Chairs Redone Too!

 

To go with my new table, I wanted to redo the four chairs I already had. I had found these chairs years ago at a thrift store. They were $30 for all four chairs. My sister bought them for me for my birthday.

I didn't dislike the old seat covers. The blue and white farm print was right up my alley. However, I wanted to spruce them up. I repainted them when I was doing the other chairs and the table legs.

Then I used some of the polka dot fabric I had on hand and that I just love. I also had some laminating material to make them waterproof.

I bought the laminating sheeting at Joann's.

It was really easy to iron it onto the fabric.

Here is the fabric after the sheeting is on.

I did four different colors for extra fun.

Black

Pink

Blue

Green

A Table Redone

I have been wanting a round table for several years now. I have had my eye out at flea markets and garage sales; never quite finding what I wanted. My mom even gave me some money and a gift card to Ikea for Christmas last year, but I hadn't gotten around to purchasing the table I thought I wanted. I must have mentioned something to my next door neighbor at one point because when she bought a new table, she offered me her old round one. I asked if it was okay if I painted it and she said I could do whatever I wanted with it; they were all finished!

The round table before I painted it.

My old tile top table.

A couple of months ago, she and her husband brought it over and it sat on the patio or in the garage for the summer.

Nothing was wrong with my old table. It was a small rectangular, tile-top table. I thought a round would go better in the space I have, and it was a table I had from when I was married. Truthfully, I just didn't want it anymore. 

One of the chairs my sister acquired!

Meanwhile, my sister found some chairs in someone's trash. (Please note: she is not usually a dumpster diver, but these were nice chairs and she couldn't just leave them there.) They happened to match my old table perfectly. She offered them to me and I never turn down free, so I took them.

A couple of weeks after acquiring a whole set of chairs (that I didn't really need) that were nice and went perfectly with the table (that I didn't really want) that was also nice, I was talking to one of my housecleaning clients. She said they were purchasing a house for their daughter to live in at college and were going to go thrifting for furniture. I told her about my old table and the new to me chairs and said their daughter could have them. They came in mid-July and picked them up and then I had a big empty space in my house for the next several months.

This is what my housecleaning client's daughter did with my old table. She did awesome too; I think!

 











For fun I posted on Facebook about my round table and the desire to paint it. I had originally thought I would paint just white on the whole thing, but since I had this table that I could do whatever I wanted with, maybe I should get creative! People threw out some suggestions and then a small debate ensued between one of my cousins who said wood, especially oak, should never be painted, and an interior designer/furniture refinisher friend of mine, who most certainly thought that it should be painted. Leaving it as is was never what I wanted and I certainly didn't mean to cause a discussion! It was amusing to watch the comments fly back and forth! Who knew people could get so passionate about painting a table??

The table repainted.

I settled on this awesome aqua/turquoise color that I found at True Value. It is officially called Big Easy. I painted the legs and the two chairs, my neighbors also gave me, white with basic white spray paint. 

One of the two chairs that went with the table. 

Also painted white.

They gave me the two leaves, so I can make the table bigger when we need.

It turned out exactly like I wanted and really does fit much better in the space than the rectangular table!

A Post Script to Mother's Day

Just after I posted the Mother's Day article, my daughter came up and handed me some lovely acronym poems that she forgot to give me over the weekend. Maybe there's hope for my mothering skills yet!

 

This one reads:

Horrifically Smart

Entirely Fun
Amazingly Sweet

Too Much Excitement

Hero in my World

Excitingly Exuberant

Righteous (I asked if that was the correct pronunciation!)



This one reads:

Marvelous in an amazing way

On a roll with everything

More than just a mom.

 

 

 

I do really love that girl!

 

Mother's Day

I know; I know; it has been over a year since I have written. The truth of the matter is that right now there are things that I just cannot write about, but hope to someday soon. The second truth is that I really am so busy that my blog falls to the wayside of everything else. Believe me I think about it all the time and wish I was more free to write on a daily basis.

Yesterday was Mother's Day. Earlier in the week, I had read a blog post by a friend of mine. You can read it too at the MessyMiddle.com. It is the one titled An Open Letter to Pastors (Thoughts on Mother's Day from a non-mom). My lovely friend, Amy, whom I have known most of my life, gives a beautiful account of what Mother's Day feels like for those who are not fortunate enough to be mother's themselves. I had thought about sharing it with my pastor, but hesitated as I don't want to be a balcony seat pastor. However, during church yesterday, he began the sermon on the same note as the blog. I was emailing him about it during the sermon and then he said he was going to share it with the congregation. He had spoken about how God kept leading him in this direction all week and I thought I had better speak up myself since I had dwelled on it all week as well. So here goes...

I had wanted to comment on my friend's blog because I, too, have mixed emotions about Mother's Day, and I am a mother. I love to celebrate the day for my own beautiful mother, without whom I would be completely lost in this world. I am happy to do things for her, eat with her, get her a gift, or just spend the day with her, but when it comes to feeling like I should be celebrated on this particular day, well, I just don't think so.

Yes, that's me and my lovely mother!

First of all my own kids aren't even grown yet. How do I know how they are going to turn out? What if I totally mess this all up?

Second, right now I am mired in a legal battle with my ex-husband eight years after he left us and seven years after the divorce (the things I cannot really talk about at the moment) and I know he thinks that I am not a good mother. I also feel like his family feels the same way. I know it isn't true, but the constant judgement has me second guessing myself constantly.

Third, I really never feel comfortable celebrating me. I don't love celebrating my birthday and I don't love celebrating myself as a mother. I think most days I do the best I can, but really I just feel exhausted all the time. I wonder if my children really even appreciate me a lot of the time. I know they love me, but will they one day look at me like I look at my own mother and think of how fantastic she is and was? Are my expectations of them too high or not high enough? Do I take enough time to just be with them rather than always being busy? I feel that I have more questions than answers so how can I be confident in saying, "Yes, please celebrate the mother that I am today!?!"

Finally, I always sort of chuckle inside when I think about Mother's Day as a day off to just sit back and put my feet up. Really?? That seems like a greeting card commercial or something that a man would think is what I would be doing. As a single mother, Mother's Day is still a day of work. Case in point, yesterday, I finished cleaning the inside of my house and then worked the rest of the day on the backyard: blowing off the dirt and leaves, trimming the edges, mowing the lawn, hosing down the patio items and kids' toys, putting it all back together and hanging the outside curtains. I still have planting to do and bills to pay. When I was married, I was only a mother for three of those years. My now ex-sister-in-law said to me one of those years, why are you still working on things today? I just looked at her dumbfounded (she was not married nor a mother then) and shrugged. She obviously didn't know that even married, I still did all the work. Her brother never worked to make a day special or so that I could have time off. I watched my mother do the same. Even when she was married, she was a single mother and did all the work of running the house, taking care of us girls, taking care of her husband, and working a full time job. I work four part time jobs for pay and am a full time single mother. I work, end of story. Mother's Day or not there are still bills to pay, lunches to pack, kids to help, a house to clean, laundry to wash and put away, pets to tend, a yard to mow, toiling away without end, Amen.

Maybe someday, when the kids are grown and I can look back and see that they did appreciate me and think I did a good job (I hope!), I will feel better about celebrating a day for myself as a mom. Until then I will continue to think of it as a day to appreciate and tell my own mother that she really is the best mom in the world!

Not only is she the best mother, but now she is the best grandmother!