Refinishing

One of my projects this year was to refurbish a few pieces of furniture for my parents new home.  They have waited a long time for a new house, so I thought that it would be a nice thing to do a few pieces for their new place.  I started with this kitchen table and chairs shown below, but I'm planning on doing a dresser for them as well.

This table was pretty beat up when we purchased it second hand.  Lots of scuff marks, scratches, and deep gouges on it, but I was fairly certain it would clean up nicely when it was all done.  The wood underneath had a nice grain, and it came with a leaf for the center too.

 

A little kid had given it some original crayon "artwork" underneath.... 

And a bit of pencil "art" too.  I ended up refinishing the whole underside so you'd never know it had been there.  

The legs were really scratched and dinged badly, but they sanded down and turned out good when they were finished.

A sanded one on the left and a finished one on the right.

I found these nice caster dining chairs at a local yard sale for $1 apiece.  I purchased six of them altogether, (so there are enough extras for another future project).  The green ones on the left are how they looked beforehand, and the brown ones are how they looked after I refinished and re-upholstered them for my parents.

The finished setup.

Some of our photos from the Foothills ride, courtesy of photographer David Honan.

Foothills of the Cascades

Since the Milwaukee ride was cancelled this year, we decided to head to the Foothills ride this weekend in Molalla. Craig and I had never been to this ride before, so it was great to try out a new place. The valley has such a vastly different "wet and green" environment, so it was really interesting to ride the trails on the other side of the state. I was happy with how Nettie handled the humidity, slick muddy footing, and also the rolling climbs up and down the mountain hills. It was a good ride.

Second ride went much better today.  I found out from the first ride that we need more prep work on the right side.  Left side is great, right side has the sticky holes.  We did some exercises moving the right shoulder in and bending it around out of the way, (instead of his normal wielding it as a snowplow and trying to bull into me with it).  It worked successfully and we had an uneventful ride both ways today.  Making progress...  

Took the first "official" ride on Ira today.  Wished that I could say it was uneventful, but it was a fairly froggy trip around the round pen.  I didn't come off, and he eventually did relax after a good amount of  reassurance.  I know what we're going to have to work a bit more on now, so this first experience was a good test.