Working Hard and Hardly Working

Today was pretty darn eventful! I (kind of) worked out, I finished my last project of winter break, and I was still able to catch up on some SVUs with my boys... Great Saturday in my book!

Hardly Working:
Brian and I knew we wanted to do some sort of outdoor workout with Kevin. After our hike with Kevin, Rachel, and the dogs last week, we decided to do something along those lines, but in a different location to change it up a bit... Lake Balboa was the local winner! It's a man made lake pond, and there are a bunch of running trails around it, and boy, was Kevin excited to get there...

He was super excited once we got there. There was a ton of ducks and water birds there, and I think his hunting blood was starting to kick in... he was head down and sniffing for most of the walk!

Family shot

We just walked the trails... not the greatest workout, but we were moving for quite a while and I got to try out my new watch, so it wasn't a bad trip after all! In fact, my exact stats from my brilliant new watch were the following:

We did 4.46 miles in an hour and 33 minutes which equals a 21.01minute/mile average. Haha, super slow, but again, other than the 2 or so minutes Brian and Kevin ran ahead (and then I had to run to catch up!) we walked.  AND according to the Garmin, based on my weight, I burned 411 calories. I hope that's true, but I won't get my hopes up!  ;-)



Working Hard:
Yesterday I started a project. Weird, right? Well, I've been reading the Young House Love blog lately and I noticed a piece of furniture they have in their house that sparked some inspiration...

Cute Shelf!

They had this little book shelf in their sun room. I didn't really notice it at first because I was too busy thinking about how cute the jars on top of the self are! If you're wondering, they made them little souvenir jars. What they did was take some sand and shells, tickets, anything to commemorate their trips, and then they labeled them with the particular trip and the year! Totally cute, right??

Anyway, they recently moved and they've been blogging about their new set up. They're hoping to eventually make this chimney doubled sided. And what happened to be in the picture?? Only what I am assuming is that very same book case, but painted... and  that was when the shelf itself caught my eye. I have a shelf that is very similar to theirs in my closet. It was left in the garage when I moved in and I didn't know what to do with it, so I just made it a shoe rack and it's been in my closet ever since. So what to do, what to do...

My similar shelf

 When Brian moved in, I gained several game consoles. And Play Station 3 is particularly awesome because it can play Blu-rays and Netflix, and probably about of other stuff (oh yeah, like video games!) The problem is, we've been had it set up on our end table. Not the most attractive or practical place for it...

The current situation

Good thing Kevin doesn't like chewing on wires, right??

Brian and I both like the shabby chic look. And I just lost some of my beloved turquoise in the house. So i decided to work some magic on that old shelf and put it where the end table is...

Priming process

 I started painting yesterday.

First I primed it so there would be some white scuffs in it, underneath the turquoise. Contrary to my quasi philosophies in my Sorry Dad posts, this coat of paint was shotty on purpose. So don't get scared!

Right about now, you're probably asking yourself if I was painting on my dining room table. Are you crazy? What would my parents think about that?? Just kidding. Of course I was painting on the dining room table! I am by no means an artist, but I do like to do paint from time to time. Sometimes I just repaint picture frames, sometimes I paint on canvas. I always do it on the table. I decided that was okay for 3 reasons... 1- the table was a hand-me down from my parents, so I've never had the it's-brand-new-and-I-don't-want-to-ruin-it feeling. 2- There's imprints of newspaper (don't ask me how) and our homework from my parents house, so it already has some unique and distinguishing features from my past. 3- We like the whole shabby chic thing, remember? So these little imperfections a la Kristen kinda fit the whole style. ;-)

Moving on...

The next step was to paint it turquoise...

With this coat, I was a little more careful than I was with the primer. And it turns out, painting this little shelf was a total pain in the ass. Those little wooden poles going up along the sides make the whole thing difficult. A bunch of nooks and crannies... at one point, I was even laying across the top of the table so I could see underneath and make sure I was covering every surface.

Pain in my butt.

But even worse than the painting was the sanding. That happened today... to the right is a picture I took during the sanding process. The right side shows the shelf prior to sanding and the left side shows after it's been shabbi-fied.

I love how it looks, but good gravy, it was a lot of work. I wish I was ambidextrous... between all the painting this last week and then the sanding today, my right arm is toast. Plus while I was sanding today, I cut one of my knuckles when one of the shelves slammed down onto my hand, I broke and bruised my thumb nail when I jammed it right into the side of the case, and now I'm blowing turquoise snot out of my nose.

Good times. :)


But it appears to be worth it!

Finished product!

Bird's eye view

Then Brian helped me moved some furniture around, we re-hooked up the Play Station and the lamp, and that was that!

Woo-hoo! Now if only we could do something about those pesky wires...
;-)