Few things I have done in 2010 summer.

In this summer, I had started few new hobby. One of’em is “building furniture”. ^^

I didn’t mean to do it seriously, just wanted to use old table which the previous owner left when we moved in. It had been sitting at the corner of living room, the legs were chewed up. I always thought it could be “reborn”. Then one day it just hit me, “BETTER DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT or TRASH!”

So took everything apart, realized that it can’t be fixed the way I intended(simply sand it and repaint). It had a veneer laminated particle board top with broken corners. In order to use the top board, I either take off whole veneer or just ignore those spots. I started with legs by using iron to melt the glue, took me days. (I had serious pain in my wrist at the moment.) I couldn’t come up the idea of doing it for the big top, I changed my mind to make my own top. For those legs, I cut them to be coffee table legs.

These pics were taken in the progress.

Cleaned glue off and sanding the legs for days, decided how I am going to build also took days. Then I got the measurement, and put the top on, and leveled at ONCE!

I wanted to put stones, took me days to find what I wanted, how I needed to frame up, or what type of wood I needed to use. I mean, “Literally” hard to work on the project I never have done or thought of. When I was laid in bed at night, I recalled all of items I looked that day and assembled them in my head… I had hard time to sleep, but quite enjoyable to imagine how it would be….

The circular saw we owned is battery-generated, and the battery hasn’t replaced ever, it dies quick. So mostly I cut them by hand. I wished I had a table saw or I was stronger. Then whole price would go down and took me quicker to finish. Also I had hard time to balance it with one hand while pushing the saw straight with the other hand, the cuts weren’t straight, I spent lot of time sanding. (And again, I had bad bad wrist pain…)

Find/decide the color took me days AGAIN, picked up the color stain and sand days. Then Tada~~ From the day I took this legs off of the other table to the last coat of polyurethane sealer, I made a coffee table from Scratch! I DID it!!

Total cost was about $100, stones cost more than half. I know it could be a lot cheaper if I had a table saw, but Chris kept said “no”. I know it’s silly to buy it to use only few times, so we will see. I will buy new batteries or corded saw though.

Making a coffee table wasn’t that easy, but, but! I learned a lot. I have so many building simple furniture, can’t wait to start those project!

Then next, this is a key hanger. It was made to give as wedding gift to our friends. It could be done sooner, somehow I was dreaded to start… I would say the idea didn’t come.. Friends said they liked it, so I am glad, that’s all.

I looked thru the pic of what I have done in the summer, I couldn’t see much. I was working whole summer redoing my lawn, it looks a lot healthier, never been this pretty!!

Ah, in the middle of September, I got a cast to rest my wrist for a month, so I couldn’t do much anyway. I started cross-stitch to give myself something to do couple days later I got a cast, it’s almost done. When it’s done, I am going to sell online. (FYI, it’s the Christmas Stocking.)

The next pics are the Project Chris leaded.

“Once upon a time”, Chris promised me that he would expand our patio. We had this cement slab, which is tiny and had a crack all the way across. We loved having fire in winter, but it gets really crowded with friends. Chris was going to finish it early spring, but weather didn’t help, and in summer he had surgery, spent about 2 months for recovery. Finally he was fully recovered and the weather was super nice in October, he decided to DO it.

Although it was a big and hard project to do alone, Chris didn’t want any help from others, and rejected the idea to pay someone else. Besides I couldn’t lift as much as he expected me to do, my hand couldn’t handle it either. Chris called a friend help few times for few hours work before, the day he decided to lay bricks down Chris’s brother came to help him.

The pic below is the bricks laying on the top of cement patio.

Look nice huh?

Check the whole patio below! Your jaw must have dropped, right??? XD

The patio is expanded about 4 time bigger, the pic below was taken when they were about half way done. They worked super hard, exhausted every day, finished it in 2.5days. Chris got the gravels in early summer and set up the frames already though.

I still had a cast, couldn’t help but be Gatorade supplier. Or come out to see how they did time to time.

It is very nice to have a big big patio, we are so happy of the result. It’s big enough to buy a big table for when family comes or having a group of friends over, AND have a room for a big big fire pit!

So, as soon as the patio was done, I bought a big dining table set. It was quite expensive, but I am not planning to buy it again in the future, I would rather have a bit nicer & sturdy set to keep it forever. I will take a pic of whole thing when we get the right fire pit. We are using our old small fire pit for now, have been looking for “IT”. Still thinking of all this makes me happy because “I have a BIG patio!!”

I got a cast off Monday, now time to start cook a lot since we had been eating all I had saved, do all the projects I had put off like putting peg board up in the garage. Also I had missed baking, even thinking to take cake decor classes. A month I wasn’t able to do all this was NOT fun, I have to make up for that!!! Chop chop!!

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