Sunday, May 6, 2012

Sunday Funday: Patio Edition

We've been pretty busy at the Morgan house lately...getting ready for my parents visit to Chicago. They'll be arriving on Tuesday (Yay!) so of course I've taken this as an opportunity to get motivated to clean, organize & tidy.  Of course it all started with the laundry (that I never put away) & spread to the living room closet (that is a complete disaster ALL of the time. It's where an unpredictable collection of things often goes to die) & because the seasons are turning, it ended in my closet, with my (prematurely) hanging up all of my sundresses & making a pile of things to return to the "winter clothes" box in our basement storage unit. Well you know the basement storage unit is ALSO a fiasco. Once we arrived at this disasterous intersection of unseasonal clothes & a mountain of nonsense in our storage closet, we decided that some time on Sunday we'd take on the task of re-organizing our storage. No small task.

On our way down to storage with a basket full of sweaters & an empty garden gnome box I remarked to Greg..."You know we could totally bring that craigs list table up here & dress it up a little & use it for deck dining & outdoor living"...& the rest as they say, was history.

Table Before
Like many craigslist finds tend to do, this little craigslist table came into our lives as a direct result of another craigslist table taking up residence in our new dining room. We hadn't had a dining room in any other apartment in Chicago, so when we moved into our new (back then) place, we wanted to add a formal dining room table, but of course you know I didn't want to spend a lot of money. So we got a good sized wood dining room table that came with two chairs that we found on craigslist & bought from a nice couple who were moving.  The chairs needed recovering, which we tackled back in September. But our little dining room table just wasn't complete without the addition of two more dining chairs. Afterall, what good is a dining room table if you can't ever invite people over for dinner? So in addition to a number of other things (that we have ACCOMPLISHED!) we added the acquisition of two more dining chairs to our to do list (which reminds me...I need to update that thing!)...I jumped back on Craigslist & found a table & 2 chairs for $20. TWENTY dollars. For 2 wood chairs & a seriously used but VERY cool little table. The chairs made their way up to our dining room right away (& later had to be repaired by our super handy, super nice neighbor because they were falling apart) but the table was banished to the basement until I had time to take on that project, "this summer" or "after school". Honestly, I completely forgot about it. Which is why I posted on freecycle YESTERDAY that I was in the market for a free, used, functional patio table that we could use for outdoor dining if anybody had one they were willing to give away for free. I forgot all about our little $10 nugget waiting patiently in the basement for it's big debut. So...we brought it upstairs & into the light this afternoon.

The people who actually own the apartment we are renting are pretty crafty & it seems they're also do-it-yourselfers because while we were reorganizing the storage closet we found primer, grey paint (which is EXACTLY the color I had I mind), paintbrushes, paint pans, drop clothes & sandpaper. So we brought all of those goodies upstairs too, excited to take on our new project. But first, Greg had to put up the security netting that I bought for our deck. Lilah & Sadie are small & SUPER rascally, so I was concerned they'd get excited & try to squeeze through the railing on our 3rd floor balcony. So while Greg was putting up the netting, our neighbors came home & saw that we were busy working again, so they came up to visit us & the puppies. Rich had an electric sander (YES!) so Greg borrowed that & it really expedited the sanding process for the craigslist table.

While Greg was busy sanding the table, I was inside working on a little kitchen project...homemade cream sauce for some left over pasta that I had lingering from last week.  It was nice-ish out in Chicago today, so it seemed like a seafood & baked potato kind of day.  The longer I thought about what would really make for a yummy seafood dinner, the more I wished I had a jar of cream sauce to put on that couple-day-old pasta. So...I just made up some cream sauce from what I had in the fridge & Greg says it's his "second favorite dinner" that I've ever made...the first being chicken parm, which I could feed him every day & he'd never complain. So 2nd place to chicken parm is a pretty serious honor for my left-overs experiment. In case you're into cream sauce & all you've got is a bunch of nonsense in your fridge like I did...here's what I did:

  • 3/4 cup of skim milk, 
  • table spoon of cream cheese
  • table spoon of sour cream, butter (3/4 cup maybe? I can't remember...I'll probably do less next time) 
  • salt, pepper, garlic, parsley, italian seasoning & parmesan cheese (& whatever else you feel like)
  • Left over onions & tomatoes that were formerly used for taco toppings
  • 2 splashes of cheap white wine
Start with the butter, add the garlic, then the creams (milk, sour cream & cream cheese) then add in the seasonings, your left overs, veggies & wine. Once it boils, stir it up for a while, then put it on simmer till the rest of your food (in my case, scallops & baked potatoes) are done cooking, then mix in the pasta & whatever else with the sauce & impress the pants off of your dinner guests. Voila! I had already told Greg I was going to blog about the table make-over & while we were eating our dinner tonight he said "You should blog about this". His wish is (usually) my command. Enjoy!

After dinner we cleaned up & headed outside to put the primer on the table. Honestly, even after just primer on it, she's lookin' like a brand new girl. I'm really impressed with her! There's this one detail about the table that I particularly enjoy & it's these small little round dots that adorn each corner. Maybe in it's next life (perhaps in a future office of mine?) I'll paint those little nobs a different color to make them stand out. I just love them.

Even though the tables not even half way done yet I am SO excited about drinking coffee & eating dinner at our new (to us) patio table.  Greg said he could hear the fans at Wrigley tonight singing the Cubs victory song while he was sanding earlier...I mean, who doesn't love a little MLB action on their very own deck? Of course one of the big reasons we plan to spend so much time out on the patio is because of our sweet puppies, who simply must be outside as often as possible. I'm already scheming to add an outdoor friendly dog bed to the patio...MollyMutt is #mahfave. I can't wait!

Today was a super Sunday. I had SO much fun organizing & projecting & I can NOT wait to finish up that little table & drink my coffee outside on Wednesday morning.

Craftily,
Meggo