That's more like it

We had a very productive day yesterday.

Roo was reorganizing and restacking the boxes in the basement, while I tackled the front garden. The rhodos, azalea and camellia needed feeding, and then I discovered that the bed really needed a good hoeing and some weeding so I spent a couple hours doing that with Amelia and Hugo. In between, we took breaks to play basketball in the driveway. We haven't hung a hoop yet so we just practiced dribbling, passing and making fake shots (which, of course, were all in!)

We had a 2 hour visit from my sister in law, her hubby and little boy. The came bearing gifts - bypass pruners and some loppers. Yay! Love gardening tool gifts.

We ate donuts.

And we tackled stripping some furniture. You know those commercials where they show someone applying the product and then it just lifts off with a plastic putty knife? Well, they lie. This is turning out to be a bigger and messier thing than I expected.

It's an old pine table & chairs which were custom made for a previous owner (a dear relative so I can't diss the table too much). She ordered that paint job on it where you leave the top with a clear varnish and paint the bottom a solid color. The first color was blue. A very bright blue. She tired of it, and painted it over herself with a dark green. Then the table was gifted to us and my kids used it for all their messy crafts. It turns out that this table is the best shape for the eating area in this house, but it is now a total mess, and so I had the brilliant idea of just stripping the paint, refinishing it and presto! A table & four chairs.

Not. So. Fast.

The green came off nicely. But the blue was some sort of milk paint which has seeped deeply into the grain. We're going to try one more application of the organic stripper and see where it gets us. Worst case scenario, I'll paint the bottom white, though I'd much rather have it plain wood.

I love the name 'organic stripper'. Doesn't it sound wholesome and natural? Like, say, arsenic and mercury and uranium? All those lovely natural things. All natural! All organic! Feel safe using it!

Right. As if there can be anything safe about a product which peels off paint.

I'm off to take Amelia to synchronized swimming while Roo tackles the dishwasher (the one which might have a nest of furries living in the insulation. Hopefully they've all had their last tasty meal and are in micey heaven now....) The new dishwasher is waiting patiently in the garage. It's supposed to be a really quiet one. I hope so because boy will we be ticked if it turns out louder than the one we're junking - which surprisingly for its age, is not too bad.