A Stenciled Stained Dresser

Summer is in full swing, and I find myself aching to get back from vacation to work so I can work on projects.  Projects for me are like a drug - I can't go without them for very long. I need help.





This week Mark found this lovely number on the side of the road.  It was all nicely sanded down, ready for a new look.  I love it when people throw out unfinished projects.  It's the finishing part that's so much fun.

I used a Martha Stewart stencil I had in my craft supplies to do the stenciling on the drawers.  I mixed some dark walnut gel stain with varsol to create a nice light grey-brown finish.

I think it's a fun trendy twist on a functional, staple piece.  The glass knobs Mark found on another dresser.

This dresser needed some structural work done - a drawer bottom was missing, and the back panel was loose.  The beautiful thing about antiques is, they are built to last.  Some glue and nails and this piece is ready to go for another century.

Another project I did lately were these cornices for my living room.  I have such high ceilings in our house that I wanted something that would draw the eye upwards.  I couldn't find any curtain panels long enough for the windows, and I can't afford to make custom panels.  So I bought a little bit of Waverly fabric, and had Mark help me build cornice boxes out of plywood we had left over.  I upholstered them with quilt batting and a staple gun.

My goodness our house is coming along.  Slowly but surely.  I just have to throw in a little reminder of what this room looked like when we bought it.

I still don't know what we were thinking.  Oh look, here was the kitchen.

I finally got the rest of our Ikea cupboards this week.  They have been on backorder since April.  I just wanted to share a picture of the baseboards we did.  They are 11" high throughout our house.  They were so much work to do, but worth it all.

I will share a picture of the finished kitchen soon, I promise.  Let me finish installing all the hardware and crown moulding first.

I came across this really fun dresser refinished by Prodigal Pieces.  What a fun transformation of an ugly, waterfall style antique tallboy.

This past week we were up at Joy Bible Camp for boys camp.  Mark did the program for the week.  We had an awesome and very busy week.  We met some beautiful families that I really enjoyed spending time with and getting to know.  The best part were the older girls that my 3-year-olds absolutely adored.  They spent the week following them around and  letting them play 'mom'.  It was awesome.

It was an 'Xtreme' week filled with counselors getting thrown in the lake, xtreme challenges and a whole lot of really cute 10 - 12 year old enthusiastic boys.  It didn't matter what the game was, they thought everything was 'SO COOL'.  I love this age.

Today I caved and asked my mom to watch the girls for a day.  I needed some time to catch up on rest (which turned out to be time to work on projects, shop, bake and clean the house, of course).  Last week I entered my third trimester of pregnancy.  Other than being pretty tired I feel pretty great.  It's such a blessing.  I think I underestimate how much work 2 3-year-olds are.  They keep me pretty busy.  Okay, incredibly busy.  They are adorable and I love the independence of this age, but my-oh-my, they get into everything.  And they don't ever really stop talking.  Lately we have been working on not repeating things ten-times over.  Until I acknowledge them they repeat themselves.  And we've been working on helping Mom pick things up and put them away.  Because this pregnant lady is getting pretty bad at being able to reach the floor.  But life is so much fun when you are 3.  There is endless amounts of joy in every day :)