This weekend we did a bunch of home improvement stuff. On Saturday Adrienne, who has grown increasingly bored and frustrated with the bland shade of whites and offwhites our house was entombed in, painted our kitchen a shade of cobalt blue. On Sunday I rented a floor sander from Home Despot and proceed to sand the hardwood floors in the front bedroom. Someone in the past decided that they should carpet these 70 year old oak hardwood floors, but before that they would paint the room in a shade of the despised white and said to themselves, "Bah! Why should I cover the floors with tarps since I'm going to be carpeting anyway". The result was paint all over the floor. Well this sander just mowed through all that and I happy to report the floors are close to being returned to their prior glory. We need to touch up around the areas that I couldn't reach with the uber-sander and rub some linseed oil in. Then it's a seal. Lovely. While I had the sander Adrienne had the brilliant idea to do the dining room table with the sander. =) So I took the top off of the table and laid it out in the front bedroom so I could free it from the shackles of a very dark stain and years of abuse. Some background on the table may be in order: 80 yrs ago my great grandfather built this table. He then handed it down to my grandfather, where it sat and selflessly served meals to my 6 aunts and uncles. It served up horizontal goodness for homework, cards and all the stuff that brings a family together and sometimes tears them apart. It sat in mute witness to my mother's and father's first date. My grandfather saw fit to refinish this guy twice. Then with the family sent into adulthood (unprepared of course, like all of us) the table moved to my parents house where it witnessed yet another first date on Christmas Eve 1985. One nervous Eric and one enthralled (so I've been told) Adrienne. Now with my grandparents, their standing waves having smoothed back into the background noise of this universe, and my parents, the proud owners of my mothers "first" new dining set, moving on, the table has moved into my home, where it sat and bemoaned the years inevitable decay. Now with it's shiny and "raw wood" new attitude it reflects the light on my family's face and once again serves proudly, providing much needed horizontal space for eating, scribbling, doing bills, drinking tea, holding bowls of fruit, catching mid morning sun... Perhaps someday, my son will grab a block and some sandpaper and refinish it again.