A job well done...mostly

I'm kind of a handy kind of person. I like to make things and do things. In the last house we owned, The Husband and I remodeled nearly every room, and we did it ourselves. The biggie was, of course, the kitchen, complete with new flooring, cabinets, counter top, and paint. Actually, we did not install the counter top; we had it done because we were afraid we'd cut the sink hole incorrectly!

When my friend Nichole asked me to help her out with a little project, I jumped at the opportunity. It was a total win-win for me. First, I got to spend time with my dear friend (we are both so busy all the time, we rarely have long spans of quality time together), and second, I got to get dirty with a project.

The project for the day was sanding and oiling teak furniture. The task was a bit larger than we had anticipated, but we tackled it with gusto. Here is one of the chairs before we began:



The first step was to remove the seat and sand the chair. There wasn't much need to sand the seat because Nichole uses cushions on them, so they are rarely exposed to the elements.

Once sanded, the chair looked like this (except it's not a great picture and you can't see how pretty it is). I took the photos with my iPhone, so they're not the greatest quality. It was also sunny, which made it hard to see the screen of my phone when I took the photo.


From here, I took a damp rag and washed the chair. I let it dry and began the task of oiling. I was going to rub it on, but Nichole said using the paintbrush made for a much easier time. So, I got the brush and went to work. Talk about instant gratification!!

The chair is beautiful! There were eight chairs to do and one table. We worked most of the school day (I had to be home to get the kids off the bus). When we quit, around 2:45, we had completed 5 of the chairs, sanded the sixth, and Nichole had started sanding the seventh. No one had touched the table. Not sure it will all get finished in time for her soiree this weekend, but we gave it our all.