A finished dining room

The chairs are inside. I’m so happy to be done with them. I also put the feet on the table but now that they are on there and the chairs are around it I’m not sure if I’m happy with them. I might go back and get some different feet that are shorter. I made the legs of the chairs longer but now with the table so tall I’m wishing the backs of the chairs came up higher. It just looks a little off to me right now. Maybe I’ll change my mind after looking at it for a while.  I still have one more chair in the garage that needs to come in but I have to move some things around before I have room.


If you need a reminder of the building process for the table go HERE and a reminder for the chairs HERE.

Poly and Weather

I’ve been working on the final step for the chairs and hopefully will have all the poly finished and have the chairs dry and in the house by Tuesday. I can’t wait.

We need rain. I know that’s crazy after the huge floods up here in May but my grass is dying! I’ve actually been watering it which I hate to do! Yesterday we were suppose to get a good bit of rain but all the storm managed to go around us and we only got a small sprinkle. Today we ended up with more rain! Thank goodness!!

Pooh has decided that she should live with Sharon and not me. I’m not really sure why because Sharon says she just sleeps on the sofa downstairs all day. I let her out at 7am and didn’t see her again until 4:45. Sharon said she had the door open in the afternoon, maybe she came in while I was in the garage so I didn’t see. I think she’s just being a little teenager and anywhere is better than home. She’s a brat.

I had a craving for chocolate chip cookies tonight so I made a batch and cooked 4 and the rest of the batch I put on a cookie sheet and covered them in plastic wrap and stuck them in the big freezer. Once they are completely frozen I’ll throw them in a plastic bag or container so in the future when I want a cookie I can just pull a couple out at a time. That will be a lot better than having a whole batch of cookies around since I don’t need them in the first place!

The seats are done!

Yay!! I’m done with the seats and I have the garage cleaned out! Tomorrow I can start with the poly on all the chairs and by this time next week they should be in the house! Can’t wait!
Since I already posted the green seat here is a picture of the blue seat.

And here is how I made the seats.
I bought the foam from Joanne’s fabric and it’s 2 inches thick. It was a pain to cut! First I tried a knife and that wasn’t the best so I ended up using just a pair of scissors. I put the piece of plywood on the foam and outlined it.
Next I used a layer of batting over the foam to “smooth” everything out. I used pins to square up the corners and then sewed it up.

After that I put the fabric on the same way and pinned the corners and sewed them up.
 
Then just like the batting I stapled it really well all the way around so nothing puckers.
 
All the seats together!
 
And this is what the dining room looks like after I’ve been working on a project. Guess I need to clean it now.

Getting closer!

I might actually finish these dining room chairs before I die of old age. They have been the most frustrating things I’ve ever worked on. I am so thrilled though that the end is is sight! Finally!!! The chairs are all stained and ready for poly, I wanted to cut the plywood for the seats before I cleaned the garage out completely. Now that I  have those cut it’s time to blow the garage out and get a couple coats of poly on the wood. I bought the fabric for the cushions from Fabric.com and received it in the mail yesterday so I got started on the seats and got one finished before So You Think You Can Dance came one. I have priorities and I love this show. Today I’m hoping to finish the rest of the seats, how that I know what I want to do I don’t think it will take more than 30 mins to do each seat.

I’m doing 3 chairs with this green fabric and 3 chairs with the same pattern but in an aqua blue color. I can’t wait to get one of the blue ones done!!

Anyone have suggestions on what to spray on the fabric to protect it from stains. When N is home he comes home from work every day and sits at the table to take his boots off and I don’t want any grime from his nasty flight suits to rub off on my seats!

Two years ago

I was driving to GA to visit family and I got a call that no wife wants to get. Nicholas had crashed. He was ok but it is still one of the scariest moments of my life. I’m thankful that he was the one that called me because I think I would have had a panic attack if it was a call from the FRG and I couldn’t hear his voice to really know he was alive. His aircraft had a complete engine failure and he crashed in the middle of a valley in Afghanistan. I still get chills thinking about it.

It’s actually hard to believe that it’s only been 2 years because it really feels like it’s been so much longer. And to put our life in perspective for that time frame, in the last 2 years Nicholas has been deployed for 9 months of it (6 months after the crash and then the 3 months of this deployment) and he also spent 5 months TDY out of state. So in the last 2 years he has actually been home with me, in our house, for 10 months. Dang, that’s actually the first time I’ve actually added that up and it sucks.

Nicholas had brought up the idea of getting out of the Army before the crash and we had been tossing it around, weighing the pros and cons. After the crash he was done. He told me the crash sealed the deal and he was done and getting out. I fully supported him and still do. When people ask me why he’s getting out I tell them “3 deployments in 6 years, and that doesn’t even count TDY time, would you stay in?”. One year from now we will be walking away from the Army and starting our new life and I can’t wait.

Great day of shopping

On Monday I was tired of staying home and decided to head to Gallatin to hit Joann’s Fabrics to look for foam to make the seat cushions for the dining room chairs. While I was down there I wanted to go check out the Home Goods store because I’ve seen the commercials lately and I was curious! After I bought the foam I saw there was a TJ Max in the same parking lot so I stopped in there and fell in love with a couple of lamps. Now, normally I don’t buy lamps or have lamps in the house but I’m not kidding these talked to me. They were so cute! There was also another lamp I really loved and it was so funky looking I kept going back to it but since I couldn’t think of anywhere to put it I walked away. Sigh. The 2 green lamps did come home with me though. I had to buy both of them because they were a set and I couldn’t just get one. Look how fun they are!!

A close up of the base.

I love how unusual they look! I think I’m going to put one of them by the sofa and the other in the guest bedroom.

Next I went over to Home Goods and could have spent N’s entire paycheck in there!! Great stuff at great prices!! I loved all the furniture and they had an awesome lamp section there!!! I didn’t buy any of them but I did look for a while. As I was walking around I found a little clearance section stuck over in a corner, that’s where I found the super cute lawn chairs!! I’m in a huge blue and green kick right now and these chairs are awesome!! I looked at the price tag and they were on sale for $15!! Normally they would have been $60 each and I got 4 for the price of one!!! Love it! I think I’m going to throw some pads on the legs and use them as my dining room chairs until I get my real chairs finished.  Haven’t completely decided on that though.

Closer

And can I say that having an SUV with fold down back seats ROCKS!!! I was able to fit everything with no issue and some room to spare. I love my car!!!

Oh and a new picture of the chairs I’m working on. I added the foot rest yesterday and I’m re-sanding all of them. I had started to stain one and it looked terrible. The stain was so blotchy I couldn’t believe it. I hate the coating they put on wood that takes forever to sand off. It’s driving me crazy right now. I sanded for 2 hours yesterday and got 3 chairs done. I guess that means I have at least another 3 hours of sanding to do today to finish the last 3. I hope I have enough sand paper, I feel like I need to buy stock in the brand of sandpaper I use because I go through so much of it! I’ve decided what fabric I’m going to use to cover the seats and I have the foam. I still need to attach the supports on the inside of the frame. Like I said before, I might have them done by the time N comes home for R&R.

Happy Father’s Day!

The love for ice cream runs deep in this family so I got Daddy a gift card to Kroger and wrote “For Ice Cream” on it because he LOVES the Cherry Cordial ice cream from there. My great grandmother loved her vanilla or butter pecan ice cream. I remember being up at the lake house with the family and she would be ready to go so Aunt Iona would make her a big bowl of ice cream and it would keep her quiet. N already give me ice cream to keep my quiet. Bless his heart, he has a long life ahead of him. Maybe we should look into buying stock into an ice cream company? lol Daddy said he was laughing so hard at his Kroger card he could barely read his card. :) We got Derek an Omaha Steaks gift card. I hope he enjoys his as much as Daddy will enjoy his ice cream. I bought N a card from the girls but it’s still sitting on the table (Babe, you’ll get it with your next box!).  At least I’m 2 for 3 on getting the cards there on time.