Another new addition

Our living room got a facelift - finally! The couch and loveseat that we have had for a long time were first in my Mom's living room, then they followed me to college, and we used them in our first apartment together and moved them with us to our house. They definitely served us well, but we weren't too sad to see them go; however, Cash, on the other hand, was pretty upset. No more getting on any furniture for him. Before our old couch and loveseat were hauled off by The Salvation Army, we had them in the dining room. Cash would always lay on the old furniture in the morning before we left for work...it was a sad day when they finally found a new home.

Handmade Furniture from the Coco Workshop

I'm sure you all know of my Dad's ability to basically take a piece of dryer lent and turn it into a masterpiece...yes, he really is that good. Well, my brother has since joined him in his construction business and they are working together. Over Christmas break, Kurt and I were talking about getting a media console for our TV in the living room, as it is still sitting on a wooden trunk with our DVD player and cable box on the floor. My Dad offered to make us something for our TV, which was first just going to be a small, low cabinet with a few drawers and doors. I printed off a few pictures of stuff we liked, and they went to town..literally. We talked about it, and after they got the wood, which is beautiful, the cabinet was complete in a few short days. My Dad and Chad handmade the TV cabinet for us, complete with two bookcases on either side and a complete enclosure on the top. It's hard to explain and to tell how the finished product will look from the pictures, so I'll post more once we get it done and in the house.

The cabinet was completely built, but my Dad left it "unfinished" so we could decide if we wanted to stain it or not. We decided to stain the furniture to try and match our coffee and end tables. We really didn't have a clue for what we had in store. We have stained the furniture and painted on one coat of a polyurethane sealer so far. Our next step is to lightly sand everything and then we'll have to add on one more coat of sealer. We were trying to get the chairs finished up first, but it's so hard looking at all of that beautiful furniture in the garage, because we're so excited to move it into our living room. It's a work in progress, but here's what we've done so far. Bookcase (there are two of these with multiple shelves) before staining

After staining the bookcase

This picture is kind of dark, but this is the media console before we stained it.

After staining the media cabinet

Projects Galore...our new table

I have been terrible about updating our blog lately because we've been so busy as you're soon about to find out. Over the Christmas break, I randomly stopped by a resale shop in Katy and saw a really neat, pretty table with 6 chairs. I showed it to Kurt and had an idea to change it up a bit with the thought that maybe we'd use it someday in an eat-in kitchen, but for now, we would just use it in the dining room. We debated it over Christmas and it was still there after the New Year, so we went back and purchased it. Kurt's Mom and Steve helped us get the table and a hutch (another story) home where we then turned our garage into our own personal workshop. In the pictures everything looks a bit different. The chairs actually were not bought with the table by the original owners so the wood was a bit lighter, which is hard to tell from the picture.

I tore out a picture in a Pottery Barn catalog and we decided to get to work. We decided to paint each chair a different color. The chairs had to be sanded down, primed, and then painted, each with two coats or more! Our burnt orange (yes, it's definitely a UT orange at our table!) and red have taken forever to get right, and at the moment I'm still working on the red chair. Kurt put the seats on a few of them, but some are still unfinished completely. We still need window treatments and an area rug under the table, but we're taking small steps at a time. After all, we've been in our house for a year and just got a dining room table, so we're making progress.

About our hutch, I found it at another resale shop in Katy that I heard about from a friend and we purchased it as well. Kurt never saw it until we picked it up, but he said he trusted me and was fine with my decision. Well, the weekend my Dad came up, I had him take a look at the hutch to see what he thought, because the back piece looked a bit rough and probably needed to be replaced. To make a long story short, he and Chad ended up completely rebuilding the bottom piece of the hutch so it's like NEW now! I don't have pictures of the hutch yet, because our garage is consumed with our projects, all of which haven't been mentioned, and we're going to get on that in February. I'll have more pictures of everything when we finally get done, but here are some to start. Table and chairs before the project started...

I know it looks like a baby nursery in this picture with the colors, but they aren't as bright in person.

The blue looks much better in person...pretty bright in the picture.

Grey chair

Burnt orange and red

Too Sweet...

After the holidays, Chad, Hayden, and my Dad stayed with us for one night before driving Hayden back to San Antonio. I just couldn't resist taking this picture when Cash crawled in bed with him while he was watching a movie.

Happy Retirement Dad!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrGNyv3b1AQ

I know I'm way behind on blogging, so I'll try to make up for it in the next few weeks or so. December was super busy for us, and before we knew it - December had come and gone! Time really does fly by when you're having fun, and that we definitely were. To start off the month, we headed to Sour Lake to celebrate the END of my Dad's ExxonMobil career of 34 years...truly unbelieveable! We had been planning the party for 8 months or so, but little did we know my Dad had a little something planned up his sleeve too. The party was a huge success! All of my Dad's sisters came in town, as did some of Kurt's family to celebrate with us. It meant so much to us that you all traveled far and near to pay tribute to my Dad.

During the party, we showed a slide show that was put together by Johnette. It was great! Then my Dad began speaking, and Chad and I couldn't follow his performance, as you'll see. Anyhow, I never got a chance to tell my Dad how I was feeling that night, so here goes... I never will be able to thank him enough for his dedication to a job he truly hated in order to provide for Chad and I. During his years at Exxon he also discovered his true passion, which is carpentry, and he continues to make unbelievable magic happen in his workshop. He really is remarkable when working with his hands. It's like Santa's workshop but just located in the front yard. He taught me a committment to family that I can only hope to pass onto my children one day. For as long as I can remember my Dad has worked two jobs and never been able to really relax. I only hope that he can just sit back and rest a bit now. Love you Dad and I'm so happy you're finally RETIRED! Wahoo.

I usually post pictures on our blog, but we forgot our camera in Beaumont over the Christmas break, so I don't have any pictures to post. I do, however, have something better. My Dad had so many requests to replay the retirement party "surprise" that we posted in on YouTube. I hope you all enjoy.