Birthday swag

My sweetheart's birthday was last week and as is our custom, we did it up.:) Celebrating birthdays has always been a big deal to me. I love to fuss over those I love on their day of birth, whether they like it or not! Since having kids our birthday celebrations have changed quite a bit! For my birthday earlier this summer we went to the National Zoo....it was actually a blast, though I would have never thought of going there if we didn't have 3 tots in toe.

So for Matt's birthday I tried to think of what he would enjoy doing, but that the kids could enjoy with us, too....GOLF! So, to Woody's putt-putt we went!

 

 Impressive multi-tasking!

 Woody's is in Sterling and is the best putt-putt course we've ever played - though scary as all get out, especially if you're a toddler with a wild imagination! So, the twins played with Noanie, (my Mom!), by the driving range...or behind it, rather...where it's safe ;)

Noanie to the rescue!

 

Meanwhile this guy hardly noticed the the dead monkies hanging from the trees or the pig-monster jumping out of the brush with loud snarls, or the crazy realistic looking crockodile coming out of the water towards the putting green....

 

...he just had a good ol' time, in true Mason form.

 

The face of true innocence and total mischief. He's complex ;)

 

Birthday boy with my Dad; must have had another ***lucky*** shot.

 

The boys, analyzing a tricky hole

 

Post game birthday meal!

 

Complete with chocolate-chocolate, (chocolate, chocolate, chocolate) cake.

And no birthday in our home is complete without the honorary 'birthday' banner that I made a few years ago. I love pulling this out for all family birthdays...I'm sure they will grow tired of it eventually, but it's fun hanging it up to mark each person's birthday week. And as always, birthday cards become part of our decor for a little while, which I cherish.

 

Thanks, Dad, for your Bud Light addition to my glass vase display. Didn't think I'd notice, did you :)

Do you have any birthday traditions? What is your favorite way to celebrate?

~Chelsea

 

Finish landscaping: CHECK

We made another huge check off our to-do list this weekend. The landscaping! Earlier this summer I posted that we would be tearing out all our old overgrown bushes and replacing them with fresh, current ones. Well, it only took about a month and a half longer than we had predicted. HAH! We were definitely over ambitious! It didn't help that I broke my foot and was essentially useless for quite some time over this process. But, my husband is The Man and got most of it done with his own two hands.

You may remember these pictures from a while back, after my Dad and Matt pulled all our old bushes out:

 

Almost 6 weeks later, we've got this to come home to:

 

Everything is so young that our plants are still a bit small and spaced apart, but we look forward to watching our garden fill in and bloom with color and fragrance! It feels wonderful to finally have the outside and the inside of our home mesh together and reflect our style and personality. And I have to give my Matt all the credit. His were the hands behind this makeover and I am so, so grateful for his work on this!

And after a very hard working weekend on both our parts, I am happy to report that we were all still in our pjs as of 11am on Sunday.:)

Oh. Yeah. That's good stuff right there.:) 

This kid was hard at work, too, apparently. Found 3 brand new teeth that completely cut through over the week, and we didn't even know it! No wonder last week was misery!

 

In the coming weeks I will be working on a larger project than I have ever done before, and I am so excited to share the details with you....soon! ;)

 

Thank you for stopping by!

 

~Chelsea

 

Check mate!

I have been through battle and come out alive! And no, it was not with my kids ;) I met my first piece of furniture to nearly do me in. Nearly. I can honestly say I shed blood, (cut a fingertip), sweat, (the sanding alone), and tears, (when a cabinet door got jammed stuck and would NOT come out), over this beautiful beast.

Looks like a pretty simple buffet to refinish, right? Large, definitely, but difficult? Nah...

{Before}

If furniture had a mind of its own, I would have thought this grand buffet most definitely did not want to be refinished. It put up a good fight! But I fought back.:)

First, the sanding alone cost hours upon hours of back breaking work. But, that's only because of the sheer size, height and intricate detailing along the bottom and the legs. Once I started painting, it started giving me trouble. This piece was for a client - she picked it out herself and brought it to me with a somewhat unusual request. Glossy black exterior, whitish-blue interior. And when I say interior, I mean everything. The sides of the drawers, insides of the drawers, inside the cabinets, the backs of the cabinets, the little silverware tray... She loved the vision of the contrasting black and white. And when she was explaining it to me I was getting excited right along with her! But as I got to the painting, it became apparent that this request was going to be one of my biggest challenges thus far.

If you have never painted the sides of drawers, it is a tricky, tricky task - especially on old antique pieces such as this where the drawers do not run on nice metal tracks or runners. They simply fit right into the opening and slide on either wood rails or the floor of the shelf. Even when not painted, the shelves did not pull in and out very smoothly. So, I had to sand down the sides of the drawer openings and sides of the drawers so that there was a little 'wiggle room' between the two. Then I had to go out to the store and grab the color my client had brought over for this piece in flat. All I had was the color in semigloss, but that was just sticking too much and peeling whenever the drawers were pulled out. So I had to sand it back down to wood, and keep on sanding to create more space between the drawer and the sides of the opening. Between the sanding and the flat paint on the drawer sides, the drawers open and close like a dream now. Thank goodness!!

Then came the issue with the cabinet doors. Once those were done and I reattached the hinges, one of them wouldn't fit back into it's space. It was too big and too sticky. The paint had made it too wide. Mind you, this was after a lot of hours and frustration, so I pushed a bit harder than I knew better to, and it went right in....and kept going. The door was inside the cabinet. Over closed. I couldn't pull it back out. I got a wire hanger to try to pull it, but that didn't work, (of course it scratched up the paint). Then somehow I pulled it back out using blue tape. I'm still not exactly sure how in the world I managed it, but it worked. So, I sanded it all back down to wood and repainted in a thin coat of flat black, which I happened to have handy from another project, (I love it when that happens!) My client will be choosing hardware for this piece once it's back in her home, so until then I won't close the cabinets or drawers for fear they'll refuse to come back out.

This piece gave me a run for my money!

 

With it's fancy silverware tray and all - it thinks it's important ;)

 

 But, thanks to my DNA, I do love a challenge. I know that sounds cliche, but it's absolutely true. I am competitive to a fault, (working on that), and admitting defeat to this piece was not an option.

 

I hope I gave justice to the vision this piece's owner had! Perhaps I'll be able to post some photos of the hardware attached once she picks it out!

 

Have you conquered any tricky projects lately? How did you do it?!

 

~Chelsea