My newest form of therapy

You've probably seen it on facebook already (except you, Mom. HINT.): I'm in the midst of my very first ever furniture refinishing project.

About a week ago, my wicked sister, Alisa, assured me that re-upholstering the chairs of my dining room set was something so simple I could do it in about 20 minutes with one hand tied behind my back. Actually, she's been telling me this for months now. But for whatever reason, I decided to tackle the "easy" job of re-upholstering my dining room chairs on Sunday. In the 96 degree heat. In Alisa's un-air-conditioned house. Fun times were had by all, and in the end, the seat cushions looked far better in their more natural, retro coverings than they ever had in that awful old-lady fabric my Grandma picked out 10+ years ago (sorry, Grandma).

Tragedy struck while trying to re-attach the seats to the chair frames. Being that this is my Grandma and Grandpa's teak dining room set they bought while stationed in Germany back in 1964, the whole set has seen some wear and tear. Turns out the holes in the bottoms of the seats are stripped and in need of repair. And while I'm waiting for that to happen, I figured hey, I've always wanted to re-finish the entire set, why not tackle it now? After some Google searching and the acquisition of some sandpaper and teak oil, I was all set.

I absolutely love this dining room set. And I fully intend to restore it to it's 1960's, golden, retro glory. I will not let an unfortunate incident with an electric sander and countless trips to Ace Hardware stand in my way, either.

Sanding each chair has actually been quite therapeutic. I have time to think about my Grandpa and all the times I heard him command 'eat your supper, girls' from his end of the table...in fact, I had plenty of time to reflect fondly on my Grandpa even as I was cursing his name while sanding what were certainly years and years of grime and tobacco stains from several of the chair backs. Grandma tackled countless sewing projects on this table and covered it's top with far more she just never got around to finishing. (Standing family joke: Grandma, is that the table top I see under there? Under all those mounds of fabric?)

I have plenty of time to finish this project, which is perfect--as the full-time working single parent of a three year old, you can imagine how much 'free time' I have to sand and oil, sand and oil. So Zoey and I head out to the patio each afternoon or evening. She keeps herself busy with her hopscotch squares or pulls her chair over the fence to watch the golf carts whiz by on the golf course, and I sand to my heart's content. By Wednesday, I had a few chairs sanded down and could actually start oiling them, and...WOW. This furniture is just beautiful.

And I'm not even saying I got every scratch and dent out of each chair. Most of the scuff marks came off easily, but I'll admit, after nearly sanding off half a chair back during my brief stint with the borrowed electric sander, I'm a little afraid to sand too far down, lest I am left with chair legs resembling toothpicks. But you know what? There is a lot of history in that table and chair set, and I'm not even sure I want to sand off every ink mark, small water stain, or dark spot.

So, faithful blog readers, that's where I'm spending my free time these days (as opposed to writing). It feels good to have a project to work on, especially a project that I know for a fact I never would have tackled, say, a year ago. The old me wouldn't have thought I could refinish any furniture project. New Amy knows that, armed with some Google research and a really good pack of sandpaper, I can not only accomplish the task but actually make it look pretty damn good.