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5.22.05
The Outside Beautification project continues, and today is my monthly day off. Hooray! This is the day where Bob takes Claire somewhere fun (usually his mom's house down in San Diego, but today, Disneyland), and I spend the day doing whatever my sweet little heart desires.
Historically, I have overscheduled this day, packing it full of so many projects that I can never finish them all, and ending up feeling frustrated by the time Bob and Claire get home. This is dumb, because the day is supposed to make me refreshed and ready for another month of mothering a toddler and keeping a house going, and I should greet them with excitement, instead of a "You guys are already home?" attitude. You know. :) (It's so easy to become selfish about time-to-yourself when you don't have a lot of it.)
So this time, I kept in mind something my mom always used to joke about: "Low goals are attainable." My goals are thus: (1) finish painting the Ikea chairs and old coffee table for the back patio, and (2) clean the front entry closet.
I'm so happy, because it's only 9:20 a.m. right now, and my painting is already finished. You would not believe how excited something this simple makes me. We have an old Ikea (I love Ikea . . . have I mentioned that?) outdoor dining table, but I got it in my head that I wanted more of a lounge/living area, with four comfortable chairs and a coffee table, low, to set drinks and desserts on. So I stuck the dining table in the garage, and hauled out our old coffee table, made of teak (a great outdoor wood, hooray!) that we picked up at a church rummage sale in Virginia a few years ago for $10. I painted it white and distressed it, and it was our regular living room coffee table until this past December, when Bob surprised me with new stuff for Christmas.
So today I just slapped one fresh coat of white on, and will go sandpaper it a bit once it's dry. Yay!
The chairs cost about $30 each at Ikea, and we got them several years ago when we lived in Virginia. There is a little wicker ottoman, also, that you can see just in front of the flower pot. They all used to be in our living room, back when Bob was a Navy JAG and money was really tight. When we moved here, they seemed like good patio furniture, but turned a drab gray when left out in all the winter storms we had. My solution to everything is always to paint it. I paint EVERYTHING.
I should mention that although I used leftover paint from our recent inside house painting, these chairs drank up about 1.5 quarts each! Wicker is thirsty. I'd also recommend, if you decide to paint wicker ever, that you rent or borrow a paint sprayer. . . I just used a brush, and it took awhile to get into all the nooks and crannies. (They each took 3 coats to cover, and I started yesterday.)
Anyway. I'm so excited. Next payday, I'll go buy two more of these wicker chairs and paint them (we have more leftover paint!), and then we'll have a regular little mini living room right on the patio. You are, of course, cordially invited to come sit back there with me when you come visit. We can sit on the patio in the backyard during the day, when it's hot and we need some shade, and the kids can play in the playhouse and sit in the hard-to-assemble-but-turned-out-cute frog chair and splash in the plastic wading pool while we drink lemonade. Then in the evening, we can sit out on the front porch, because it's lovely and you can see the moon and there are bugs and birds that make sweet noises, and the plants smell good.
I'm off to tackle the entry way closet, which is a glorious mess of coats, board games, Claire's easel, the ironing board and iron, a tricycle, a step stool, shoes, plastic bags, purses . . . you name it, I have thrown it in there. Have a good rest of your weekend, everyone. :)
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