My Early Christmas Gift

Back in August, (wow, it's been 6 months already?) A kind friend offered me her china hutch for free. She needed to make room for her grandmothers farm table that has nine, count it...nine leaves. Don't you just love getting furniture for free? I do. And I couldn't say no. Even though I had a sinking feeling that it wouldn't work in my dinning room. It was big, really fancy, and stained dark walnutish. I'm more of a plain, Shaker, or cottage lover going for the charming and warm feeling of the English country.

My husband hates it when I bring home fix it up projects. Usually he's the one that gets stuck fixing them up. He's getting so good at it.

The hutch sat in the dinning room empty, collecting dust. I studied that piece every day trying to picture how I wanted it to look. First, I saw it painted a pleasant light blue and distressed on it's edges. But I'm not a blue person. Finally a couple weeks ago I decided on red. I love red, thanks to Ma Kempton, my long time best friend's grandmother. She inspired me.

So red it is going to be. And we committed to it by purchasing one gallon of red delicious.

John and Meagan worked on it for two hours or more with the hand power sander to rid it of it's dark glossy shine. It was hard work and John figured that it would be impossible to do the upper part of the hutch. With all it's glass and mirrors it would take forever to paint. And the wood quality was different than the bottom piece. It wasn't as good. We didn't think that it could handle the intense sanding.

I couldn't believe it when I took a peek. Down to its naked true self. I liked it. I was ready for John to get started on the painting. But then it was my turn he informed me. My assignment was to get into all the little decorative grooves and crown molding with the heavy weight sand paper by hand. I put that off for a few days.

But I couldn't stand it any longer. I wanted the thing redand back in my house. Time for it to reach it's full potential as a T.V. stand. We've been using an old IKEA coffee table. It's gotten us through this long but it's always bugged us because it was too low. What is it that when I'm working on something with my hands that I start pondering on the work or task , and life, and how what I'm working on is like life? Like when I'm weeding. I always reflect on those weeds and how they symbolize sin or unwanted behavior in my life and if I pull it out when it just pops out of the ground, when it's small and the roots are not developed its easier to get rid of it. So as I sanded. I put some major elbow grease into the work to rid the hutch of it's less desirable dark shine I found myself having thougths of how Heavenly Father is the sander. He allows me to be sanded. First with the hand power sander. Like when I had cancer and then Peter had cancer. Now I'm getting worked on in those little decorative grooves. I'm facing some more heath issues. After a few weeks of hearing the news I'm getting ready to write about it. It's good therapy but kind of a sad read. I'm so glad that I wrote about our journey with Peter's cancer. So many life lessons were taught to us and when I read back on them it reminds me of those lessons and helps me be happier, grateful, and a better person.

It's interesting the things we inherit from our parents. I've inherited a nasty precancerous family colon issue that's linked to my thyroid cancer an Peter's liver cancer. What's a colon any way? The doctor told me that I would be better off without it. So here we go again...

So in six months or so this fix it up project will have some changes. After some heavy duty sanding I won't be keeping that "top piece". It just didn't fit and it wasn't quality. But I sure do love my new red T.V. stand!