New Dining Room Chairs

So, maybe you've noticed that while we got a beautiful new dining room table back in February we have been eating at folding chairs around that table since we sold our old dining set on craigslist.

Well, this month we remedied that.

Enter 6 awesome solid hardwood carved chairs found on craigslist for $175.

Two of them have arms...

...and the other four do not.

They were a beautiful cherry stain...

but so is everything in our entire kitchen, and I'm not a huge matchy matchy fan.

So I did what I do and painted them.

Sacrilege, I know, to paint something that was beautiful already and not all nasty.

First I unscrewed and took off the seat cushions.
Then I lightly sanded the chairs down with a fine grit sand paper, just enough to take some of the shiny off and to give the paint something to grab onto.

Then I wiped them down with a slightly damp paper towel.

I made sure to get rid of all of the dust as I didn't want that to get into the paint.

I used this awesome paint.

It is Sherwin Williams ProClassic, a paint for furniture and trim and stuff like that.

It's expensive stuff, but I have them send me emails when they have sales, so I was able to get a quart for just over $10 (40% off it's regular price).

To me it's worth it because it goes on so smooth.

This project took less than 1/3 of that quart.

I only did one even coat, being mindful to have my brush strokes go with the grain when I could...

 ...but that's because I wanted the cherry stain to show through slightly...

...to hopefully complement the finish on the table...

I love how they turned out.

And I love love love the price, considering we got all six chairs and the supplies to redo them for less than one of the chairs that are made to go as a set with the table.

What do you think?

Why Michigan?

This week, I had another reminder of why I chose to attend the University of Michigan for my MBA. I was fortunate enough to attend a live meeting with Jeff Immelt and Beth Comstock, CEO and CMO of General Electric. In the past year, I have also attended similar meetings with Charlie Munger vice-chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, and Richard Ward, CEO of Lloyd's of London. I'm grateful for these types of opportunities.

My Silly Wife

Carmen has been making a lot of gingerbread lately. Check out a picture of one of her latest creations.

I believe that the plan for these stars with 'stained glass' (crushed and then melted jolly ranchers) is to act as Christmas ornaments. This explains why each one has a small hole at the top.

How did that hole get there? That's the part that made me laugh...check out what else I found in the kitchen tonight...

Yep...those are gingerbread crumbs on the end of a drill bit of her cordless drill. Maybe this is how everyone else would do it (I sort of doubt it, but I can't really think of another way to do it), but I still got a kick out of seeing Carmen's 'kitchen tools'.

Nursery: Dressers

So, when our friends Priscilla and Oliver were moving away they gave us two IKEA dressers.

You can see the before shots in this post...

Aw heck, I'll post them again...

Before:

Then I painted them creme and lightly distressed the edges...

Intermediate Stage:

Then I added hardware...

I added the same octagonal pulls that I have on another dresser that I've re-finished, I like them and they are a good price (from Target).

When I went to put these on though, there was a slight problem...

...when the pull was screwed in as tight as it would go, there was still a space.  Not cool.

So I took a paint stick, drilled as many holes in it as I had drawer pulls to install, cut in between the holes with my miter saw, and...

Ta da, we have a pull that is tight.

And now I have the two dressers set up side by side in the new nursery.

The tall one will have a tray on top for incidentals like baby powder and lotion and the lower one will have a changing pad.

So, what do you think?