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The Home Depot

Christmas Tree Chaos

December 16, 2018 by 22 Comments

While visiting Mr. Handsome’s family for Thanksgiving, everyone met at a Christmas tree farm (which also had live reindeer–see my November 28th post) so those who live in the area could pick out Christmas trees. The tree selection wasn’t great, so we ended up stopping at a tree lot. Mr. Handsome and I were poking fun at them because it took so long for everyone to choose trees. And it wasn’t that they were walking around the lot looking at a bunch of different trees…

Within the few minutes, Mr. Handsome’s youngest brother and his wife were sure that they wanted a 10-foot tree for $125. After about 25 minutes of discussion about size and type, the other couples decided to save money and go with the $25 Scotch pine trees. Then for another 15 minutes, Mr. Handsome’s parents (and two youngest sisters) and his second oldest sister and her husband went back and forth between three Scotch pine trees before each household came to a consensus. …

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Filed Under: Christmas Tagged With: Black Friday, Christmas decor, Christmas tree, Hobby Lobby, Nashville, ornaments, reindeer farm, Scotch pine, The Home Depot

Refinishing Furniture: Coffee Table

February 2, 2018 by 19 Comments

how to refinish furniture

Last summer, my sister-in-law (the one who married Mr. Handsome’s youngest brother one year ago) found an amazing deal at Goodwill: a large, solid wood coffee table for $8. It was an ugly, faded red color and was quite beat up, but the price was right, so she bought it with plans to refinish it.

how to refinish furniture

A few days later, they were preparing to host four guests in their tiny, one-bedroom apartment, so my brother-in-law dropped the table off at our house. He said it was temporary, but I think he secretly hoped it would never make its way back to their place. (He’s a bit of a minimalist.)

Fast-forward to last week. It had been seven months, and the coffee table was still with us. (It lived under our covered back porch because it was just too ugly for me to allow it inside.) I looked at it one day and decided that it had been at our home long enough that it was officially ours. We didn’t have a coffee table, so I set to work fixing it up.

I’ll admit that this was my first furniture refinishing project. Before getting started, I read articles online, spoke with a woodworker friend, and talked to the friendly folks at The Home Depot. The project took about 10 hours and a lot of elbow grease, but the finished product turned out better than I could have imagined. I also didn’t have to go to the gym for a week because sanding and applying stain and polyurethane was enough of a workout, so that was a plus!

My first step was sanding the entire table with #80 sandpaper and then wiping all the sawdust away with a damp cloth. After the old finish was removed, I followed with #220 sandpaper and then wiped it down again. Below is what the table looked like when I was done. I was tempted to skip the stain and go right to the polyurethane, but I knew the light color wouldn’t match our decor.

how to refinish furniture

When the table was completely dry, I applied Minwax Water Based Pre-Stain Wood Conditioner, according to the instructions on the can. The next step was the Minwax Wood Finish Penetrating Oil Based Stain (Dark Walnut 2716). I applied 2 coats, also according to the instructions on the can. The first was fairly thick because I wanted a nice, dark color, so I allowed it to dry for 24 hours. The second was thinner, so it only needed to dry for 6 hours.

The last step was the Minwax Fast-Drying Polyurethane (Clear Satin), according to the instructions on the can. I applied 3 coats using foam brushes and waiting about 4 hours between each coat.

I was so pleased with the results that I went out and bought an inexpensive random orbital sander and started another refinishing project.

how to refinish furniture

In addition to the above-mentioned sandpaper, conditioner, stain, and polyurethane, I used plastic drop cloths, a mask and gloves specifically for strong chemicals, eye protection, a paint can opener, a paint stir stick, and several foam brushes in different sizes (for best results, use a new one for every step). You’ll also want to wear old clothes that you don’t care about.

supplies to refinish furniture

Filed Under: DIY Home, Projects Tagged With: amazing deal at Goodwill, coffee table, furniture refinishing, minimalist, Minwax, polyurethane, random orbital sander, sandpaper, The Home Depot, wood conditioner

Our Christmas Tree

December 9, 2017 by 67 Comments

Nashville Wife Christmas Tree

This year, we purchased our seven-foot Christmas tree from the very fancy tree lot at The Home Depot. At the end of the holiday season last year, a kind, elderly lady who was moving out of her home and into an assisted living facility gave me a bunch of beautiful, silver and gold balls. Combined with our silver star, white lights, and other ornaments, the balls are a great addition!

Still, my favorite decoration is the tree stump ornament that I made from our first Christmas tree.

Do you have a tree this year? What color are your lights and ornaments?

Nashville Wife Christmas Tree

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Christmas tree, first Christmas tree, The Home Depot, tree stump ornament

Our Christmas Decorations

December 22, 2016 by 21 Comments

A few of my readers have asked that I post pictures of our Christmas decorations. I have to admit that we don’t have many. We have very limited storage space, and our little house is already full of non-Christmas decor. But I do enjoy decorating, so I’m hoping to do more in the coming years.This year, we bought a five-foot tree from The Home Depot. (When we have children, we definitely plan to make a tradition of visiting a Christmas tree farm to cut down our tree.) It’s a cute little tree and is the perfect size for our strand of colored lights and couple dozen ornaments, my favorite of which is the tree stump ornament I made last year for our first Christmas. We also put colored lights on the bush in front of our house.

We scored this cute “Noel” sign at a Dirty Santa/White Elephant gift exchange earlier this season.

This gold Christmas tree and porcelain angel are from my sister-in-law Anne. She purchased them from a thrift store for 50 cents each. Behind them, you can see the DIY stocking I sewed for Mr. Handsome’s birthday last year. Click here to watch the tutorial that I used.

And this is a small “Joy to the World” chalkboard sign that I made, using a glue gun to attach the little decorations. We also have the snow scene that Mr. Handsome painted hanging in our kitchen. Do you decorate for the holidays? Do you go all out?

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: chalkboard sign, Christmas decor, Christmas decorations, Christmas tree farm, dirty Santa, DIY stocking, gift exchange, Noel sign, our first Christmas, The Home Depot, tree stump ornament, white elephant

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Meet Ellie

Mr. Handsome and I married six years ago and moved to Nashville, Tennessee. Between recipes, photos from our travels, money saving tips, DIY suggestions, post about our daily life with our son, and more, our lifestyle blog features a little bit of everything. Read More…

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