Rambling around Walsden

          My Mom and I arrived in England a few days ago...we left Minnesota during the start of another snow storm...they even had to de-ice the plane so we were delayed for about a hour...but even though we were late leaving we did arrive in Amsterdam on time...first thing I noticed as we were landing...two words   NO SNOW
         
          Our next flight to Manchester England was on time...my brother in law and two of my nieces met us at the airport...it is less then a hour from the airport to where my sister and her family live...Walsden Village...
                                         

Update on the potting table...

          Here are new photos of the potting table I was working on...

         I added some color by using stencils and just a touch of free hand work...

Not too sure I am going to keep it like this...I may paint it back to grey and start
                                                    over with the stencils...

This part I will keep as it is...

April 2013

          I have been having a hard time getting to this blog...I thought I might write about foods from around the World that I cook...that only lasted one time...doesn't mean that I will never get back to that...

          I found it easier to write last year when I was doing my weekly blog 52 of 52...seems like it made me get busy and get some chores and projects done around the house and yard...

          I have been doing projects around the house...the yard??? mmmm not so much...we just got rid of all the snow and I had spent a couple of days cleaning up the yard from miss Izzy if you know what I mean...then in just over a week we had two more winter storms...last night we got another eight inches of that frozen white stuff dumped on us...

          A friend of mine has just re-finished her kitchen cabinets...she posted photos on Facebook and I went to see them...they are fabulous...now I am not the one to want something because someone else has got it...I don't care what kind or how big your house is...I don't care what kind of car you drive...I don't care if you make more money then I do...oh wait...I don't make any money now I am retired...but I really wanted to re-finish my cabinets...so I started in our bathroom...I was scared...I thought what if I screw this up...

          I used Rust-Oleum Cabinet Transformations...there are four steps to complete...Step #1 Clean and  Degloss...that went okay except it broke all my nails...should have worn the rubber gloves...Step #2 Apply Bond Coat...this was the scary part...this was going to change the color from kind of a natural oak to espresso...a very dark brown almost black...yikes...the first coat was so streaky I wondered what I had got myself into...second coat looked so much better I was beginning to think this would work out okay....Step # 3 Glazing...which is optional...I chose to give it a try...if I thought the bond coat was scary...this was worse...you brush the glaze on and then you rub off as much as you like...it was almost like staining something...anyway needless to say I got it done...it did make a difference to the look of the cabinets...Step #4 Protective Top Coat...piece of cake...I enjoyed this little project so much that I also re-finished the main bathroom cabinet and of course when you start to do any re-modeling work it tends to snowball...so I re-finished our bathroom door and Joe has started to tear up the vinyl and he is going to be putting down a ceramic tile floor...then of course we will have to put new in base boards which I will finish in the same espresso color...then it will be back to the main bathroom to do the same in there...think I am going to be busy all of Spring...and I haven't even started the kitchen yet...

this is the before and after of our bathroom cabinet

 

 

          I have been working on a couple more projects...I have always wanted a potting bench in my yard somewhere...so I have been looking on-line thinking about getting one...have you seen the prices of those things...I had an old pots and pan stand that we had in our kitchen back in Niles Michigan...yep thats right we moved to Minnesota about 23 years ago and this old thing has been sitting in our basement with cases of water and soda on it...looking at some of the potting tables for sale I figured I could make one...

 

                                                       the old pots and pan stand...

                                                making a fence for the back of the stand...

the almost finished potting table...need to put a little bit of color on it...

 

this is a practice project...never used stencils before...thinking I might do this on the potting bench...