Phone Restoration

My grandmother had this old phone hanging in her dining room as decoration since I was a little girl. Several years ago, when my husband and I were first married I asked her on a whim if I could have it for our house. She said yes. It never got hung in our house and just sat in a box waiting and waiting. When we sold said house, I brought the phone with me in hopes of restoring it so I would DEFINITELY hang it in our new house when it is finished being built.

I need to learn to take more before pictures of my projects. Once we decide to do something, the project takes off quickly and normally finishes  quick too.

My dad and I decided to see if the black paint would come off the phone and we longed to see what was underneath. Therefore, my one "before picture" has the nice wood "stripe" down the side. 

Dad took apart the phone for me. I was in charge of putting all the parts and screws in a safe place for later.

This was still inside the phone. I took tons of pictures of this because I was pretty certain that this part was not going to be able to be salvaged in the restoration process.

First step was lacquer thinner to get the black paint off. It started off well. Later, I decided to go with an actual paint stripper and that worked much better.

After all the paint was stripped, dad took the sander to the wood for me.

After the black paint had been stripped.

We decided it would be nice to stain the piece. I used the Gunstock stain for this project. I think it will go very nicely in our new home eventually.

I did about 3-4 coats of polyurethane all over the phone after all the staining was complete. 

Here is the finished result. I am in love with it.

Dad shined up the bells the best he could for me.

I know EXACTLY where it will hang when we move to our house.
Now, I just have to store it once again till then.

Our Little Urban Garden, Part 1

 Last year, we participated in a CSA with another family. We got all kinds of greens and vegetables that lasted us all spring and summer. It was great. It encouraged me to cook more vegetables, try new things like kale (which I had no idea what to do with) and other random foods we would get in our box each week. My husband grew up on a farm. The idea that people would join a CSA and not grow their own food was a bit foreign to him. All grown up, we live in the city. We live in a subdivision at that. Not much land in comparison to what he lived on when he was a boy.

This year, we got the Burgess seed catalog (which by the way, I have no idea why I ever started receiving their literature in the mail to begin with). We talked it over and decided we would have a garden this year. Grow what we wanted to and not be subject to random foods that we got in a box each week that we may or may not like to eat. At that point, my husband got the laptop and ordered seeds for us to plant in a couple months.

The morning he was going to start tilling our back yard, he had a revelation that kept him awake a good part of the night. Maybe tilling isn't the brightest thing we should do in our yard. We have a gutter that runs off the back corner of our house. The runoff water flows into a pipe that is underground and empties on down the hill. The thought was...."What if I till, hit the pipe and shred it to pieces? We will have a big mess on our hands!" I agreed with this assessment and we are going to do raised garden beds instead. All built by my darling husband.

I love that my little one is in the background with his ears covered while the cutting is being done!

The finished product in place in our back yard.

A stop at the dirt place and this is what your truck looks like. I'm amazed the truck made it back
home without dragging the whole way home.

Filled boxes. Now, we are waiting for the seeds to start sprouting before we transfer them outside.

This should be a fun adventure. For anyone who knows me, I do not have a green thumb in the least bit. I'm counting on the fact that my husband knows what he is doing and I plan on just following his instructions!