Vacation, Housework, & Aubusson Blue

Summertime means traveling season, and we have been in and out since the beginning of July. I love to travel, but it’s always a lot of work getting back into the swing of things when you get home.

Last week my husband and I had the chance to escape kid free to San Diego, and it was wonderful. My in-laws have made a habit of taking my boys for a week every summer, and this is the first year they were able to take all 3. So, we found a place to go for a few days where we could escape the 100 degree Texas heat.

Even though we didn’t have our kids, we still went to the Zoo! It was incredible, and our whole trip was quite refreshing. The weather was perfect and we ate lots of seafood.

But alas, we had to come home . . . we had one and a half days after we got back from CA before our kids came home, so we enjoyed doing nothing! We had cereal for dinner, let dishes pile up in the sink, slept in late, and watched the news instead of Power Rangers.

Once my kids got back, it was time for housework. It’s amazing how much dirt and disruption three small people can generate, especially my 15 month old! His favorite pastime is carrying small objects around the house and dropping them in random places. It’s like he leaves a trail of wherever he wanders . . . So instead of working on my furniture projects I spent the bulk of this week cleaning up and getting used to home life again.

But TODAY I decided that I had cleaned enough and it was time to put some energy into my out-of-the-house work. It’s reached super-hot time in Texas, so I have to pick my work days carefully. I grab 30 minutes to an hour here and there throughout the day out in the garage, so unless I want to take 5 showers a day, I try to work on my projects on the days where we don’t have to go anywhere.

Today was a schedule-free day (correction, I did run to Wal-Mart and picked up the boys from VBS, but those really don’t count), so I was able to stay sweaty and covered in dust from this morning until about 30 minutes ago.

I decided to try and tackle the Empire Buffet I’ve been working on.

It was a steal at an estate sale 3 months ago, and I have been stuck at this point for about the last 3 weeks.

I decided to strip the top and the stripper and I (paint stripper, that is) weren’t getting along. I had to put it away for awhile out of frustration. One night though my husband took his belt sander to it and got most of the way through the THREE coats of paint, so all that was left was the primer. I thought I would try working on it some more today.

After an hour or so of work, success! A paint free top.

Sadly, the wood seemed to have some stains on it, but I think they will turn out ok once it’s re-stained.

Once I finished sanding down the top, I was excited to try out the new color I picked for the base–Annie Sloan Aubusson Blue. It’s a bold color, but really a beautifully toned blue and great for accent pieces of furniture, like buffets.

After my kids went to bed I was able to stain the top and get the first coat of paint on the base, and it looks amazing! Just like I was envisioning it. Wanna see pictures? Well …. you’ll have to wait. I still have to strip and re-stain the back piece and paint a second coat on the base. My goal is to finish it this weekend, so check back soon for the full reveal.

Have a wonderful weekend!