Merry Christmas to Me!

Now that I've finished with the farmers markets, (my last one was last Saturday), I've put the jam pot and canner away for a month or two.  I'm free to concentrate on some other projects.  Of course they are not the projects I (and Larry) should be concentrating on such as finishing a flight of stairs or a bathroom.  Heck no, we are so used to living with those things the way they are, that I don't have much inclination to even start them.  Although maybe if Larry got the ball rolling.....?

Now we have another place to furnish at Oliver, and since the purse strings are suddenly much tighter, I've been having fun finding furniture on a budget.  We were given some, and I've found some things at the thrift stores and a few garage sales.  We have some furniture pieces here that we are not really using, so I've been trying to figure out if I can make any of them work at the Oliver house.  When you are trying to decorate a 520 sq. ft. house,  there's no room for furniture that doesn't have a purpose.

What ever I did was going to involve a lot of sanding.  I started out doing it by hand.  Grew tired of that pretty quickly.  I've always wanted one of these.  I researched them on line, and this is the one that I settled on.

  I actually asked Larry if he minded if I bought one.  I was buying one anyway, but thought I'd be considerate and ask him first.  I had to convince him how well it worked, and no it did not leave big swirls on the wood.  I said we'll stop in at Rona and talk to one of the salesmen there.  We ended up with the wrong one, salesman that is.  He was a quarter sheet sander kind of guy.  Just couldn't understand why anyone would want to pay for that 'expensive' peel and stick sandpaper, blah blah blah.

We left and I said I'm still buying one, I'll just go to the other Rona and get it there, and I did.  I love it! Sanding is effortless.  The dust collector works really well.  Not the easiest thing to open, but it works great.

Here's one of the pieces I'm working on.  It's one of the dressers that became redundant when we put the closet system in our bedroom.  I think this was Larry's dresser.  He also had a matching night stand.  I had a nine drawer dresser in the same style, and a four drawer tall chest.  That must be why we got married, we had matching bedroom furniture!  Furniture I actually hated grew to dislike.  The drawers had two handles, so you always had to open them with two hands.  The handles clanged every time you let go of them.  It was made to look like maple, but it probably isn't.  It was kind of a cheap copy of vilas maple.

A $20 pine bookshelf from Craigslist

The $15 Halloween desk from Craigslist.

I didn't realize what I was getting myself in for with this one.

They are all works in progress at the moment.

And yes, I've made time to do some Christmas shopping.  I've been out three days in a row now.  I haven't actually walked the length of the mall yet.  I thought I might do that on Monday.  I don't think I have anything much left to buy.  It might be kind of fun to walk through the mall and take in the Christmas panic ambiance without the worry of having to find that perfect last minute gift.