Reclaim, Renew, Remodel: October 2014

Friday, October 10, 2014

Beautiful Beliefs

I have some beautiful beliefs. They concern the tender mercies of a loving Heavenly Father and the love, example and the grace of His Son, Jesus Christ. Through the years, through myself or close loved ones, I have encountered depression, divorce, death, addictions, anxiety and other weighty matters. Yet over and over two beautiful beliefs have supported me and sustained me through times of trial.

The first belief is in the scripture from John 14: 18 and 27: "I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you....Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." We are given peace from The Savior - that peace can be found even in times of anguish and despair. I have felt that peace again and again.

The other belief that has sustained me is kind of two-fold but all makes sense as one concept. I am a spirit daughter of a loving Heavenly Father and He loves me. He wants me to live with him again and sent His Son to atone for my sins so that I could live with them both again. And because I am a spirit daughter, so is my own mother; my husband is a spirit son and my children are His also. He wants us all to be with Him again; and because of that I have the opportunity to live with my family even after I pass away! Isn't that a beautiful belief?

Only....I have asked in prayer if it is really a true belief....and through scripture study and much prayer and even some fasting, I now know, that when I strive to do what is right, I will truly be able to be with my loved ones! I know it!

I wish everyone could feel of the Savior's peace; that they too could know that God loves us and that we have the opportunity to be with our very own families forever and ever.

I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and I have some beautiful beliefs.

We belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints otherwise known as "The Mormons". We are proud of this part of who we are! We are excited to team up with over 65+ of us strong... to extend an invitation to see a film. A film entitled "Meet The Mormons". This film is not meant to be an "in your face" - you must join our church film. It is simply designed and produced to uplift and inspire you through six stories of those of our faith who have followed promptings to follow Christ more fully in their lives. We hope you take the opportunity to enjoy this film. We hope your hearts are made light as you feel the goodness that comes from following our Christ and Savior. All proceeds from the film will be donated to The American Red Cross. So not only will you be uplifted and inspired, your money will be going to an amazing charity!!

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2Y8Jalsf54[/embed] We also would like to take a moment and share our personal testimonies, stories of our own personal conversions, and our own stories of how following our Savior, Jesus Christ has changed our lives. The light of the gospel of Jesus Christ offers a joy and hope that only following him can provide. We hope as you click through and read our stories and testimonies of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, you will feel uplifted and encouraged. We are by you! We love connecting with our readers, that is why many of us do what we do! Please be kind and considerate in your comments. It takes great bravery for us to open our hearts and our mouths to share with you such a tender and personal part of who we are. We share because we feel strongly the need to share the peace and the hope that is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Adrienne | Free Time Frolics , Camille | Chicken Scratch n' Sniff , Natalie & Rebekah | House of Sprinkles , Kathleen| Fearlessly Creative Moms

Katie | Clarks Condensed, Larissa | Just Another Day In Paradise , Camille | My Mommy Style , Candice | She's Crafty

Andie | Maybe I Will , Shatzi | Love and Laundry , Robyn | Create it Go , Rachel | R & R Workshop

Amber | Dessert Now Dinner Later, Natalie | The Creative Mom, Bobbie | A Vision To Remember , Becky | Babes In Hairland

Lisa | Pebbles & Pigtails , Mandy | Sugar Bee Crafts , Krista | Reclaim, Renew, Remodel , Wendy | Musings, Miracles, and Mayhem

Alexis | We Like to Learn As We Go, Amy | The English Geek , Mariel | Or So She Says Carriann | Oh Sweet Basil

Thursday, October 9, 2014

Back Again and Five pieces of Furniture in Three Days

It has been a long time and it's time now for me to get this blog up and running again. I'm trying again to post on Thursdays but may try other days in addition depending on how my Thursday posts go.

This does include some instructions and hints, good products to use and things I've learned along the way. I don't get paid for anything from any of the companies I'm mentioning, it's just what I use and what I've found works well.

So...Five pieces of Furniture in Three Days...yes, that really happened! It was actually six pieces of furniture worked on, five finished. My mom and I met each other for our second annual trip to Bartlesville, Oklahoma (my home town) so we could attend the 100 Mile Garage Sale! Awesome, right?

She and her husband have a store where they sale antiques and refurbished furniture so we were mostly looking for things for her.

My mom needed some dressers - they were hard to come by (at least in our price range) but we finally found one as the second day was winding down. We also purchased a fantastic school desk, and a TV cart (which we got for only $.75)!

In addition, I'd been hanging onto a chest-of-drawers that I found in someone's garbage pile that I told my mom she could have- it had beautiful lines but the veneer was chipped on the top (almost completely in some places). And then my grandmother gave me a dresser that she had had since she was a little girl (85+ years ago - she's 89); I wanted to paint it black to store items for my new business.

My pictures on this post are aren't very good. The lighting was poor and my camera's batteries were completely dead, so it was my phone that had to try to be acceptable. AND we were in such a hurry that we only got pictures of four of the pieces.

Here's what we did:

Uh...ignore the kittens in the picture. The desk is a beauty! Vintage! Truly old-school awesomeness! But whoever owned it before did a really shoddy job painting it! First of all, they used a paint brush and put the strokes on too thickly. There's a great thing called spray paint for metal legs like these. We painted it lime green (or chartreuse, which is a really fun name for a color).

For the top (which was also painted with the thickly coated paintbrush), we planned to paint with chalkboard paint because who doesn't love chalkboards and the endless art projects that can commence thereon? But because of the horrible paint job (ok, I'll stop harping on it), I decided to strip it. This turned out to be easier than I expected. I just slathered some Citrustrip on it, left it while we were working on the dressers (a couple of hours), and came back and scraped it off.
Then a good sanding took the sticky residue off and it was ready for chalkboard paint. Only it looked so beautiful with it's plain wood (which reminded me of the floors in the 1914 old brick middle school I attended) that we decided to keep it simple and beautiful.

This is how I found the dresser on the side of the road. Partially painted, the bottom piece falling off, and the top veneer completely chipping or missing.

To remove the veneer, I started out by just scraping it. But that was nearly impossible in some places. I tried out my heat gun - and it worked but I kept burning the edges of the veneer...so I tried out my iron. It worked perfectly! The veneer came off like stickers on wax paper. (Though, then I had to clean it because when I tried to iron our whites, it left marks on the clothes. :-( So in the future, I'll be looking out for a crummy old iron to use on this sort of project.).

Here's something that I so often forget!! On these old dressers it is best NOT to paint the inside portion because the drawers will just get stuck and then you'll have to sand what you've painted just to get them to move smoothly. I hope this is the last time I forget that - it adds a lot of time to a project to sand down what you've only just painted!

My pictures on this post are aren't very good. The lighting was poor and my camera's batteries were completely dead, so it was my phone that had to try to be acceptable. Because the top was already distressed with tiny holes and nicks from the natural wood (which the veneer would have covered up) we added an antique glaze to this. I hoped to get better pictures when my mom got back to the store, but they put these out on the floor before she even went home and they were sold before she get me a good pic - so - they really did look better in person!

This one we got at a garage sale for $8. That's in our price range! This was an easy fix. We just put some KleanStrip brand sander deglosser on all the surfaces. The veneer top got a sanding and then the sander deglosser. We then rolled on some black paint with a brush and a cabinet and door roller. To finish the top, I advise putting Polycrylic or something like that to protect it, especially if you're like me and live in a humid place - this will keep papers and other items from sticking to it. It also protects it a little better from metal objects like keys, etc. You can probably save your money and only do the top and not the entire dresser - Polycrylic is kind of pricy so I use it where I think it's most needed.

My mom working hard on deglossing the dresser (while I take a break and snap some pictures).

I had a whole bunch of drawer pulls, but my Mom remembered a specific kind she had at home (9 hours away) that she wanted to use. This is the only finished picture I have, but the black really cleaned it up making it sleek and ready for sale at my mom's shop.

Some of the work in progress.

Start to finish tall dresser:

Start to finish long dresser.

While in Bartlesville, I also worked on a dresser that my brother found next to the dumpster outside of his apartment complex. It didn't have any drawers at all, as seen in the first picture on the left, so it made it easy to decide to turn it into a TV console for him! Here's a sneak peak (but since I don't know when I'll be going to B'ville next, I'm not sure when I'll have the follow up).