Pictures!

I know no one will be surprised to hear that since I'm not a picture/camera person there are no before pictures but I can tell you that this dresser really needed a new finish--it was hard to tell if there was real wood under their or if it was a poor veneer.  I bought this from a neighbor for $25 (yes, neighbor I truly have your money--we just need to connect when it's in my hand--or I may send a kid over later today!)   Sanded down, we learned it was a gorgeous wood and I fell in love with it and hurried to finish the project.  A month ago I was at DI and saw some goldish (not brass) candlesticks that I kind of liked.  I bought them and then a few weeks after that realized that they were hollow and had threads at the top--the were actually lamp bases!  So yesterday I finally painted them and Ethan and I made lamps!  We each did one lamp and worked through the directions together--it was a great time!  The statue of Christ I found at DI 2 weeks ago for $5.  We love this dresser--each child has a drawer for their scriptures and I have one for my scriptures and study stuff.  We're going to use the remaining drawers for family games.

Here's another picture--I love the legs on this dresser!

A sideways (hey, at least there are pictures!) close-up of the $5 statue!  

And...another sideways photo of our new chandelier over the kitchen table!  I had a bit of trouble with this as I have never before wired anything in my life.  I figured I would take the old fixture down and then put this one up the same way, only the new (old--$5 from DI that I painted and bought lampshades for) fixture had an extra wire and I couldn't figure that out!  For a long time.  And my arms started hurting after wiring it several different ways and running up and down the stairs to flip the breaker.  I tried to watch a tutorial on my computer but that wasn't working so I got mad and decided I had wasted a bit of money buying a fixture that was broken and threw the thing in the trash outside.  Then I hauled a couch up the stairs.  The physical exertion was good for me and I then found that I could get my computer to work and learned what was going wrong, humbled myself enough to pull the fixture out of the trash outside, locate the runaway pieces, and wire it.  For the fifth and last time.  It was worth the trouble!

This is why I was hauling a couch up the stairs--we got a new sofa and loveseat for $35 on the classifieds. (The couch in our living room was the best of the three we owned so the upstairs one had to go down and the worst one downstairs had to come up.) These sofas are in much better shape than our old ones and have smaller arms which means more seating space.  I'm going to make well-fitted (hopefully) slipcovers for them!  Here's a picture of the loveseat.



Here's our kitchen table--I don't know why Eva didn't clear the table before she took the picture--it has tools from my wiring work and the old light fixture and someone's dishes.  I had worked on finishing projects all day and then had to take someone dinner and talk to youth in the stake about indexing and family history last night.  It was a long day and I have tons today so I'm not taking the time to get a better picture--you'll have to wait until I get those benches finished!  The table looks sooooo much better than before!  It was worth living without it for the tree months it took to finish!  Also--another great sideways photo...

And here's a little picture of our Ivy (9).  There are tons of pictures on the camera--Eva's trying out to be on the yearbook staff and she has to turn in 50 of her best shots next week.  This probably isn't one of her favorites but I like it because that's Ivy!