, but most are pretty sad. I will brag though that he was recently honored as ranking within the top 25 shooters for the Calgary Police this year. Okay so he came in at number 25, but that is dang good. It was measured by speed and accuracy combined. He atttended a lunch with the Chief who presented him with prestigious pins that he gets to wear on his collar to show off for the next year. I'm pretty impressed with my husband. How can you be good at every sport? Even shooting?

Family Recreation:

We go swimming a lot. The kids love it. That's about all I have to say about that.

We've been to Arbour Lake a couple times this year and love it! Our friend's Laura and Josh live in Arbour Lake so we get to go with them. It's the greatest set-up - tons of sand and grass and water, it's gated so no runaway children, so us parents get to sit bakc and realx and chat while we watch out kids tire themselves out without our help. Ahhh.....

We've been to the zoo a couple mornings. Elizabeth loves the animals and I dont think it will ever get old for her. It's kind of fun this summer because she can actually tell us what she wants to do - She either says "animals", "swimming", "zoo", "Adele" (her cousin), etc. Unfortunately one of her favorite things to do is "shopping"....Momma's girl......

And that's pretty much our lives these days.