WOW!

 Wow! Twice in one day. I am in desperate need of a break so I thought I would share what has been happening just since we last "spoke". I managed to get the pie safe into the sunroom and out the back door. I used the "slider" thingies that go under the feet of the cabinet and work pretty well except that you do have to push down pretty hard to make sure the legs of the cabinet stay on the sliders or, before you know it, they are off and you are scratching your floor...ask me how I know. Lol Getting it out the door was a bit tricky because there was really nowhere to grab it to just lift it-although I'm not sure I could do that any more these days anyhow. In any case, I got it out there and set up and I quickly realized that using the sander was going to go much more quickly but it still wouldn't be the complete answer. There are lots of places that the sander doesn't fit. And, of course, there was no need to worry about the skies opening because there wasn't a cloud in the sky and it was reading 82 degrees out there with the sun beating on my head.

In any case, I got a bit of the one side and front done before stopping for some lunch.

After lunch I was in some shade so that helped a lot and this is where I am right now.

You can definitely tell that I'm moving forward. I still have the whole other side to do with the sander and then all of the rest of the detail by hand but, honestly, as much as I want to keep going, my shoulders are not going along with me. Lol And so, I think I will pull it in for the night and see if I can lift my arms tomorrow and maybe get a bit more done. If not, maybe when the crew comes for my birthday I can finagle one of them to help me out.

My initial goal had not been to take it down this far but when I didn't, the paint left on it looked like animal stripes and that wasn't my goal at all. I think it's pretty obvious now that I will need to put some kind of finish on this but I don't want to just do it in pine or walnut like the armoire in that room. I have some inspiration pictures from my designer daughter that looks like maybe a black-wash over wood tone so we shall see. That step may take awhile because if I do that here, I will need to do the same to the armoire-if you give a mouse a cookie.....

At least I was surrounded by beautiful fragrance while I was out there. This is just one of a yard full of tea olives-this one was literally a foot away from me. I probably have 20 or so in my backyard yet the scent is noticed all of the way out by my mailbox in the front! The scent of the tea olives is right up there with gardenias for me!

And, since I was talking so much about "green" this morning, this is happening...in between sandings.

"What in the world is she doing now" you might well ask-and you would be justified. Lol I was trying to decide how I could bring my mom's bone china with the "Irish" themes back out and I think they might look best in a vignette full of just lots of green-at many levels-and natural things. Most of the ones I saw that I liked used books bound in green. Of course, I don't have any of those. But, I do have lots of books that we got from book clubs all basically bound in the same black cardboard. I decided to see if I couldn't "greenwash" them to come up with a fair resemblance. I just watered down some green paint and brushed it on the book covers and then wiped it quickly back off. I'm trying not to have them look like books just painted green. Now that they're dry, I'm starting to play around with a dark green ink pad and a black one as well. I'm starting to get some results I like so we shall see. In any case, they won't be the main focus of the vignette so I think they will work. Maybe I will even bring some of her crocheted doilies back out. Stay tuned...and stay safe. P.S. Did you notice how I chose the books from the "McNally" series? I thought they sounded kind of Irish. LOL Honestly, they might just end up back on the book shelves but at least they gave me a break from the dreaded sander for a bit!