God Bless Donna Dewberry…

December 22, 2014

One of my “greatest fans” recently asked me for updates on the kitchen renovation and the progress on the braided kitchen rug.  Well, I need to ask her (and you) to hang in there just a little longer until the kitchen renovation is completely done and decorated (which will definitely happen in January, I promise).

However, I haven’t been completely idle.  I’m including an update on the snowman centerpieces that I was working on last week, which I decided to change.  I’ve told you what a control freak I am and I just couldn’t be happy with the bland “balloon” face so I let ideas flit through my brain for a few days until I came up with the improved version below.  We used these for the raffle at my sister’s Christmas party and they were well-received, especially by Charming who was vying with my brother Jeff for the cookies inside the snowmen.

Recently I have also started working on my beloved “family heirloom” washtub.  I’ve probably told you that this washtub was discovered more than ten years ago by my brother and me at my grandfather’s old home place way up in the Blue Ridge Mountains.  Although my brother tried to persuade me to leave the washtub where we’d found it and let nature continue to take its course, I would not be persuaded.  So, good brother that he is, he gave up and even toted that dented, rusty, bottomless washtub down the mountain…complaining all the way. 

I have held onto that washtub despite years of teasing from my brother.  I have ignored my sister’s comments about my being a candidate for the TV show about “hoarders” as she rolled her eyes.  I have also defended the washtub’s honor and worthiness when Charming repeatedly insisted that we needed to, “Take that worthless thing to the landfill, for Pete’s sake”.

When the kitchen renovation came about, I drew up a floor plan and penciled in all of our kitchen furniture.  In the end, there was an obvious blank space in front of the sink that needed to be filled with something.  So I took a look around the house at our furniture to see if anything could be re-purposed to that spot.  Nothing…hmmmmmm.  While doing laundry in the basement one day, my eyes landed on my old washtub friend sitting in the corner.  Bingo!

Now when Charming goes somewhere without me (which is rare…Christmas shopping for me one day last week and a few hours of deer hunting this week), I spring into action with my rubber mallet, paint, and paint brushes.  So far, I’ve hammered out the dents in the washtub, sanded the entire thing, painted a medium grey base coat on both the inside and outside and let that dry. Then I sponged a slightly lighter grey coat on the outside of the tub to resemble the original galvanized look.  It has actually turned out pretty well so far.  My plan is to turn it into a prep table to go in front of the kitchen sink.  The 4”x4” legs, with rollers, will be painted black and the top will either be made of wood that I will cover with several coats of white enamel paint or use a left over section of the new kitchen counter top.  I plan to paint red apples around the bottom of the tub and add a bible verse around the top of the tub.  (Thanks to “how to” videos by Donna Dewberry that I purchased several years ago, I can paint fairly decent apples, pears, grapes, and some flowers.  With her easy tutorials, anyone can learn to paint.  She is absolutely wonderful!)  Below is a picture of the sketch of my prep table idea.

Charming often makes comments about how creative he thinks I am.  I sure hope he continues to think that when he sees my addition to his lovely handiwork in the kitchen. I'm trying to keep it a secret from him (as he really does have a dislike for my poor beloved tub) and will spring it on him as the last bit of the decorating process.  Cross your fingers for me on this one!

Revised cookie-filled snowman centerpiece.
The original "balloon face" snowman was
shown a couple of posts ago.

Six of the snowmen.  (The happy guy on the right looks like he
might have had a little too much eggnog!)

This shell of a washtub has made me the butt of many jokes
from family members.

This is the washtub's "best" side...after all, if you didn't know
it has no bottom and you ignored the rust, it would look
perfectly fine.

I painted the inside and outside of the tub a medium grey.  Then
"sponged" a lighter grey on the outside to loosely mimic the
original galvanized look.

A close-up view of the sponge painting.  I think it turned out
rather nice.

I drew this sketch of my prep table idea
using the "draw" feature on my computer, then
printed it and took a picture of that with my camera.
The top appears to be tilted, but this is just
camera distortion.  (Hopefully the finished
table will not be leaning like this picture.)