If this was my first project, I might have given up.
This past summer, I refinished several pieces of furniture for my daughter’s college apartment. I found that I really like creating with my hands and that there’s something incredibly rewarding about bringing new life to something just sitting in storage and gathering dust.
One of my daughter’s roommates decided to move out and another girl is moving in, so they needed a table. Naturally, I knew right where one was. It was sitting in my parents’ barn just waiting for me to give it new life. I gleefully went with my hubby in the freezing cold to pick it up.
It’s interesting that this particular project happened to be last of the apartment projects. First of all, it was a table and six chairs. It took up a lot of space and a lot of time. Secondly, all of my other projects were done during the summer. There was lots of light and I could store everything in the garage.
This time, most of it had to be done in the house and I didn’t have much light to work with. I had to step over or around chairs for weeks. To top it off, most of it wasn’t solid; it was veneer which is particularly difficult to work with. The chairs and base took a primer coat and three coats of paint. The top had to be sanded carefully, yet repeatedly and took several coats of stain as well as polyurethane.
If this would have been my first project, I might have given up. I might not have even tried all of the other ones out of sheer frustration, but it wasn’t my first. I had created and seen too many before and afters and I was simply too stubborn to give up.
In the end, it turned out just fine. My daughter was happy and she and her roomies have a place to gather to eat, or talk, or work on projects that require them to spread out.
I don’t know what it is about a kitchen table that calls us to sit and stay a while. There are far more comfortable places to sit in most homes, yet time and time again, I have found myself sitting either at my own kitchen table with friends and family or at someone else’s.
What is it about a kitchen table that calls us to sit and stay a while?
My table adventure reminded me that everything we do in life, is preparing us for the next step, the next project, the next calling. It’s part of the Divine Design. God always has a plan and is always working even when we can’t see Him. Nothing is by chance and nothing is trivial. We don’t have to know how it will turn out because He does. Perhaps you needed reminding too.
Have an awesome day!
Wendy 🙂