Of course, when you get real wood furniture, you can’t paint it. So, I decided it was time to learn how to stain things (because there was no way I wanted to pay someone else to do that, especially when I know so many people who could give advice on this). I have used clear poly a few times and find that quite easy. Conveniently, had just found and purchased the trim for his office, which also needed to be stained. So, that kind of became our experiment (of course, we made samples first, because the trim was real oak and we weren’t about to mess that up either) with staining. We used General Finishes, which is very, very different from Minwax. Seriously. But, it’s the only brand you can find at some wood working stores, and the one they sell at Buck’s too. It’s very thick, almost disturbingly so (apparently lots of people call the store or return the cans because it’s not what they expected), and you don’t have to play the waiting game to get the right level of darkness/saturation – you just wipe the excess off right away. And really? This is a much better idea than the timed variety, especially when thinking about all the sides and parts of the bookshelves, which would be difficult to time equally.

Love it! Such a great product! Matched the cupboard in ‘s office perfectly. There was only one tiny problem.

At the same time we’d bought the Shaker Maple for ‘s office, we bought Walnut to try to match up to the piano. Well, the Walnut stain wouldn’t take. It was terrible. We finally decided it was a bad batch, and we’d take it back to the store for a refund (and to buy more stain for the next part of ‘s office). Once at the store (holding the bum stain and multiple pieces of wood samples), we suddenly realized that the mistake had been ours (mine, probably). We bought Early American, not Walnut. Huh. Those colors are very different.

So take two on that.

The sales guy was very helpful in our quest to find the right color for the work surface in ‘s office. He taught us about the difference between stains and dyes, the difference between mixing and layering, and was just generally very helpful. Could not be happier about that customer service experience.

I cut out View A (the shell) at the end of June from a remnant I had found at Hancock Fabrics. I was excited about this shirt, because it seemed simple with just some small design elements (gathers at the shoulders, cut on the bias). I should have been more hesitant, after my attempt to make the skirt from this pattern went so poorly. When the pattern pieces seemed… odd, I forged ahead anyway.

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Especially for a lawn. However, the effort required to make that happen is less than enjoyable (or so I’ve heard – gets credit for all the sprinkler action at our house). Gardens, too, require water to be successful. Funny how that is. Our first year in this house, we set up sprinkler hoses that worked, keeping the veggies growing and the hydrangea from wilting in the heat. They were not flaw-proof, as one broke and needed to be replaced part-way through the summer. The next year, we pulled them out and 2 of the 3 hoses didn’t work.

It was time for a new solution.

was working on a project for work that involved creating a timer program of some sort, so he worked on writing up a program for us as part of the learning process. He also thought that the idea of an in-ground irrigation system was good, and that we could do it ourselves. I would have never thought of that. We received some good advice from one of the Home Depot experts (who said that it would cost 5x more to have professionals do it – great selling point – and that it was really quite easy), and set to work planning it out.

So, let me walk you through the process…. (Warning, lots of pictures!)

…And that’s basically as far as we got before it got so cold that the project had to be abandoned, and then there were several feet of the snow on the ground for many, many months. I promise we reassembled the deck long before that happened.

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Total cost:

$150 Sideboard

$ Stain (we already had poly and brushes)

$ Hardware (new handles, hinges, and magnets)

$ Miscellaneous (new feet, new door insets)

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fabrics

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outfits

Total cost: $39.69

7 articles of clothing

14 outfits

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On sale at JoAnn for $1.99.

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And this Cotton Blend Yarn Dyed Stripe Shirting Green/White from fabric.com for $1.98/yard (I bought 4 yards for a total of $7.92), 65% Cotton, 35% Polyester, 60″ wide.

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