"Sand, Sand, Sand, Stain, Vacuum, Stain, ... Repeat."

We had intended to go camping this weekend, and as it turns out, both Saturday and Sunday are supposed to be rainy and cold. I think that I just wanted to get away from working on the garage. For the past two weeks, I've been concentrating my efforts on the stairs up to the studio. The estimate we got from our contractor was too high, and this would be one of those projects that you think you could do in a week at best and it turns out to be a month long pain in the ***.

Staining is very gratifying, and yet hard to do when you lay a coat of wood conditioner on the steps and then your baby starts screaming in his *exer-saucer* because he doesn't like it when you start staining steps. Sanding however, is a different story- it takes FOREVER, and you can't really tell if you are doing a good job until your stain goes on and you see the scratch marks from the orbital sander.

I have different areas in different levels of completion- with the banister of poplar being the first to get done. I am working my way down three steps at a time. Since my time work is done in short increments, I did the first three steps with one coat of red mahogany and then had to stop with the rest of the steps wood conditioned. I started the following day with conditioning the remaining steps again with the conditioner, then staining with the red mahogany and they just didn't look as nice as the first three so blast it!

Right now I am waiting for the next three steps to hopefully take on more stain so they look like the first three, so I am letting the stain sit on for an additional 15 minutes. The moment of truth is in a few minutes. I am planning on layering two coats of red mahogany with a final coat of a mix of dark walnut and jacobean. The banister already has those three coats and it looks pretty good. Then I have to apply a final few coats of poly-urethane.

AFTER all of this, I need to prime and paint the risers, and the side boards, sand the quarter round up in the studio against the baseboard, touch those up, and lay the floor on the landing of the stairs.

Will. This. Ever. End.

"Oh Organization, How I Have Missed You."

Things that make me happy: organization, giving junk away, biking, the hub, the kids, outdoor bar-b-Q's, cooking, ponds, nature, etc. But, what really makes me happy is to see junk off the floor and organized in my garage. I can now get the Bob Stroller out without ramming it into paint cans and buckets. Alex installed two sets of shelves in the garage, and our bikes are up on pulleys (for me) or hooks (for him). While this organizing takes away from working in the studio or on the studio, using the stroller and exercising is part of my everyday life. I can't tell you how happy I was when I labeled the bins and put everything in its respective place.

We still have many boxes and things at Oma's and I have to say that after managing with the amount of things we have now, I am wondering how much we need the junk over at her place. I'm a little scared of everything we have over there. I truly need to re-assess if we need everything that we packed up last fall. The garage with all of our summer things and lawn equipment as is feels neat and tidy, and I love how our bike gear is finally in a spot next to our bikes rather than on our landing blocking the way to the basement.