Blue Desk

I recently won an old secretary's desk in an online estate auction (see HERE) for $44! I thought it was a great bargain. And when Wes brought it home in the truck, I knew I had made a wise decision. I couldn't wait to rehab it. And last Saturday, I did. From start to finish. Here's what it looked like before I started:

I started off sanding the hell out of it on Saturday morning. Then, the entire thing (except for the inside- I'm going to finish the inside in a few weeks) got three coats of Clark & Kensington's Ode to Blue paint. That afternoon, the hardware was spray painted with Rustoleum's Hammered. And then it was done! We brought it in before dinner and placed it right in between our new living room chairs underneath a window.

Here's the money breakdown of this project:

• Desk: $44 in an online estate auction
• Paint (Clark & Kensington's "paint+primer" Ode to Blue): FREE (another can from Ace Harware's "free paint weekend")
• Hardware (original hardware spray painted with Rustoleum's Hammered): FREE (I have a lot left over from my summer 2013 projects)

TOTAL: $44!
Since Saturday, I've played around with styling the top a bit. For now, I'm settled on two framed family photos and a white lamp.

Purple Dresser

OMG, I'm so ridiculously in love with our new purple dresser in our dining room. The best part is that it was REALLY inexpensive. Here's the breakdown...

• Dresser: FREE (my department head at JMU donated it to us!)
• Paint (Clark & Kensington's "paint+primer" Custom Color): FREE (I picked it up on one a "free paint weekend" at Ace Hardware)
• Knobs: $19.99 (A pack of 10 from Walmart)
• Stain (Minwax Polyshades, Bombay Mohagany GLOSS): $7.50 (and we only used about 1/4 of the can!)
• Paintable Wallpaper (Allen & Roth): $18.00 (We bought 57 square feet and we only used a few square feet of it!)

TOTAL: $45.49 (And we still have about 3/4 of the can of stain and about 50 square feet left of the wallpaper!)

When we got the dresser, it was in pretty rough shape. The drawers would not open and close easily, there were stickers, nicks, scratches, and dents all over it. The first step was to remove all of the hardware and sand the hell out of it. I like to use Wes' electric sander and a sanding block for the non-flat surfaces. We sanded it on Friday.

The next step was to stain the top. Wes likes to stain, so he was responsible for that. He uses a staining sponge and wears gloves when he stains. He put three coats on the top on Friday afternoon.

On Saturday morning, I started the painting process. I put three coats of paint on the entire thing (except the sides where the paintable wallpaper was going to go). Once that was done, I applied the wallpaper (it's an awesome paintable wallpaper that is textured) Saturday afternoon. The instructions were really clear and easy to understand: dunk in water for 30 seconds, stick to furniture, squeegee the glue out to the sides, clean up all of the excess glue.

On Sunday morning, I checked to make sure the wallpaper was dry (you're supposed to wait 24 hours). Then, I started painting it with the same color as the rest of the dresser. Three coats later, I felt like I could see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Wes went and bought the knobs that night. We put them on and then tried to put the whole dresser together (i.e. put the drawers in). I knew that the drawers were difficult, but after doing all of that work, the drawers would not fit back in the dresser.

Wes to the rescue! He took each drawer out on the porch and sanded them to make them thinner. Now each drawer smoothly opens and closes in the dresser. I put the finishing paint touches on it last night and voila! Staged with a few plates, a lamp, and ceramic bird in the corner of our dining room and I'm in love. I can't stop looking at it!

Onto the next project! This is going to be the summer of painted furniture in the Rosier house!

Brothers

She's a Good Big Sister

Vivian is a great big sister. For the most part (don't get me wrong, there are plenty of times when she's not), Vivian is very gentle, loving, and playful with her little brother. Many times when we go to the park, she takes it upon herself to be Paxton's babysitter; pushing him in the swing, helping him up when he falls, and following him around. 

She also likes helping him do things and she loves teaching him new things. And she really likes pointing it out, "Mama! Pax copied me! He's learning!" She's a great big sis. 

Heavy Machinery

Our kids are fascinated by heavy machinery (they're watching a fork lift operator take a huge pallet of stuff off the very top shelf at Lowe's in the above picture). In fact, we've been known to go to Costco just so we can eat snacks (clearly) and play "chase the sound of the fork lift around the store." We go on a hunt, find it, and then watch it. Pax is so conditioned to think these things are cool that WHENEVER we pass any kind of construction equipment while driving, he points and squeals like a crazy person. 

"I gotta pee!"

Just about every time Gavin announces to the world that he has to pee (498 times a day), Pax will jump up and follow him to watch. 

He even stands at the potty, makes a peeing sound, and then flushes the potty. 

We're hoping that this means potty training will be easier with this one. Fingers crossed. 

He's a Builder-Inventor

On any given day, it is very typical to see Gavin building, combining, creating, or inventing something. His little brain is constantly trying to figure out how things work, why certain parts go together, and how he can make things cooler, faster, or just better. In fact, the large majority of his conversations with Wes are him asking Wes to explain how something works and the majority of his conversations with me are him explaining why he took one of his toys apart. This kid takes everything apart. Very few of his toys are still in tact. He's either purposefully taking it apart or trying to push his toys to the limit and they break. One of his absolute favorite things to create is a towing system for different vehicles. He likes to figure out how he can connect different vehicles (bikes, trains, helicopters, planes, cars, trucks, construction vehicles, motorcycles). Carabiners, ropes, and clips are his best friends. He's definitely a builder-inventor.

A Peaceful Town

The name "Paxton" means "a peaceful town" ("pax" means peace and "ton" means town or township). And based on our experience with our little Paxton, we couldn't agree more! At 21 months (today), Paxton is definitely the little peace maker in our family. For example, he's the first of our three to hug ANYONE who gets hurt or starts to cry for some other reason. Second, whenever one of the twins gets put in time out, he will go and sit next to him/her and attempt to comfort. Third, he's great comic relief.  He's really good at breaking the silence (with a fart noise or giggle or adorable squeal) when tensions are high. And it almost always works; making us all laugh and kinda forget what we were all upset about. Lastly, he's one of the calmest kids we know. He only gets upset when its called for and he can be comforted rather quickly. Don't get me wrong, his calm, cool, and collected demeanor is slowly disappearing with toddlerhood, but he's still way calmer than his siblings were at his age. Paxton Marshall; our peaceful town.

Imagination Fridays

We love the first Friday of every month because we get to go to the children's museum for free! 

His Own Language

Pax is such a funny little guy. Even though he doesn't have a ton of words in his lexicon, he communicates very well. He also has names for things (that are completely incorrect and don't even sound remotely like the real word) that he consistently uses. For instance, he calls an apple a "wawa," he calls a banana a "lala," he calls Vivian "baba," and he calls Gavin "babo." His little language is hilarious.