After getting up and making banana bread pancakes (yummo - pancakes with body and some banana bursts), Danny was off to pick up my latest treasure. Who knew how great this day would turn out to be?

As many of you know I frequent garage sales, Craiglist, and ebay. I buy, I sell, I trade all at great prices. My latest Craigslist find is a dresser for the girls which was so pretty that I just couldn't resist. I sat for a few weeks seeing if someone else would snatch it up meanwhile I was just dreaming about the beautiful color that I could paint this dresser and the beautiful little gem knobs I could put on it. Yes, I had a vision for a dresser that was not mine. Finally last Wednesday I had to inquire as to if I could indeed make it mine.

I looked at the item and upon realizing that if I did not purchase it, it would be put in a garage sale, I committed to the buy - thus embarking on a refinishing project. The pictures did not do it justice. As I stood looking at it today, I thought, there really is no way around it: it needs to be refinished to be as adorable in real life as it is in my head.

The first call I made was to my Mom. The thing I had not thought about when making this purchase: my Mom would not be at my disposal to help with the project...oh dear. I said "Guess what Mom? I got us a project to do!"

Immediately she started quizzing me: "What kind of wood is it? Did you knock on it to make sure it is solid? Did you pay full price? Are the drawers sturdy?"

Silence. Fail on all accounts. And still I had a dresser to refinish. That was really the point right? Get on my team already Mamala! Though I am proud to report that after performing spot checks, as it turns out, I did ok. It is sturdy and good.

Have you ever driven by houses who have junk stacked in the garage and can't park? At this point, that happens to be half of our garage. My husband has given up on ever having his space back in the garage (we still have clutter from last fall's flood) and I am on a mission to get it back for him but I just have to do this one last thing (refinishing the dresser) before I do. So here I am. I spent a few hours this afternoon starting to strip the dresser. Here is a photo of the prize dresser which will reside in my girls' room. SQUEAL! It is sooooo perfect for their cute little bunk beds:


Here is a picture of me taken by my 4 year old :) I won't share the first one that she took, which was a nice photo of my patootie...
After scraping for about 2 1/2 hours, my arms hurt. We shall see if they still hurt tomorrow. I need to get this project off the ground.


PS I got my first sun burn of the season. Yowie.