Park Bench Restoration

I have always had a thing for park benches.

Maybe it's because they are made out of two of my favorite material:

wood and cast iron.

What's not to love about that?

Don't you just want to sit down and read a good book?

I do.

I was blessed to receive this bench.

It needed some TLC, as the wood was very dry and worn out and the cast iron showed some rust.

I used only 1 product to restore this 

Farmhouse Kitchen Island DIY

When we moved south, we had to sell and give away a lot of furniture. 

We could not move everything with us.

So, naturally, a few days after the move, I was already looking to buy some furniture pieces for our home.

I needed to find a wooden table or desk to be used as a kitchen island.

I know I had plenty of inspirational pictures on my Pinterest board.

I luckily found this table for only $15...and it was only a couple of miles from us.

Price and location were a plus, if you know the feeling of moving to a totally different area and not knowing were everything is.

I soon got to work to clean and sand it down.

I liked the patina, but you know...germs and

Fixer Upper Kitchen

Don't we all love a fixer upper kitchen?

Or fixer upper anything?

I surely do.

When we moved to South Florida,

we had to look for a fixer upper house.

That's what we could afford.

before

before

It seems a challenge for some people to look past what they see.

before

Not everyone has a vision of what could be.

Fortunately for me, 

I am a visionary at heart.

Always have and always will.

We lived in the house for about 5 months before we started the gut job.

During those months, I ripped up the floor and replaced it with the laminate 

(here what I used).

I changed out knobs and pulls and also replaced the appliances. 

In addition to that we went ahead and added new cabinets (that you see in the background in the following picture) in what was going to be the new kitchen expansion. 

demolition

demolition

I knew what I wanted to do with this kitchen, 

and I had most of the material priced, 

picked out (and even bought) 

before we ever