Stained

Everything about me is now stained. Friday night, my mom and I took a ride to Mill Stores in Malden while my father and Matt put up sheetrock in the basement. We brought my kitchen drawer with us so that we could match a stain as close as possible. We bought one quart of Zar Rosewood stain; John at Mill Stores promised me that it would cover two end tables, a coffee table, and a TV stand. He didn't lie. I got everything done and still have almost a quarter of the quart leftover.
Since late Friday night, I have been sanding, prepping, staining, and polyurethaning (is that even a word?) everything in our living room. Little by little, I've stained each piece, my hands, my arms, my legs, my feet, and parts of my sunroom (where luckily the carpet will soon be torn out). I think the dark coloring looks much better than the light against our Benjamin Moore Putnam Ivory Eggshell paint. I'm just about finished with the television stand, which I think looks awesome. I'm pretty excited about it. I can't wait to be able to purchase a new kitchen set and stain it to match the rest of the pieces. It was a lot of work, but I think it was worth it.

The First Nail in the Wall

I finally hung the first picture and got the words in my bedroom done... after over a week. We got this beautiful housewarming gift from one of my favorite people at the Hilltop, Susan. I found a place to hang it on the very first day that we moved in but it has been sitting in my bow window waiting for it to be safe. I'm nervous things will get knocked down. Today, with the help of my mom to make sure it was centered and straight, I hung up the first piece of art to hit the walls.
I decided I wanted to hang something above our bed that read "Always kiss me good night." It is one of my favorite phrases, and I like sayings as opposed to art work above the bed. Rather than go find a framed print, I thought I'd be creative. I took wooden letters from A.C. Moore and painted them the color of the other three walls in the bedroom. I did all sorts of research on what to hang them on the wall with and found out that Scotch tape was my best bet; it shouldn't peel the paint or leave marks. I got the tape measure and the level and found the center. I grabbed the W and climbed up on my bed to start the phrase and the double-stick Scotch tape wouldn't hold the W to the wall for more than a millisecond. I gave up. That was about a week ago. I finally decided to get more creative. I took some of the glue dots that I use when I scrapbook and put them on top of the double-stick Scotch tape. Then I put more double-stick tape on top of the glue dot. I don't know how or why it works now, but it did, and I think I kind of like the way it came out.