little side projects...

Yesterday 

in between watching the 

stone masons

working their magic,

and running errands,,

and running the vacuum,

and buying groceries

and taking pictures of the

stone masons

working their magic,

I thought I would take some pictures

of the things I got done last week.

It doesn't look like much,

but believe me

it was much.

I had to sand down all the little

bubbles

where one of my children, 

or maybe two of them

left their fountain drinks

on the top too long

and made the wood warp up

in ugly lumps.

But I prevailed 

and now the orange bumpy dresser

is now ready for her jewelry.

I will sand the edges and stain those areas today

and apply a poly coat

and go pick out some new jewelry for her

and then she will be ready for her new job.

I think she will serve as a game cabinet

and buffet for the table that will

be downstairs in the rec room.

I have a black bookshelf 

who is looking for a partner

in this part of the new house

and he is liking this new chick

a lot.

Wait til he sees her all dressed up!

Some of you may remember that

I have decided not to carpet

the craft room.

It will be mostly storage

with my little craft area in whatever space is left.

But I have a thing against ugly.

Gray basement floors can be ugly.

As you can see here.

This is ugly.

Who wants to craft in a room this ugly?

Not me.

What is the solution?

Here it is!

Warm, inviting, intriguing.

Well, maybe not warm, but there will be rugs!

I am so pleased with the results!

It is so dark in there, Im having trouble seeing

whether I got it all right,

but who really cares?

I love it.

Here's how it came about.

1. Hand rub the solid concrete stain with wadded up paper towels.

2. Rub it in well in small sections.

3. Let dry.

4. Repeat #1.

5. Repeat #2.

6. Repeat #6.

7. Rub with color #2, a translucent color

8. Let sit for a few minutes.

9. Dab the stain off with a paper towel that is pretty much saturated with the stain

( a dry paper towel might take off too much.)

dab out all the swirl marks, blending and dabbing til you get the look you like.

10. Spray with a 3rd color, also translucent.

11. Let this set for a few minutes while you go dab a new section.

12. Dab very very lightly at the spots you made with your cheap sprayer that leaves spots

instead of spray.

Don't even touch the floor, just flop your paper towel around, barely touching the floor,

you dont want to remove the spots, just soften them.

My paper towels were in shreds and once they start leaving little bits behind you have 

to start an new one.

13. where your sections overlap, dab to soften the edges, but you can use these areas to look

like shadows and darken them some more if you like this look.

14. Walk away, if you can even move at this point.

15. Check for places you might have missed and dab at them with the translucent stain

16. Let dry for several days.

I used Behr Concrete stain from Home Depot and have since watched some videos on U tube

to see how this is actually supposed to be done and gasp, this is nowhere near what they said to do.  First, all I did was sweep the dust off...no water was involved.

They refer to acid stain and I have not seen that any where around here, so we'll see how long this will last.  I am planning to seal it with whatever HD has on the shelf.

For an amateur gig, I think it looks fine and remember it's a storage room/craft room,

so I don't expect anyone to be going around with a magnifying glass to see if I did it right. 

Wear knee pads and gloves for this job...it's an old lady killer!

Stay tuned for more exciting adventures....