Kitchen Table Progress

I think I may have mentioned before that finishing a piece of furniture can take as long or longer than the building it. Wood is a natural material and it can be tricky and even unpredictable.
Steve did quite a bit of research as he has never worked with bird's eye maple. He did do one shelving piece in maple and that was trickier to finish than white oak, which is what he usually works with.
Of course he consulted the internet and his favorite publication: Fine Woodworking (that's besides his other fav publication Fine Homebuilding). He even emailed the author of "Three Finishes for Bird's Eye Maple", Teri Masaschi to ask a few questions. And she very kindly emailed back!


Steve has been working on finishing the bird's eye maple table top for a few weeks now.
For anyone who is a newbie at woodworking, you don't just go and slap some stain on wood after you are done sanding. That would not be wise because as I said, the wood can be unpredictable.
Steve always makes some test pieces to determine how the wood takes the dye, stain or shellac, etc... Here you can see the variations he came up with with different layers of dye.
We selected the top center board color as it is lighter than all the oak in our kitchen and we feel it will offer a nice contrast and show off the figuring very well. What do you think?

One thing that came up with this particular project is that some of the "bird's eyes" popped out. They were filled with a fill stick as you can see here.
Steve decided to use a combination of gel and shellac for the finish. A few kinds of shellac that I will post about later as I don't have the details right now. He is in process of applying several coats of shellac and just last night after putting on another coat, he discovered some "ghosting."

No, our table top is not haunted. It just has some white film on a section of it. Not the look we were going for. There are many reasons this could happen. Possibly there is too much humidity in our basement and higher water content in the shellac then caused this. Possibly slight residue of sanding was left and became embedded in a layer of shellac. You see what I mean about tricky

So now, we have the dehumidifier going and Steve is contemplating sanding off some layers and beginning again with the shellac. It's tricky. More to come.

But as you can see here, this wood is so pretty, it's work all the effort. Finishing is really the hardest part to woodworking!

Just saying Hi

I just realized that I went the entire month of March without posting.

True we haven't been doing much, but a month? That's just not acceptable.

Steve has been working on the table top. He just this week started applying the layers of finish. He has been doing extensive research as he has never worked with Maple before.

I have to admit that right now I just don't have the oompf to write up the minutae of dyes and shellac colorations and how those combinations interact etc... etc...

Instead, I'm just posting this pretty picture of daffodils and saying Happy Spring!

Right now, we are in the process of looking for tenants also. Our adorable twenty-something roommates had to split. I believe we will be wrapping that process up this weekend. It is always good to have that behind us. Miss you guys.

Little Projects

That's what we'll be doing this year or rather that is what we have planned right now. This doesn't make more exciting blogging, but it will have to suffice for 2009.

Of course, we made a list, a rather long list of everything we'd like to do and then we prioritized based on stuctural issues and cost. As it turns out, we have a number of things we can do that will cost next to nothing. Projects that have been cued up for a while and just pushed aside.

We have a stockpile of some materials in our basement also (read: oak, more oak, and some more oak)and it will be nice to clear some of that out! Steve is still working on our kitchen table at the wood shop. He is hand scraping it, which is the method used before sandpaper was invented. The effect is more burnishing and smoothing as opposed to sandpaper, which leaves fine scratches on the surface.

He's kind of a luddite when it comes to making furniture, but he does make "hand-crafted" furniture. This is why it takes a while too.

As an example of the kind of projects we are undertaking, our latest project was to install a Hunter ceiling fan we purchased in 2006, back when we were remodeling the 2nd floor.

The funny thing about this little "freebie" project is that it ended up costing us close to $100.00 after we retrofitted the ceiling outlet with hardware to hold up this monster ceiling fan. The house gets the last laugh this time, but just wait, the year has just started.

Projects on the boards for this year include:

Building out our mudroom/entry area with a mirror and hooks for coats etc...

Tuckpointing the garage and basement walls.

General maintenance of roof, concrete repair, window glazing etc...

Install missing shoe moulding in Living room, dining room and mud room.

And no summer would be complete without me refinishing at least one door so...we will be buying a salvage door for our den (Steve's office) and I will refinish and then install it.

There's a bunch more little and not-so-glamourous-or exciting small projects that I won't bore you with here. I'll try to post when something exciting happens.

Happy Holidays from Chicago 2-Flat

I like to decorate for the holidays. Many years our home has not lent itself to this for various reasons. Anywhere from the house was such a mess it seemed a moot point to we were just to darn tired to we had no extra money.

Now that our home is done to the degree of being livable and not a source of embarrassment, I get to have some fun. There are ways to do this without spending a fortune or looking like an over-decorated retail establishment.

This is where some of my squirrel-like tendencies pay off in spades. For example, over the years whenever I have purchased a wreath or centerpiece or beautifully wrapped gift, I carefully removed any of the embellishments that could be re-used. I also save all my Christmas cards and someday I am going to do something really cool with them- mark my words. It helps to have a basement to store these things.
So, this year I was able to cut way back on my spending. Instead, I made my own centerpieces and cut way back of fresh greenery for the outdoors. I only decorated the 2 pots on our front porch and added red ribbons, which are very festive. A string of colored lights around the door, and finis! Cost was about $30.00 for the greenery and bows. I saved money by forgoing the wreath also.

In the dining room, I spent not a dime. The fresh flowers were scavenged from my office. (We get fresh flowers every week and they get tossed on Fridays if no one wants them)

A card "tree" is a great way to display cards. Buy it once and you have it forever. These will mos likely be on deep discount after Christmas on Potterybarn.com.

The centerpiece is simply a piece I had with acorns from Steve's parents yard and some of those embellishments I had squirreled away. I'm not saying it's anything "fancy" but it's casually festive in a way I like. If I was going to go "hog wild", I would probably be inclined to hang evergreen boughs over the windows with some kind of red ribbons. Not this year though. :o)


Here's another little piece I made entirely with scavenged items. The fresh greens came from trimmings from our tree.


I got these matching ornament wreaths at Pier One a few years ago 50% off after Christmas.


Of course, trees are expensive so it's hard to save there. And you want a fresh one that will last. I don't do a tree every year, but this year we will be home and I am off from x-mas till New Year's. I plan to spend several days curled up in the living room with a good book and this is really relatively cheap entertainment when you divide the cost over all that time.

Plus, there's just something about a real Christmas tree. It's romantic and impractical and it's nice to be that way once in a while.

When Steve was bringing it in, I was struck my how strange it is to take this poor tree and cut it down and bring it into a house. Don't trees belong outside growing in the ground?

But then how perfect is it when we are all cooped up inside because of the cold and snow to bring the outside inside to keep us company? Not practical and maybe not so "green", but I promise I will bring mine in to be mulched after the holidays. And I promise to cherish it.

I've discovered Facebook...

...and of course being the internet addict that I am I am using it constantly. Well, not constantly, but way more than before I had a profile and signed up. :o)

And I'm devising the ways this fascinating new-to-me-tool can be used.

Of course, faithful houseblogger that I am, I searched for a houseblogger group and there wasn't one. So I made one. And I am the only member right now, so sad.

And of course, the next thought that popped into my head? Let's use it to plan Woodstick 2010!!**

If you're on Facebook, why don't you join me? Come on... it'll be fun! I already consider so many of you friends online so feel free to ping me on there if you like.

**"Woodstick" is houseblogger talk for a huge gathering of housebloggers, which has been talked about, but not yet come to fruition.

Counting our blessings

I took today off work and went over to my Mom's to play sous chef to my Mom, who is a fantastic cook in my book. She uses simply the best ingredients, fresh, organic and locally sourced produce with an emphasis on vegetables and she also cooks an amazing turkey.

We are not a family that serves the same dishes every year. We always have turkey, stuffing, home made cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes, but the specific recipes and preparation style changes yearly. This year, Mom is making a salted turkey recipe from Gourmet magazine and a beet cranberry salad that we have never had before.

She also had the idea that before we start dinner, we go around the table and have everyone share something they are grateful for.

In the midst of this horrific economy that frightens me, a stressful week at work, and the fresh news that our tenants may need to break their lease as one of them was laid off and cannot sustain the expenses of the apartment, I accepted this with some degree of battle fatigue.

I spent the next few hours chopping vegetables and talking with my Mom. We listened to NPR and heard that "layaway" is back. I tuned out news on the economy and asked my Mom, "Why is Obama still asking for money?" (I am still getting frequent emails from the campaign asking to donate.) I continued, "I mean, they think THEY need money. I need money." Mom agreed it was kind of annoying. I discussed my job and some of what has been bothering me. Mom understood and that made me feel better, validated.

And as I was leaving at around 4pm, I thought that I am grateful and fortunate to have such a wonderful cook for a Mother. Food just tastes better and feels more nourishing in her home.

But beyond that I am truly blessed having the parents I have. I could not love them more. Both are living examples of living life with grace. I think if can be as graceful as they are, I will be doing just fine. So maybe I can accept this economy and this job and this uncertain situation with our tenants with grace. And I can count my many blessings.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I was there

I don't want to dwell on politics because this is after all, my house blog, but I just wanted to follow up on my earlier post and let you all know that my Mom and me did go to the rally in Grant Park on November 4th! It seems like ages ago already doesn't it?


The crowd was very calm going in and there was almost no pushing. I observed not one person smoking, which seemed odd to me since we were outside and waiting for hours.


We arrived at about 6pm and left at close too midnight. We stood almost the whole time and I was pretty tired, but it was also pretty amazing to just be there and see everyone so happy.

My Mom had actually been downtown for the demonstrations at the infamous 1968 Democratic Convention years ago. I couldn't help but think how far we've come since then. It was pretty cool.

And thanks to everyone who commented on my "no-spend-zone" post. It's comforting to know I am not the only one feeling the pinch, although I have to say I don't like it too much. I, as do many, like my creature comforts. But maybe I'll blog more now. That doesn't cost anything right?