My Mom's 98th Birthday and Painting and Staining My Sister's Back Porch Deck

 We just arrived back from Illinois to celebrate my mother's 98th birthday. My sister Fe, who she is living with, wanted the party to have a nautical theme. And so I created a nautical centerpiece using stuff I brought from home. She already had nautical serving pieces that I arranged around the table.

 

And so the day came with so much food. All 5 of us children from various cities in Florida and St. Louis arrived so it turned out to be some kind of a reunion too and it was so much fun.

My sister Tessie from St. Louis and sister in law , Che, from the Tampa Bay area.

A beautiful birthday cake given by my dear friend, Ludy, with it's wonderful coconut and ube (purple yam) flavor.  Simply delicious! We used to live in Waukegan too so we have a lot of friends there and it was wonderful to see them again.

Another extraordinarily gorgeous cake was given by another family friend, Norma. It was a mango chiffon cake and so yummy!

Thank you so much to all who came and helped us celebrate that special day.

 

Mama is very special. She had 3 birthday cakes. I baked one for her too but did not get to take it out until later because there was no room on the table. It went so fast that by the time I wanted to take a picture, it was all gone. It was a mocha chiffon cake.

 

Here is my mom with her big smile who is about to blow her birthday candle. Even her pillow is nautical, lol! I wonder what she wished for!!

My mom and her 5 children. She was so tired by the end of the day that we had a hard time getting her to open her eyes for the family picture, but she finally obliged.

My sister Fe, has a big back porch that she never used. She decided to get it cleaned so it can be used for the party because she was afraid the guests (around 50) would not fit inside the house. She paid $600 to get it cleaned so just imagine how messy it used to be.

 

I got her helper to trim the trees all around that were really overgrown.

 

and then we got it ready for the party. My other sister Tessie, helped me plant some fresh flowering plants on the window planters.

 

After the party, I thought it would be a good opportunity to stain the floor and paint the rails while the deck is still clean. I suggested that to my sister. And who could resist a free service? So off we went to buy the supplies at Menards and got started right away since we were only going to stay there for 2 weeks.

All done! It was so funny because her guests were all surprised to find out that she had a deck, lol. They never knew it existed prior to the occasion.

Now, my mom is even able to use it because it is adjacent to her room. Only a French door separates them. Her care taker assists her to take her daily walking exercise there and even feeds her there, taking advantage of the weather while it is still nice and warm. The overhanging trees are keeping the place cool.

We are happy with how it turned out considering the limited time I had in finishing it, though I would have wanted the floor stain to be somewhat darker.

It became my favorite place to drink my coffee every morning during my stay there.

Shown below is a very short video of my mom saying her birthday. I hope you will get to watch it.

 

Thank you so much for stopping by. And thanks to all the hostesses of the memes I am linking with.

 

 Share it One More Time

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Anything Goes" Pink Saturday

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Metamorphosis Monday

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Sandi's No Place Like Home

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Christine's Dishing It and Digging It

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Cindy's Amaze me Monday

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Kathryn's Make it Pretty Monday

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Chloe's Celebrate it Monday

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Bernideen's Tea Time, Cottage and Garden Blog Party!

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Tweak it Tuesday

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Julie's Talk of the Town Tuesday

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Tuesday's The Scoop

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Marty's Inspire Me Tuesday

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Show and Share

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Sarah's Classical Homemaking party

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Home Matters

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Thoughts of Home Thursday

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Kathy's Home and Garden Thursday

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Tablescape Thursday

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Share your Style Thursday

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Thursday Favorite Things Blog Hop

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Kathryn's Anything Blue Friday

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Kate's Flaunt it Friday

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Courtney's Feathered Nest Friday

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Foodie Fri and Everything Else

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Refinishing Office Wall Unit and Guestroom 2/Office Combo Transformation

I am so relieved after I finished painting this wall unit. We moved it from MS and it sat on the back porch, since the garage is full of boxes that I still need to open and organize. I thought we couldn't use it here but I was able to fit 3 of the wall units. Now it is functional cause John and I can use our computers at the same time when we want to.

 This is the original finish and as you can see, it came in 4 units and a table. But we downsized and we do not have a dedicated home office here in FL. so we couldn't fit all. I wouldn't have touched this furniture if we stayed in our Natchez home but our FL home is so much smaller and I want it to look brighter. We left one unit on the back porch in its original finish. I painted and distressed  the 2 desks with hutches and a center unit for our files (bottom), TV and printer. There is no room anywhere for the table.

This is our second guestroom that doubles as our office before we moved more furniture from Natchez. You can see the desk across the bed. John and I had to take turns using the computer because the space is small. We couldn't even fit both of our desktops.

 And the pictures below is how the room looks now.

 Let me take you around the room. I had to move a lot of furniture around the house to be able to place what we moved from Natchez, MS. this past March. I could have sold that dark narrow cabinet but I need it to store my many photo albums. I am still debating if I should paint it also but for now, I will leave it as is. All the albums aren't in there yet, probably some still in boxes.

 That colorful striped cabinet used to be in the dining room but I had to replace it with a French buffet moved from Natchez. This is the only space that I could think of moving it to.

Ahh! There is my blue for Blue Moday.

 The little table was moved from the family room and John is using it for his small laptop.

 Below is John's desk.

 and this is my side

 We had the cable guy come today and he installed the TV. So nice to be able to watch news while blogging or facebooking, lol.

I am just so happy that we managed to make it work. We are using the desks more often now because it is more convenient and functional.

Thanks for stopping by. Thanks also to the hostesses whose parties I am linking with.

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Chloe's Celebrate it Monday

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Cindy's Amaze me Monday

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Kathryn's Make it Pretty Monday

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Marty's Inspire Me Tuesday

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Maria Elena's Tuesdays at Our Home

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Home Sweet Home

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Centerpiece Wed

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Home Matters

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Transformation Thursday

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Thoughts of Home Thursday
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Kathy's Home and Garden Thursday

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Share your Style Thursday

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Thursday Favorite Things Blog Hop

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Kate's Flaunt it Friday

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Foodie Fri and Everything Else
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Courtney's Feathered Nest Friday

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Anything Blue Friday

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Share it One More Time

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Pink Saturday or Anything Goes

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From Blah to Blue!

I bought this table with an attached lamp from a consignment shop in Vicksburg. I wanted to paint it but my husband is always against painting anything stained wood so I brought it to the store as is.

It sat there forever. I just knew it because it was ugly. So, I decided I gave it enough chance and I took it home to be refinished. Here it is now in our garage.

See the pedestal table in the background? It will be my next project after I convince my hubby that it needs to be refinished. We bought it from a junk store for $40 and it is solid heavy wood and in perfect condition.

Ok, done! I used Annie Sloan's chalk paint in Duck Blue so I did not even have to prime it. This is the first time I ever tried that kind of paint and I love it.

I just sanded a few spots to give it a distressed look and then waxed it.

John bought this ugly TV stand for the kids' guest room while I was in Florida. It was gray and ugly and I hated it. As soon as I got a table that I liked better, I brought this in the garage and it stayed there forever until AJ, my granddaughter, was visiting here last month and we were looking for a project to do. I decided to paint this. I gave her a primer and she did most of the painting and then it sat in the garage again.

I finally decided to spray paint it after I was finished repainting the lamp table.

Do you see it in the background on the right? The paint was a little uneven. It's not wood and the spray paint would not adhere evenly but it's ok. It had an appearance of a cloud and I think it's pretty cool. It'll be perfect for a small boy's bedroom. I brought it to my booth to sell also.

I embellished the lamp shade a little, glued some of these feathery stuff.

I brought it to my booth last Saturday. I am curious to see how long it will sit there again.

What do you think?

Linking with Susan for Metamorphosis Monday at http://betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com

Sally for Blue Monday at http://smilingsally.blogspot.com/

Mary's Masterpieces Monday at http://boogieboardcottage.blogspot.com/

Carrie's Amaze Me Monday at http://dittledattle.blogspot.com/

Many thanks to our gracious hostesses and thanks to you all for visiting!