They say that Necessity is the Mother of Invention

I also think that it is the Mother of forcing people to discover new hobbies and interests.

For example: refinishing furniture.

I stink at it, but I have recently picked it up out of necessity.  

We had to sell/give away/throw away most of our possessions when we moved from Minnesota (including all our furniture), so I have scoured Craigslist (and Grannie's barn!) for some furniture to furnish our home with and found some screaming deals. 

 I have found enough solid wood pieces to nearly furnish our whole house without having to spend much at all!

Of course a lot of the furniture I found have been diamonds in the rough, so I have spent most early mornings and late nights working on refinishing furniture while the girls sleep.

My projects so far......

My old childhood desk that my mother no longer uses and graciously let me have and refinish:

It has been yellow for the past 17-ish years, but after a lot of stripping, sanding, painting, and staining, it has become this beauty:

Merry Christmas to me.  Thanks, Mom!

And then I found a small "desk" for Kenners to have in her room and decided to have it match the big one:

Grannie had four chairs like this sitting in her barn:

I originally thought that I would use them as dining chairs, but after finding a solid oak dining table with 6 great chairs for $75, I decided to have some fun refinishing and antiquing these chairs in different ways and this is what I came up with:

And my next projects?  To refinish/paint this pigeon-poop encrusted rocking chair:

And refinish this dresser:

I also have a hutch and another large dresser to refinish.

This refurnishing stuff has become slightly addicting and has actually been a lot of fun.  And I can't wait to get it all into the house. 
One day more. :)

(Another day, another destiny. This never-ending road to Calvary......oh Les Mis, I love you! Please come to Alaska so that my husband can surprise me with tickets to come see your show after a delicious dinner of sushi.  Please.)