Refurbishing & Refinishing

We have been moved in for over a year now. Most of the house repairs have been done. We did most of them last year while the weather was good for tackling those repairs. This year, now that the weather is good for the summer, we are back on track for fixing things-things about the house or our own personal things.

Last summer we did not get to the hall bathroom shower. It was leaking under the house. Our solution was to not use it until we could get to it this summer. Mr UAW fixed it! It turned out that a new faucet was needed, a trip to the local home improvement store had what was necessary to fix it. Now we have 2 showers that work.

   

We stopped at a garage sale last month and I found sewing material, fill a bag for $6. How could I turn that down? I found material to use for a shower curtain. A trip to the local superstore and I had grommets to use for the top. I've never put grommets in material before but it worked great and now I had a shower curtain. Since I did the curtain I wanted to paint the cupboards. I made my own chalk paint from leftover paint (Pinterest has lots of recipes for chalk paint) and I had some dark wax left over from my hutch project last summer.  Used together and I have the cupboards redone!

    

Next on my list was a dresser that used to be my grandmother's. While we lived in CA we refinished the small one but for some reason didn't get around to the tall one. I know that if you're looking to sell old pieces you shouldn't refinish them, refinishing them devalues them. But I wanted to keep them and they were so bad that I didn't want to put anything in them. We just took the old finish off of them, left the original stain on them, and oiled them for a finish. Now they look like a nice pair.

Our next project was our kitchen table. It is something that Mr UAW had refinished years before we were married. He used to refinish furniture for a living. This is a oak harvest table from the late 1800's to early 1900's. It was in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and was badly burned. When Mr. UAW first did this piece he had a big job to do. He took it all apart, he had to replace some pieces, there was much sanding to remove burned areas. When he finished it was beautiful. It is very heavy. Fast forward many years and this table has been used as a family table as my girls were growing up. The combination of children, and living in the kitchen to be used as extra counter space, and a family eating off of it, and things being placed on it that probably should not have been placed on it had left it looking very old. It was time to refinish the main part of the table, the extra harvest leaves were still in fine shape but the top needed some help.
Before picture shows the burn mark in the center from something too hot being put on it and there is a moldy spot in the corner-moisture from a planter. There was also many scrapes and dents on it that don't show up in the picture.



The during pictures-here it is all opened up, without the top piece. You can still see the burned areas that Mr. UAW left from the original refurbishing.

Here are some of the refinishing pictures:

Stripper has taken off first layer of lacquer-burn mark gone but mold still there

All lacquer off and mold sanded off

Now stained and drying for 3 days

Now has 3 coats of polyurethane

The hardest part of this whole project is working with the stripper. It is nasty stuff. Adequate ventilation is required-hence we are working outside. Chemical resistant gloves are necessary, you don't want to get this stuff on your skin. 

Then we had to wait a few days for the polyurethane to dry. A final coat of mineral oil rubbed in with #0000 steel wool and we were ready to put it all back together. 

Jack, the grand dog, supervising Mr UAW putting the table back together

Now it's all back together and looks better. We are going to leave it open for a week or so because it will help it all to lay flat.

   

The next project: kitchen counters! It should be interesting because it needs to be done and we have to do it ourselves. It costs too much to hire it out. We've researched what we want to do and feel like we are able to do it. So... to be continued...

Update June/July

Here is a random post, just updating the things that we have been doing.

Of course there are family things.
       


      

Zeke and I had a science day. I checked out a science experiment book for kids from the library and we had fun with the experiments. Zeke got his green belt in Taekwondo and he participated in the Blender Dash where he got to run 2 miles thru paint powder being thrown at him, thru maintains of bubbles, past zombies to get to the finish line.  Micaela danced in her dance recital and did a great job! Most of us ran in the 5K at the balloon festival here in town.  And Jeni and I got to treat ourselves to tea at the Japanese Tea Garden, and we went to the rose garden-so beautiful.

       

      

We have been making things. I put together the succulent turtle, maybe the succulents will spread-we will see. Anyway the kids named it Yurtle the Turtle after a Dr. Seuss story.  We made a fairy village-the kids made most of the houses and ladybugs, with some help, then they set it up. Jim got around to finding a place to hang up his tools that he has been collecting. We got some lights for our deck. And the garden is producing. Here it is July and we are still eating peas, they just keep growing. My broccoli is almost ready to pick. The brussel sprouts are just starting to form on the stalks. The green beans are about an inch long. I have 1 pie pumpkin on the vine so far. I have green tomatoes. We've been picking blueberries and strawberries.

             

We have been going places. We went to Henry Hagg Lake to fish but didn't catch anything. I did see 4 fish jump and I got a nibble! We took the kids to a local water park. The balloon festival and the 5K run were fun. Hiking at Cooper Mountain was fun-it's a local park. The parking lot is at the top of the mountain so anywhere you go is down hill. And we all know that for every down hill there is an uphill-so it's good hill practice for hiking. At this park at this time of the year there are plenty of wildflowers.



One of our sunsets. So far it has been a mild summer. We are still getting used to the cooler summers-it is very nice not to be hot all the time. Hope you are all having a good summer. I'm sure there will be more adventures to post later.

Gardens

The flower gardens and the vegetable garden are in full swing. I tried to make collages out of some of the flower pictures since I have so many different varieties of the same kind of flower. Do I have a favorite? Not really, I appreciate every one of them, they are all unique and beautiful. It reminds me of a verse in the Bible that speaks about worry, more specifically how we are not to worry. In Luke 12:27, Jesus says "Notice how the flowers grow. They do not toil or spin. But I tell you, not even Solomon in all his spender was dressed like one of them. If God so clothes the grass in the field that grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith?" So these are just some of the flowers growing in the yards. There are more yet to bloom.

      
Clematis                               Creeping Phlox                 Lupine and Columbine


      
Calla Lily                       Maiden Hair Fern                ?

     
 Nasturtiums                       Harebell or Campanula



 
Strawberry Begonia                      Peonies


    
Rhododendrons                              Some of my roses


                    
Some of my Columbines                     Day Lilies


We decided to put all the gardens and the vegetable garden on a drip irrigation system. When we stopped to think about all the trips we wanted to take during the summer and all the time it takes to keep up on the watering of all these gardens, it made sense to put in a system. Since we used to do landscaping as a profession, this task was a breeze. I was amazed at how much 1/2" tubing it took to get the water to reach all the parts of the yard-550ft! This was a costly endeavor, we spent close to $250 when it was all done. Luckily we didn't have to pay someone else to put it in for us.

The vegetable garden is a challenge, growing vegetables here is new to me. The previous owners had a vegetable garden but they let it go to weed and by the time we moved in the weeds were thick. It took us 4 days of weeding to "find" the garden. See Hidden Garden post from June 2017.

I tried to start many of the vegetables from seed, some of them worked and some didn't. The peas, lettuces, gourds and pie pumpkins came up inside and I could transplant them outside successfully. And I planted beans-pole and bush, mini pumpkins, and basil in the ground successfully. I started the sunflower seeds in pots outside to transplant-I noticed that they are a favorite of bugs. This way I can monitor their growth before transplanting them. I did have to buy the tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, butternut squash, broccoli and brussel sprouts since I was unsuccessful in getting them to start by seed. I bought most of these from a local high school plant sale, I like to support the local growers and the kids and the prices were great! And I had some herbs growing in pots from last year that overwintered just fine. I got the herbs at the end of summer from a nursery at a very discounted price. I knew they were perennials and would probably be fine this summer-and they are-and I got them at a great price! The scallions I start from the ones I buy at the store. I just save an inch of the root part, replant and they continue to grow. I cut off the green shoots as needed and they produce most of the summer-at least they did in CA, hopefully they'll do the same here. So I was trying to be frugal in my garden starting endeavors.

Another challenge is to get the watering right. Since it rains more here I feel I can't just turn on the irrigation to water every day-I'll probably drown something. It'll have to be that way when I'm gone but while I'm here I can have more control over the watering. At least it's just a button I push and the watering is done.

The bugs are voracious. I've had green worms eating my broccoli and brussel sprouts. And something tried to eat my peppers. The lettuces and the beans have had a few bugs on them but not too bad. I've started inspecting them morning and evenings for bugs, getting rid of them as I find them. I'm surprised that I haven't found many slugs. They are around but I thought they'd be worse.



I'm learning about all the different diseases that affect these plants, what really grows here as opposed to what I think grows here, the names of plants-even scientific names, the care of all of them. There is so much to learn. I have a friend here that is very knowledgeable and she helps me out when I have questions. We even take turns weeding each others gardens.

I think gardening is in my blood, it's genetic. My grandmother was an avid gardener. She even wrote books on the subject: Flowering Shrubs and Small Trees, The Woman's Day Book of Wildflowers-of Annuals & Perennials-of Houseplants, and Cooking with Herbs-all by Jean Hersey. My dad (Jean's son) liked to garden, and my brother and I like to garden. It's all a learning process and I enjoy learning about new things. Hopefully it all grows okay.

Latourell Falls

We have been wanting to hike the gorge for a while now. Last year it was on fire and there was no hiking. Since then many of the trails have been closed, but recently they have opened up some of them. The trail to Latourell Falls was one of them.

The basalt rock formations towards the bottom were interesting

There was so much to see on this hike. The trail was nice. We went during the week and got there early so there was no problem with parking or crowds. My trail app said it was a 2 mile hike but by the time we finished all the scenic lookouts and wandered around it was more like 3.5. It was classified as a moderate hike. It had nice views of the Columbia River as you hike up to the top but my phone camera pictures weren't very good, you'll just have to believe me.


      

      

We also went on another hike that day to another Bridal Veil Falls. It seems like that is a popular name for a water fall. The hike to this falls is pretty easy, only .5 miles. Apparently the bridge is a popular wedding photo place. There is a small loop you can hike nearby and I did get a picture of the Columbia River.