Reading Nook {Part 1}

STRIPPING WOOD

I never went into spontaneous labor, so I ended up going over-due with my son, and was induced. 

<---- That is the night before I delivered, with my large protruding belly...doesn't it look a bit freakish?  Kind of like an alien.  Don't worry, I'd never show bare skin, you'd vomit right on your keyboard if you haven't already.

It's amazing what the human body can do I guess. 

Anyway, so the drive to the hospital wasn't really stressful, as we were just going to the induction appointment.  At the time we lived in northeastern Missouri, and the town we lived in has "Kirksville Clean Up" where everyone can put all their junk on their curb in the spring, and in May the city comes to clean up your pile, from rotten sofas to tree branches. 

We were driving along and saw two children's chairs.  Despite the fact we were about to have our first child, we pulled over and put them in the trunk.  Always on the look for free crap to refinish.

So I've had them for almost 2 years and I've thought of different ideas to do with them, staring at the old rotten peeling paint multiple times for inspiration.  But recently I pulled them out and I'm finally working on them.

I also found on our local classified online listing, a kid's solid wood table for $10.  We had an identicle table when I was a kid growing up.  So I got busy stripping the rotten stools and table down.

I'd never used chemical stripper, but it's basically a gel you paint on.  You wait, and it bubbles up the paint and you simply scrape it off. 

The table just had a varnish that came right off, but those Kirksville stools had layers of colors on them.  They seem so old, I've been nervous about having lead paint under these layers, so I'm determined to get them down to the raw wood again.  Right now I'm sanding off the last remnants, and then will begin on the fun parts of this next big project.

This big project, which I've called the READING NOOK will end up with a table, 2 stools, and 2 toddler chairs in the set.  I'm going to build the 2 toddler chairs from Knock Off Wood's Tutorial.  I went to my local Home Depot, and each chair will only cost $10.00, so pretty great.

My plan is to paint them all white, and then paint the characters of my favorite children's author on everything.  This will be a work in progress, so I'll post as I go.  I'm really excited about this whole thing, and I hope it all turns out as I am thinking in my head.