So we’ve been dealing with the weirdness of asking all of our friends to do all sorts of things and we hit on the big one. Who is actually going to perform the ceremony? We’re getting married in the backyard. No church. I have a friend who is a county attorney, and I know she has ideas of good judges (well, one judge, a friend of hers) to perform the ceremony, but it just feels a little impersonal to me. These judges are her friends, not mine. I want a friend to do it. And we have just the guy.
This guy, we’ll call him the Banker, has worked with the Boy in the past. He’s at another bank now, in another state. He’s tall and compelling. Funny. He seems quite fond of the Boy, sharing the Boy’s marathon wins (yeah, I said it. Wins. Third place is a win) on the group discussion board for the various sports betting operations they are currently operating (these are large-scale betting operations that amuse me to no end). We thought it would be perfect if the Banker would be willing to officiate at our wedding.
A short, traditional ceremony, with the Banker taking a little time to give us some honest advice from his years of marriage. No unity candles, special readings, elaborate braiding of our hair or large chains of roses linking us together for eight weeks.
So first things first. I set off to research how this could be done. I live in Minneapolis. Suffice to say, it’s not as easy as I thought and it turns out I have strong feelings on the matter. While being lectured by a long suffering county clerk about those “internet ordination scams” I got really angry. As far as I’m concerned, the point of the wedding ceremony is the vows that the Boy and I will make to each other. That’s what makes us married. I could care less about the credentials of the other guy standing up there with us. And doesn’t it mean more that we have a friend do it instead of a stranger?
No matter. I got the details. Made detailed lists of what needs to be done at what website in what order and how much it will cost, so that our dear friend the Banker can come and preside over our wedding.
So the other night, in bed, after we weeded through the guest list, yet again, we worked on how the Boy was going to pose the question to the Banker. It’s a weird question, not the least because it’ll be the second time in less than a year that the Boy will say to another person “Will you marry me.”
We played a game we like to play a lot. Mostly on long car trips to divert us. The pretend phone call. It goes like this:,
“Ring ring” That’s me, playing the telephone
“Hello? Hello?” That’s the boy playing the Banker.
“Hey Banker, it’s Dan” (The Boy is actually Dan. To make it more confusing, this is actually me playing the Boy.)
“Dan! Where’s my pool money” Banker won the football pool last week or the week before. I saw that his payment is still sitting on our kitchen table. This is a valid question.
“It’s in the mail, should be there any day now.” Awkward pause.
“So, Dan, what have you been up to?”
After that the conversation peters off. The forward motion to ask the Banker peters off. We are focused on feeding the elephant some nice catering menus…. and a musician.
….One week later….
As a follow up to the post I began last week (above) and never posted…. The Boy asked the Banker today if he would marry us. We are going to make a nice little three-some.
As expected, the Banker was unsure what we were actually asking. I wasn’t there. I was at home, the Boy at work. They were talking on the phone as the Banker lives in Omaha.
Also as excepted, the detailed notes I had provided offered very little assistance (based on the second hand account I got) for the boy to explain to the Banker what we were asking. But they managed to muddle through it, these two old friends. The Boy managed to ask his old friend if he would lug himself all the way to Minneapolis and stand up with us and try to give us a little insight to send us along the right path. I think we’re going to get a good send-off. We now have a good figurehead for this backyard shindig of ours.
And as a follow up. We were GIDDY! This was the first wedding decision that we’d made and came through that we were both dancing around about. We wanted a friend to do the ceremony. I wanted this friend of the Boy's. One with a personal relationship and some experience under his belt.
And, as expected, the Boy and the Banker have picked up this proverbial ball and are running with it. There have been emails all evening. The ordination is official (thank you Universal Life Church). We are now to call the Banker "Reverend Anderson." The Boy wants to get ordained too. Are there tax benefits to this? There will be for sure some rocking cocktail party conversation in store for Reverend Anderson.
All is good here. We’re happy to be making the wedding we want!
So the Boy and I are creeping along with plans for the big wedding. Still feeling a ton of budget-related stress, we’re letting that elephant be for a bit. It’s drowsing in the middle of the living room, watching NCIS reruns on the flat screen until we get up the courage to schedule a tasting with the caterer.
But on to bigger and better things. Today the Boy and I reviewed the guest list (removed 3, added 2. And I’m pretty sure cousin Christy isn’t on it.) Being inclined towards tricky use of math, I am tempted to assign a probability of attendance to each guest so that I can come up with what I think the TRUE number of attendees will be. We will then feed that number to the elephant as well.
Part of the weirdness of planning a wedding, for me, at least. Is the last walls of ‘am I grown up yet’ are finally falling down. I could rent a car a long time ago. I own cookware, a dog that has to be fed. I care less about politics than in my 20’s when it was cool to be all passionate. Now I just want the hungry to be fed. Is that asking too much? Also, we still had Wellstone then. Every once in a while I look around, especially since we got our very own house, and I feel a little like a teenager playing life dress up. Is this really me? But for the most part, I get it, life’s good. The basset hound is hungry. The elephant is not staying for long. We can deal.
But then you get to this wedding stuff and there so many strange things to deal with. Deciding on church versus non-church weddings. Asking a friend to be a wedding slave. Telling your mom that you will not be using black plastic platters at the reception, no matter how cheap they are.
I have known who my maid of honor would be since she began planning my wedding at an impromptu slumber party early this year. The other maid of honor was an easy choice, the long term girlfriend of a close, close friend of mine – we weren’t up for having men on my side of the aisle, plus the close, close friend will be busy giving me away. My third maid of honor is the Boys only sister. Easy.
For the Boy, it’s not quite as easy. He knows who he’d like to be his best man. Standing there with him in his last moments of freedom. They’re old college friends. They ran track together in school and have run marathons since. A couple of months ago, they actually ran together before work, which I thought was odd. I like sleep. They have taken roadtrips to the hometown of the friend's then-wife’s hometown. A long way away through flat cornfields. They play poker.
They are good friends, but they’ve sort of devolved to a call, don’t pick up the phone, then text back but the Boy doesn’t text manner of communicating. It’s not overly efficient and as a result, they haven’t talked in a while and the Boy is trying to figure out the best way to ask him to be the best man. Voice mail? Text? Circle his house in our car until we see him coming home from work?
Getting married when you’ve already turned the corner and are heading towards 40, we’re in a different place than in our 20’s, when friends were the center of our days. We saw them all the time. Asking someone to stand up for you at your wedding could probably be done while eating bowls of cereal in your fairly nondescript apartment with the ethnic decorating scheme. Or, at the very least, wait for happy hour. But 10 years later we don’t see our friends as often. Even good ones. We know they’ll be there for us, we just don’t’ reach out quite as much. Or at least, that’s how it is for the boy and I.
And even if we wanted to reach out, the damn elephant's blocking the door!
Next up: navigating the hostile halls of county clerks offices and online ordination.
In other news, me + Maid of Honor +much, much wine = last night we decided we would make the damn cupcakes ourselves. And the little cake. I have absolutely no feeling for the cake, except that it be white and smooth. We seriously could have a cake made of Styrofoam and I might be ok with that. We can feed that to the budget elephant, but it’s a pretty sorry snack for a guy like him.
[Not sure where this photo came from. Please let me know if you recognize it.]
But on to bigger and better things. Today the Boy and I reviewed the guest list (removed 3, added 2. And I’m pretty sure cousin Christy isn’t on it.) Being inclined towards tricky use of math, I am tempted to assign a probability of attendance to each guest so that I can come up with what I think the TRUE number of attendees will be. We will then feed that number to the elephant as well.
Part of the weirdness of planning a wedding, for me, at least. Is the last walls of ‘am I grown up yet’ are finally falling down. I could rent a car a long time ago. I own cookware, a dog that has to be fed. I care less about politics than in my 20’s when it was cool to be all passionate. Now I just want the hungry to be fed. Is that asking too much? Also, we still had Wellstone then. Every once in a while I look around, especially since we got our very own house, and I feel a little like a teenager playing life dress up. Is this really me? But for the most part, I get it, life’s good. The basset hound is hungry. The elephant is not staying for long. We can deal.
But then you get to this wedding stuff and there so many strange things to deal with. Deciding on church versus non-church weddings. Asking a friend to be a wedding slave. Telling your mom that you will not be using black plastic platters at the reception, no matter how cheap they are.
I have known who my maid of honor would be since she began planning my wedding at an impromptu slumber party early this year. The other maid of honor was an easy choice, the long term girlfriend of a close, close friend of mine – we weren’t up for having men on my side of the aisle, plus the close, close friend will be busy giving me away. My third maid of honor is the Boys only sister. Easy.
For the Boy, it’s not quite as easy. He knows who he’d like to be his best man. Standing there with him in his last moments of freedom. They’re old college friends. They ran track together in school and have run marathons since. A couple of months ago, they actually ran together before work, which I thought was odd. I like sleep. They have taken roadtrips to the hometown of the friend's then-wife’s hometown. A long way away through flat cornfields. They play poker.
They are good friends, but they’ve sort of devolved to a call, don’t pick up the phone, then text back but the Boy doesn’t text manner of communicating. It’s not overly efficient and as a result, they haven’t talked in a while and the Boy is trying to figure out the best way to ask him to be the best man. Voice mail? Text? Circle his house in our car until we see him coming home from work?
Getting married when you’ve already turned the corner and are heading towards 40, we’re in a different place than in our 20’s, when friends were the center of our days. We saw them all the time. Asking someone to stand up for you at your wedding could probably be done while eating bowls of cereal in your fairly nondescript apartment with the ethnic decorating scheme. Or, at the very least, wait for happy hour. But 10 years later we don’t see our friends as often. Even good ones. We know they’ll be there for us, we just don’t’ reach out quite as much. Or at least, that’s how it is for the boy and I.
And even if we wanted to reach out, the damn elephant's blocking the door!
Next up: navigating the hostile halls of county clerks offices and online ordination.
So the boy and I got engaged last Christmas in a very sweet snuggle and gift exchange session at our house. I had gone ring shopping with the boy and wasn't surprised, but it was very emotional and sweet for me and like all newly engaged girls that I talk to, it took a while to stop being distracted by the sparkles on my ring (we like to say it's our ring, I just get to wear it). The boy still likes seeing it from across the room. Visual proof of our love. And reminder that we have a large, expensive party to plan, fraught with potential guest list wars, religious wars, wars of the mothers in law, mothers and daughters. and the sister of the groom who is to be bridesmaid of the daughter currently avoiding mother. And there's a dog.
And it will take money. A great deal more money than I initially imagined. We live in a small house in a small yard in a biggish city. But our yard is full of sun and roses and comfy patio furniture. The Neighbor right next to us has a much bigger yard and a fancy part time job where nice men in white trucks come to videotape the Neighbor while he weeds and mows and plants and does various other amazing landscaping and gardening feats. It's all HGTV up in there and The Neighbor has agreed to let us take over his yard for a wedding. We thought this would be simple. With the location (and flowers!) taken care of, we'd splurge on some kicking live jazz, get some good food and have an old fashioned garden party, courtesy of Trader Jo's so well priced wine.
So. Engagement in December. Enjoyment in January. And February. March as well. April, we talked a little with the Neighbor about the plans. We talked more about the need to replace the fence between our properties and how to prune roses. In May we talked about both the cold temperatures and the early blooming roses. June we talked about the heat. July, the bugs. August, the rain. September, the holidays. October, the Christmas photo shoot the Neighbor had just had in his house. Oh, and we talked just a little about the wedding. And then I went to a wedding fair and realized that the June 2010 wedding that I had been vaguely considering (my roses look the best in June) should have been in the beginning planning stages early last year. Of course, I wasn't engaged then. Wedding fairs are not fun. Other than the people watching and patient bartenders and the sheer artistry and lack of thoughtful design involved with building an entire bar made of ice.
While I didn't particularly enjoy the wedding show, I certainly came back with a deep-seated need to have a photobooth at my wedding. Also, I had a large paper sack full of brochures that, if magically converted back into the cash the vendors had paid to have them printed, could easily finance our entire wedding, including the pony rides that I really want, but worry might be a little tacky. And require a city permit. I also returned from the wedding show finally accepting that if we do want to get married in June on anything other than a Sunday afternoon in a strip mall in Chanhassan, I will, indeed, need to start planning. And as any girl who's even had a cursory glance at the prominent wedding literature can tell you, what we needed to do was:
Step 1, Set priorities.
Step 2, set a budget.
Step 3, see what part of the budget parents will provide; and
Step 4, allocate budget according to priorities.
Easy.
I downloaded a budget template from a popular wedding website that shall KNOT be named. I am a wizard with Excel and figured I'd make it work. Instead, I considered a contemplative pilgrimage to, you know, Mitchell, South Dakota. Where the corn palace is. Some time to consider who I am, my needs. Apparently, according to the downloaded budget, I needed to have at least five line items relating to my hair. Trial runs, day of, veils, fascinators (I honestly don't know what that is), crown jewels. The budget spreadsheet stopped me cold in my tracks and I turned back to where I had come from. Happily in love with the boy who will someday be my husband. We love each other, why even plan a wedding?
Dilly dallying aside. Once I started paying attention, and stopped freaking myself out using tools provided from websites that clearly were not made for girls like me, I sat down and started my own budget template. I am very much a planner from little to big. List things I think we'd like. Add in some things likely to be fancy, some things the boy will love, things the girl can't live without. Things that will keep it from being too weird. Call some vendors and ask an endless stream of inane questions that sound more like statements than questions and confuse said vendors who are used to working with professionals, wedding planners and perfect, prepared girls who have bridal binders organized with tabs.
I started to fill in numbers, take out a few. Split the columns into 'must have' and 'wish list' considered taking some items out to put into my 'personal' budget. Rejected that idea, as financial pea-under-the-shell game not being a strong base on which to build a marriage.
Finally tonight talked in more depth with the Boy. He'd seen the spreadsheet. He knew what I've been up to, planning, planning, planning the last few weeks. He was eager (well, willing is probably the better word) to look at the menus from the caterer (our by far largest expense) and possibly schedule a tasting.
I tried to present well. Not too many details, or he gets confused. We took some time crossing off food on the sample menues that was too icky sounding, messy or intimidating for our family to try. We got a little excited that we could make it work. Then he saw a full quote that includes the kids table ($11 times 22 kids...) 3 servers ($375), 1 chef ($175, and unless he cooks up our basset hound on the spot, we're not sure whey we need a chef), one bartender ($112, 4 hours, open 50 bottles of Trader Jo wine. Try to head off the mother of the bride from that last glass). Also, a 18% surcharge (NOT A TIP!!) and 7% tax. The estimate, I have to admit, was a little overwhelming even to me. And I heard it's dulcet tones a few days ago. The Boy just met it tonight.
There was much gnashing of teeth, tense hugs, long dog walk to talk things out. What do we want? How do we budget? If we cut the budget in half, can we get ANYTHING we really want?
All good questions. I hope we can answer them soon.
In the meantime, here are some blog posts from Those Who Have Gone Before that I find comforting, inspiring and wise.... The Two Thousand Dollar Budget Wedding from Conception to Inception and A Practical Wedding - A New Way to Think About Budgets.
And it will take money. A great deal more money than I initially imagined. We live in a small house in a small yard in a biggish city. But our yard is full of sun and roses and comfy patio furniture. The Neighbor right next to us has a much bigger yard and a fancy part time job where nice men in white trucks come to videotape the Neighbor while he weeds and mows and plants and does various other amazing landscaping and gardening feats. It's all HGTV up in there and The Neighbor has agreed to let us take over his yard for a wedding. We thought this would be simple. With the location (and flowers!) taken care of, we'd splurge on some kicking live jazz, get some good food and have an old fashioned garden party, courtesy of Trader Jo's so well priced wine.
So. Engagement in December. Enjoyment in January. And February. March as well. April, we talked a little with the Neighbor about the plans. We talked more about the need to replace the fence between our properties and how to prune roses. In May we talked about both the cold temperatures and the early blooming roses. June we talked about the heat. July, the bugs. August, the rain. September, the holidays. October, the Christmas photo shoot the Neighbor had just had in his house. Oh, and we talked just a little about the wedding. And then I went to a wedding fair and realized that the June 2010 wedding that I had been vaguely considering (my roses look the best in June) should have been in the beginning planning stages early last year. Of course, I wasn't engaged then. Wedding fairs are not fun. Other than the people watching and patient bartenders and the sheer artistry and lack of thoughtful design involved with building an entire bar made of ice.
While I didn't particularly enjoy the wedding show, I certainly came back with a deep-seated need to have a photobooth at my wedding. Also, I had a large paper sack full of brochures that, if magically converted back into the cash the vendors had paid to have them printed, could easily finance our entire wedding, including the pony rides that I really want, but worry might be a little tacky. And require a city permit. I also returned from the wedding show finally accepting that if we do want to get married in June on anything other than a Sunday afternoon in a strip mall in Chanhassan, I will, indeed, need to start planning. And as any girl who's even had a cursory glance at the prominent wedding literature can tell you, what we needed to do was:
Step 1, Set priorities.
Step 2, set a budget.
Step 3, see what part of the budget parents will provide; and
Step 4, allocate budget according to priorities.
Easy.
I downloaded a budget template from a popular wedding website that shall KNOT be named. I am a wizard with Excel and figured I'd make it work. Instead, I considered a contemplative pilgrimage to, you know, Mitchell, South Dakota. Where the corn palace is. Some time to consider who I am, my needs. Apparently, according to the downloaded budget, I needed to have at least five line items relating to my hair. Trial runs, day of, veils, fascinators (I honestly don't know what that is), crown jewels. The budget spreadsheet stopped me cold in my tracks and I turned back to where I had come from. Happily in love with the boy who will someday be my husband. We love each other, why even plan a wedding?
Dilly dallying aside. Once I started paying attention, and stopped freaking myself out using tools provided from websites that clearly were not made for girls like me, I sat down and started my own budget template. I am very much a planner from little to big. List things I think we'd like. Add in some things likely to be fancy, some things the boy will love, things the girl can't live without. Things that will keep it from being too weird. Call some vendors and ask an endless stream of inane questions that sound more like statements than questions and confuse said vendors who are used to working with professionals, wedding planners and perfect, prepared girls who have bridal binders organized with tabs.
I started to fill in numbers, take out a few. Split the columns into 'must have' and 'wish list' considered taking some items out to put into my 'personal' budget. Rejected that idea, as financial pea-under-the-shell game not being a strong base on which to build a marriage.
Finally tonight talked in more depth with the Boy. He'd seen the spreadsheet. He knew what I've been up to, planning, planning, planning the last few weeks. He was eager (well, willing is probably the better word) to look at the menus from the caterer (our by far largest expense) and possibly schedule a tasting.
I tried to present well. Not too many details, or he gets confused. We took some time crossing off food on the sample menues that was too icky sounding, messy or intimidating for our family to try. We got a little excited that we could make it work. Then he saw a full quote that includes the kids table ($11 times 22 kids...) 3 servers ($375), 1 chef ($175, and unless he cooks up our basset hound on the spot, we're not sure whey we need a chef), one bartender ($112, 4 hours, open 50 bottles of Trader Jo wine. Try to head off the mother of the bride from that last glass). Also, a 18% surcharge (NOT A TIP!!) and 7% tax. The estimate, I have to admit, was a little overwhelming even to me. And I heard it's dulcet tones a few days ago. The Boy just met it tonight.
There was much gnashing of teeth, tense hugs, long dog walk to talk things out. What do we want? How do we budget? If we cut the budget in half, can we get ANYTHING we really want?
All good questions. I hope we can answer them soon.
In the meantime, here are some blog posts from Those Who Have Gone Before that I find comforting, inspiring and wise.... The Two Thousand Dollar Budget Wedding from Conception to Inception and A Practical Wedding - A New Way to Think About Budgets.
Prior to officially setting our wedding date, we were working on updating our bedroom. I love our bedroom. The room is the perfect size for a queen size bed and a few tables, and there are some nice, big windows and long white curtain panels. This summer we planted some climbing roses in the backyard that will look perfect through the window. Where we will get married with our friends and our families and our basset hound cheering us on.
When we bought our house, part of what we liked was that the prior owner had painted all of the rooms in deep, saturated colors. Liked, and hated. While I had always lived in apartments and mostly had white walls, and was DYING for color, our prior owner loved dark colors. Really dark. Dark forest green in the kitchen, dark toffee in the living room. Dark navy teal in the bedroom. At first I really loved the bedroom, it was dark and cozy. Cozy and caevelike. Just what you want for your sleeping den... but now, not so much. So about a month ago, I started coming up with plans for new paint, new white trim, new white slipcovers for our somewhat odd bed, new white furniture... you get the picture. Beachy in Minnesota.
When plotting on furniture, I started to think about grandma's china cabinet. It was in my mom's garage for fifteen years and I've been dragging it around with me for the last fifteen years. Family lore (at least, what I remember) is that grandma borrowed it for a bridge party from a neighbor and never returned it. The china cabinet (dining set, secretary and Regulator clock) were HEAVILY coated with paint. Grandma LOVED to paint her furniture. I remember a variety of colors when I was a little girl, but the final color was a dark, dark green. With an 'antique' glazing technique. Plus fifteen years in a unheated, fairly wet garage and another fifteen years of paint chipping and frequent moves. Here's what it looked like a month and a half ago:
It's not terrible. I actually liked the color and the shabby vibe it had. It looks more shabby in the photo than it did in real life. The worst part was the sort of musty smell on the inside that never really went away, no matter how many times I washed, how many bowls of vinegar I left to sit inside it or how many fabric softener sheets I tucked away to freshen things up. But even though I didn't mind the look, the boy that I live with was not as enthusiastic about the granny-chic thing that it had going on, and when we moved into the house, the china cabinet was moved straight into the garage as a 'maybe someday' project, or possible garage sale offering.
So when I decided to freshen up our bedroom, I thought the china cabinet would fit perfectly and be BEAUTIFUL refinished. I took off the doors, slid the glass out, removed hardware, hinges and went to the hardware store for a can of paint remover. I got a little can of zip strip, maybe a quart. Turns out there was WAY more paint than I had anticipated. There was the green, a few coats of beige, a coat of pink, and then surprise! A coat of faux wood. A coat of red. Some pink, porceline blue, anda lot more beige. Grandma really, really liked to paint her furniture. Total tally was two small cans of zip strip, two large cans (a gallon?) and a somewhat large bottle of slightly more safe for the environment and definitely less burning to the skin citris stripper, which actually worked well, but had to sit for at least 30 minutes (versus 10 for zip strip). I decided I didn't have the time to use the environmentally friendly variety. And I would wear long sleeves. I listened to the entire Twilight series on my iPod while stripping the china cabinet. All four books. But here it is in it's finished glory!
Check out that dark, dark blue on the walls!
We're so thrilled with how it turned out! Since I love the rustic shabby vibe, I decided to just finish the cabinet with Waterlox (we had some left over from our spring kitchen remodel and the butcher block cabinets). Waterlox brings a beautiful, warm color to wood, and a great feel. There was a lot of patina left on the cabinet after the stripping. It's still really evident on the cabinet, and a few of my friends are of the opinion that I should have stained the cabinet to even out the color.
I also got some great replacement knobs for the glass doors on sale at Anthropologie for $2.95 each. Grandma had replaced the original knobs with some clunky wood ones at some point which didn't look great. The black ones are so cute!
I couldn't really get the inside stripped very well. Bad angles, and the wood, which I think is birch, was really rough on the inside. I ended up painting the interior with a peach paint that I got on sale (an 'oops' can) for $5.00 at our local Ace. I sanded the corners and edges to give it a distressed look.
All in all, we love the china cabinet and can't wait to finish the rest of the bedroom!
And a extra special part of the china cabinet in its current state is that it's FILLED (well, not really, a little full) of linens I've started collecting at thrift stores for the wedding next year. We really want a casual garden vibe, and I'm on the hunt for white flat sheets as base tablecloths and a variety of yellow, cream, green and tea-stained tablecloths for the top layer. I did the tea staining myself on a couple of pieces of fabric, an eyelet and lace fabric that I liked the pattern and texture of, but one was a little dingy and the other was a little on the pinkish side. I'm loving the look of the fabric so far and have spent a little under $30, with about $15 worth of white sheets still on my shopping list. All at thrift shops for $2 to $6 dollars each. Rental costs would be around $200, so the thrift costs PLUS the personal look make me really, really excited!
When we bought our house, part of what we liked was that the prior owner had painted all of the rooms in deep, saturated colors. Liked, and hated. While I had always lived in apartments and mostly had white walls, and was DYING for color, our prior owner loved dark colors. Really dark. Dark forest green in the kitchen, dark toffee in the living room. Dark navy teal in the bedroom. At first I really loved the bedroom, it was dark and cozy. Cozy and caevelike. Just what you want for your sleeping den... but now, not so much. So about a month ago, I started coming up with plans for new paint, new white trim, new white slipcovers for our somewhat odd bed, new white furniture... you get the picture. Beachy in Minnesota.
When plotting on furniture, I started to think about grandma's china cabinet. It was in my mom's garage for fifteen years and I've been dragging it around with me for the last fifteen years. Family lore (at least, what I remember) is that grandma borrowed it for a bridge party from a neighbor and never returned it. The china cabinet (dining set, secretary and Regulator clock) were HEAVILY coated with paint. Grandma LOVED to paint her furniture. I remember a variety of colors when I was a little girl, but the final color was a dark, dark green. With an 'antique' glazing technique. Plus fifteen years in a unheated, fairly wet garage and another fifteen years of paint chipping and frequent moves. Here's what it looked like a month and a half ago:
It's not terrible. I actually liked the color and the shabby vibe it had. It looks more shabby in the photo than it did in real life. The worst part was the sort of musty smell on the inside that never really went away, no matter how many times I washed, how many bowls of vinegar I left to sit inside it or how many fabric softener sheets I tucked away to freshen things up. But even though I didn't mind the look, the boy that I live with was not as enthusiastic about the granny-chic thing that it had going on, and when we moved into the house, the china cabinet was moved straight into the garage as a 'maybe someday' project, or possible garage sale offering.
So when I decided to freshen up our bedroom, I thought the china cabinet would fit perfectly and be BEAUTIFUL refinished. I took off the doors, slid the glass out, removed hardware, hinges and went to the hardware store for a can of paint remover. I got a little can of zip strip, maybe a quart. Turns out there was WAY more paint than I had anticipated. There was the green, a few coats of beige, a coat of pink, and then surprise! A coat of faux wood. A coat of red. Some pink, porceline blue, anda lot more beige. Grandma really, really liked to paint her furniture. Total tally was two small cans of zip strip, two large cans (a gallon?) and a somewhat large bottle of slightly more safe for the environment and definitely less burning to the skin citris stripper, which actually worked well, but had to sit for at least 30 minutes (versus 10 for zip strip). I decided I didn't have the time to use the environmentally friendly variety. And I would wear long sleeves. I listened to the entire Twilight series on my iPod while stripping the china cabinet. All four books. But here it is in it's finished glory!
Check out that dark, dark blue on the walls!We're so thrilled with how it turned out! Since I love the rustic shabby vibe, I decided to just finish the cabinet with Waterlox (we had some left over from our spring kitchen remodel and the butcher block cabinets). Waterlox brings a beautiful, warm color to wood, and a great feel. There was a lot of patina left on the cabinet after the stripping. It's still really evident on the cabinet, and a few of my friends are of the opinion that I should have stained the cabinet to even out the color.
I also got some great replacement knobs for the glass doors on sale at Anthropologie for $2.95 each. Grandma had replaced the original knobs with some clunky wood ones at some point which didn't look great. The black ones are so cute!
I couldn't really get the inside stripped very well. Bad angles, and the wood, which I think is birch, was really rough on the inside. I ended up painting the interior with a peach paint that I got on sale (an 'oops' can) for $5.00 at our local Ace. I sanded the corners and edges to give it a distressed look.
All in all, we love the china cabinet and can't wait to finish the rest of the bedroom!
And a extra special part of the china cabinet in its current state is that it's FILLED (well, not really, a little full) of linens I've started collecting at thrift stores for the wedding next year. We really want a casual garden vibe, and I'm on the hunt for white flat sheets as base tablecloths and a variety of yellow, cream, green and tea-stained tablecloths for the top layer. I did the tea staining myself on a couple of pieces of fabric, an eyelet and lace fabric that I liked the pattern and texture of, but one was a little dingy and the other was a little on the pinkish side. I'm loving the look of the fabric so far and have spent a little under $30, with about $15 worth of white sheets still on my shopping list. All at thrift shops for $2 to $6 dollars each. Rental costs would be around $200, so the thrift costs PLUS the personal look make me really, really excited!
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