Milk Can Upgrade

Since our family has been spending so much time out on our patio while our interior is torn apart, I thought I'd take a brief detour from Kitchen Remodel 2015 and share with you a great little project for the outside! (Although truthfully this could work great for an indoor piece if you'd rather.)

One day I picked up this milk can for $5 at a garage sale.  I just love it when things start out this hideous!  Makes the transformation all the more gratifying. :)

I'd been looking for something to replace this old table outside.  It was fine, but starting to show some wear.  We inherited it from my husband's grandparents and though I'd already spray painted it to spruce it up, I think it was on it's last legs!

I'd read that Annie Sloan Chalk Paint was a good option for outdoors.  I totally agree!  This color is French Linen, with a dark wax coat on top.  I actually did this over a year ago, and it's still holding up great!

I picked up a wooden disk at Lowe's, stained it and sealed it with Helmsman Indoor/Outdoor Spar Urethane by Minwax.  (It's the best for protecting wood for outdoor use, I think.  Thanks, Dad, for the recommendation years ago!)  If you look off into the distance of the photo below, you can see our kids' tree swing, made by gluing two of these same disks together.  I stained and sealed them the same way, and the swing has held up great too!

My husband attached the disk from the underside with some screws, but if you're not worried about small children tipping it over, you could probably get away with a strong glue (?).  We also put some sand in the base of the milk can to give it a little more stability.

Not bad for a $20 investment!

Small Victories

I can't believe I am actually dedicating a whole post to one corner of my kitchen ceiling.  This is getting ridiculous!

But, as I am learning again and again during this mostly-DIY renovation, you gotta take the little victories whenever you can get them!  S-L-O-W is the name of this game, and waiting for the reality to catch up with the vision in my head is teaching me much about patience.  :)

So here again are those pipes in the corner of the kitchen, above the eat-in portion:

A few weeks ago I celebrated with you all that I had drywall and those pipes were hidden from sight:

And now I can say that it's starting to resemble a real room!  The drywall is complete, most of the paint is dry, and over the weekend my husband hung our new light fixture and did some major damage in the woodworking department.

As you can probably tell, I'm still catching up on painting the woodwork.

And I've also been busy with a project in the adjacent family room...you may be able to see a bit of that if you look closely on the right side of the photo.  More on that to come very soon!

In the meantime, wish me patience, my friends.  It's pretty bad when even my 8-year-old daughter knows that it's not one of Mama's strengths!