"'Twas Battered and Scarred..."

My, oh, my have I been busy this week.

It all started when a friend of ours at Church offered this armoire to me, free of charge, if I'd just come and pick it up. When we brought it in the house, we realized it was a little more beat up than we thought (okay, that's putting things mildly. Look at this thing. Did a cat get to it? Or maybe more like a tiger? Good heavens.).

Not to worry, however. I called my sister, Julie, who happens to be quite an expert at all things house-restoring related (betcha didn't know that about her). She suggested I run down to the Home Depot and buy myself a sander. So I did.


This picture is evidence for why my Valentine's card from Trent said that women with power tools are sexy. It's so true I just cannot deny it.

In any case, I've spent the week sanding and scraping and trying to avoid lead poisoning. I kept hoping that underneath all of the layers of wear and tear, there was something beautiful just waiting to be discovered. Of course, the entire time I sanded it down, I kept thinking of that poem, "The Touch of the Master's Hand." Who doesn't love a little bit of that awesome poem to remind themselves that a little bit of sanding goes a long way?

Then I attempted to stain the armoire. You can see where I splattered the stain on the garage floor. I also covered everything in the garage in a fine layer of gritty sawdust. Trent cheered me on and didn't seem mind too much that his beloved Jeep was covered in brown dust every morning when he left for work.

And then, when we finished staining, we realized that it all looked terrible. And I was sad. Then Trent encouraged me to give it one more try. I ran to Home Depot at 8:30 last night. We painted like fiends until 1:00 a.m. And this morning...voila. A new toy cabinet for Lillian.

Touch of the Master's Hand, indeed.

Okay, more like, touch of the crazy woman with a power tool's hand, but nevertheless, it was an awesome way to spend my free time this week.