It's a good thing I married into the military

In the past 15 years, I have never lived in the same place for longer than 3 years.

We have lived here, in this house, for 3 and a half years.

And I am so ready to move. SO ready.

Unfortunately, we still have a year and a half left here. That is a long time. Especially for me. (Did I mention that I previously have never lived anywhere longer than 3 years?)

Okay, so we aren't moving cities. Can't we at least move to another house? There is this neighborhood, less than 1 mile away, that has the most gorgeous houses with lots of trees and character that I would love to move to...

"No," was the thundering response that I got from my very-practical-financially-savvy-almost-never-tells-me-"NO" husband.

P-O-U-T.

"Fine, then can I paint, get new curtains, refinish furniture, redecorate the bathroom...?"

Very-practical-financially-savvy-almost-never-tells-me-"NO" husband said, "Yes. That would be way cheaper than selling the house.

"And then we could landscape, put in a pool, add an addition..."

"NO." (I hope he doesn't start making this a habit!!)

So, I decided to start with a much needed face lift for our dining room table. The dining room table and I have history.

(And with most history lessons, this one is long and drawn out, so you may want to go to the bathroom, get a snack and drink or just skip it!)


We originally bought a dining room table when we were first married, but it broke during our move from Colorado to North Dakota. So we bought another table at the BX in Minot and when that arrived, it was already broken. (Are we jinxed or what?!) At that point we contemplated not even getting a table, but eating on the couch got old. Therefore, we went into the very small town of Minot to one of their two furniture stores and I found a table that I fell in love with.

And as with most things that I fall in love with, it was more than we wanted to spend. But I really, really loved it so Mr. Very-practical-financially-savvy-almost-never-tells-me-"NO" husband - said yes!

So we purchase the table and bring it home and I loved on it. Until the day that I spilled nail polish remover on the table. Apparently nail polish remover not only removes nail polish, but also finish on tables. Note to self. Had to learn that the hard way. And not just once, but twice. Which is par for course on how I learn things...

But I digress.

Over the years there has been many a marking on that table. Deep gouges from a little person who likes to bang their fork in the table, Sharpie from a little person who likes to use Sharpies, but has no business using them, water spots from a little person who spills their water and then puts their placemat over it instead of cleaning it up and so on and so forth. The chairs have suffered even worse than the table. The 4 chairs that we got to go with it. I have no idea why we only got 4 chairs. But we did. And it hasn't been too big of a problem.

Until the Diva's came along. And want to sit at the table. With the rest of us. How dare they?!

Well, I have been looking at new tables but the reality is that they aren't in the budget and, well, I actually am attached to the scars of my table/chairs. They tell the story of my little family. And the reality is that we are not out of the toddler woods yet and I have two wild rough boys, so there are likely to be more scars to come. Many, more scars and hopefully many, many more memories too.

One of the nail polish remover stains

So I decided to buy a bench that is practical, long and gorgeous and has come in handy when the kids have their little friends over. I also decided to recover the dining room chairs. They do it all the time on HGTV, so it can't be that hard, right?

Right! I found this gorgeous fabric that was not only on sale, but is a great color to hide stains. Then Man and I worked together and LOVE the end result. Take a look:

Our new fabric on the left

And while we were having fun covering things, we have this white suede ottoman. Well, it used to be white, now it's just stained! So we had enough fabric left over to cover it too. Came out pretty nice, huh?
And those are some of the projects that I have been working on lately. I also made curtains for the boys room, but have no pictures of them so you will just have to believe me when I tell you they are cute and a huge improvement. Oh, make no mistake. There are still more projects in the works. Afterall, we aren't moving any time soon.