I’m guesting over at DecorChick today, where we’re talking about cutting grocery budgets.
A few years ago I ordered this buffet from Home Decorators Collection from their clearance center. The description read “antique white with a honey oak top.” When it arrived it was puce green with an orange top. Whenever I looked at it, or someone said something about it, I would repeat, “But it was cheap.” As if that fixed everything.
I used it for a few years after crafting a super simple cover for it.
I loved the look of the cover, but it made the doors harder to use. Fast forward to our total kitchen remodel. The buffet has been sitting in my bedroom for 9 months. It is used as a collector of papers and homeless items. Our board games are in the attic where they never get played with, except when the baby sneaks up there and dumps them all out in a pile and scrambles them up–game soup. The children gravitate towards Netflix instead of other more stimulating activities and I’m looking for alternatives. I decided to sacrifice our stuff collector to create a game center in our new dining room.
Saturday, was a sunny 70 degrees. Heidi helped me carry the buffet out to the deck. Darren worked on setting our last few cabinets and cutting the sink hole in our new countertops. (Ooh, I’m excited to show you those later this week.) I really couldn’t do much to help Darren so instead I started a brand new project that had us working side by side. It makes him crazy when I start new projects before the old ones are finished, but he was very patient with me.
I started by using gel stripper to remove the orange top. I wanted to stain it a dark walnut to match our floors and cabinets (which turned out to be not as red, but it blends ok.) Using what I had on hand (no new money spent), was the most important thing to this project. Turns out the top was oak and stripped beautifully, but the molding was mdf, was a booger to strip, and took stain in a strange way. I decided to love it, since I was too tired to fix it.
Ooh, She’s already looking better.
I found some Annie Sloan’s Chalk Paint in Paris Gray. I worried that it was a little too thick from previous use and too blue for my space….. It won out with it’s no sanding or prep work appeal, especially after stripping the top. I added enough water to the paint to fill the can back up and stir, stir, stirred it in. I think stirring in the water was the longest part of this project. It really didn’t want to mix and I was sure I had ruined it. Eventually, I ended up with a nice smooth paint.
Even with thinning the paint back down, it covered that puce in one coat. I painted right over the hinges, but took off the knobs to save the antique bronze patina. The inside of the cabinet is still puce, partly because I’m thinking about using a contrasting color on the inside. Mostly, because a freak snow storm was blowing in. It went from 70 degrees to 30 degrees in just a few hours! We had to move the party inside.
We quickly felted the bottom to protect our floors and carried it into place. I put dark wax on the top and clear wax on the bottom to protect the chalk paint, since it’s not durable at all without a top coat of something. While the wax was still sticky, the kids started moving their games in.
Now I can keep an eye on those games. No more game soup, Grant!
Here’s to more family times around the table with some board game fun.
Yesterday I reposted this on Facebook, and was a little shocked to read one comment extolling the virtues of spending a Saturday watching the same movie 5 times, and another woman saying she’d rather her kids watch TV than spend a day outdoors with their dad….Seriously? I enjoy a good movie as much as the rest, but we were created to build relationships.
Is there anyone out there who values family time over TV? What are some ways you find a balance and encourage face to face time?
Whoa. I’m not saying there is no virtue in having a recovery day in front of the TV after a week from *ahem,* or putting in movie after movie when mom is sick! but I’m rereading that last paragraph even as I write to make sure I’m comprehending correctly. Unless Dad is a convicted fellon I’m going to have to agree to disagree! Tell me these are unknown Facebook “friends!”
Yes, Kelly. They were strangers, whew. They were objecting to the “hunting” idea in the picture. I’m all for teaching my sons to hunt and provide for their families. It frustrates me to see good people with their world views all turned around by the popular media. Think, people, think! Don’t let Hollywood or New York television studios tell you what to believe. Bambi is a cartoon. Animals are animals, to be treated with respect but used for our good. Humans are not animals. We are created in the image of God. There is a difference!
Oh, wow! Hunting with their daddy is one of our boys’ favorite activities. We also love riding bikes together, camping, kicking the soccer ball, playing a crazy round of hospital tag in the front yard, rock climbing, playing pretend police and bike jail where they have to go when they “speed,” hiking to the creek, fishing, creating in the wood shop, having “church” in the woods on a rock. I love spending quality face to face time as a family. It’s amazing the wonderful things you can teach them during these moments. So important!
And Ro, Your boys are amazing people. Whatever you’re doing–keep doing it. There’s going to be some blessed wives and children in their future.
This year for lent we have committed our family of seven to living without screen time (tv, wii, electronic devices) – except for school related things, since we homeschool. It’s sad we have to force ourselves to do this, but the reward far outweighs the “inconvenience”. Last night we were sitting around with our kids, READING BOOKS. Imagine that. 🙂
Love it, Laura. When I was growing up we had several years without a TV. My parents just wanted to guard our minds and spend quality time together. The only person that really suffered was my dad. Us kids didn’t miss it at all–though even now I’m not quite as cultured in the pop culture of the ’80s and ’90s–maybe not a terrible thing.
WoW! My kids are so busy with activities (cub scouts, sports or just playing outside with the kids in the neighborhood) that TV is something we watch when the weather is too cold to play outside. On a Saturday nights we will watch a TV show or rented movie as a family; complete with jammies, blankets and big bowls of popcorn – something the kids look forward to as our schedules do not have many unplanned Saturday nights. TV is never 1st on our list.
My husband and I come from two very different families in relation to quality time. His family is all about games, any kind of game. Holidays and even when we go to visit and spend time together one or two games more than likely will be pulled out. In my family TV and movies were mostly our way of spending time together. My parents worked fulltime nightshift and also grew up not really having games be a center of family together time. It was an adjustment for me to learn to love the games and so forth and what a blessing it has been. Now I am as loud as the rest of them. Also, last year in preparation for our church reunion my husband and I took a break from all TV and movies. It was weird at first because we all of a sudden had alot of open time to do other things. What a blessing that was to us!! TV can be a blessing as well and I have many memories of my sisters and I laughing and dancing to musicals like Fiddler on the Roof. And TV documentaries is mostly what my husband and I choose to watch anyway, but it has a way of just coming in as a lamb and then before you know it gobble up all your time like a lion. Thanks for posting this!!!! Have fun playing games!! A post on different games people like to play would be awesome. A couple you and your family might like is Quirkle (for young and old) and Carcassone for the older ones. God Bless!!
Thanks for sharing your personal experience with this Holly. I agree that TV can have benefits too. If we didn’t have Netflix, I would get more sleep, lol. I only watch when I’m too tired to do anything productive…which is probably when I should just sleep. Quirkle and Carcassone are new names to me. I’ll go check them out.
We have family dinner at least 5 nights a week and discussions frequently lead to activities together after. Our family loves games, puzzles, nerf gun wars in the yard, computer games that we play as a team, theater nites in the family room with tickets and snack bar set up, and cooking together. Most nights netflix comes on when we are to tired to do anything else and are winding down to sleep.
Linda, I love this! We eat every night with those who are home, but more and more the oldest two are at activities. There’s not a single night we just get to stay home after dinner, but I’m hoping to change that soon. I love that you can have family night almost every night. Love. it.
We also try to play games with our two boys, ages 8 and 11. Some of their faves are: Camp (board game), Suspended (hanging pieces of metal bars off each other, a balance game) and In A Pickle (a word game). When they were younger, they liked Hiss (a matching game with cards) a lot.
Our schedules do not allow for dinner together every night all week; between music practices, soccer in the spring, and work for me and my hubby, we try to make at least the weekends a priority and play games at least once a week. It’s a lot of fun! I love to see their minds developing – what they think up is great. 🙂 But we also enjoy a movie night once in a while – I need to remember to make popcorn next time, we haven’t done that in a long time. 🙂 Thanks for the reminder!
Love to read your blog, and thanks for sharing this post. It was a good one!
Emily in Michigan
Emily, That balance game sounds like one my friend, Rochelle and her family would love! I hear you with your busy schedule. I’m really trying to figure out how to have more family time. There’s so many “good” activities that vie for our time. With our church community we know a lot of people–hundreds that are more than mere acquaintances and now with facebook evites, seems like our social calendar fills up faster than ever.