Don’t you just love the smell of …

… wet neoprene in the morning!  (Okay, that has nothing to do with this post, but whenever someone says, “Don’t you just love the smell of …” I remember the kid who I did my scuba certification with.  We dove the first day, so our suits were wet when we pulled them on to do our final dives the next day.)

This is bound to be a scatter-brained post, since I have a few different thoughts bumping around in my head.  I read my sister-in-law’s post about whether blogs are supposed to be interesting or not.  Here is my response: If it’s not interesting, you can close the window, or stop reading, or whatever.  I don’t claim to have a unique or exciting life such that I’ll attract crowds to my blog.  In all reality, there’s probably just a smattering of friends and family reading it.  It’s my blog, so I’ll write about what I find interesting, and you can decide whether to keep reading or not.

Now on to the real subject of this post:

… wood stain in the garage?  Let me start by introducing my dad.  He’s a fantastic carpenter.  Not by trade, but by hobby, and he’s very good at it.  Here’s proof:

This is my oak dresser that my dad made for me for my 12th birthday.  Yes, that is a glass inlay on top. And it is solid oak.  You don’t know how many times someone has gone to move it (we’ve moved a number of times in the last few years), counted out “one … two … three” and then does that jerk thing that means you tried to lift something, but it was heavier than you expected.  It’s solid.  It’s beautiful.  And it has survived a number of cross-country moves.

I’d also like to post a pic here of my bed that my dad and I built together when I got home from my mission, but I don’t have one.  It’s a marvel of engineering, with the bed sitting five ft. high and a computer desk beneath it.  It’s also the only reason I have any clue how to work with wood.

Here’s the heart of the matter.  We had a little, oak bookshelf that was “wounded” in the last move.  It lost both of it’s shelves and the back piece is hanging off the back.  It also got a some nasty water damage (or something) on top that left it all warped and discolored.  It’s a good, sturdy shelf, so I hated to chuck it.

So, I borrowed my dad’s sander last time we were there, and I sanded down the top.  There’s still a bit of discoloration, but it’s smooth.  I measured the interior space and went to Home Depot.  A very nice man cut one large piece of shelving (white pine, so you’ll see in the pic that the shelves took the stain different than the bookcase) into two pieces the size I needed.  I know it’s pathetic, but I was so proud of myself that I knew what I wanted and how to get it.  (I find Home Depot intimidating, I think, because my handy-man knowledge and skills are somewhat lacking.)

Maybe I do have something of my dad’s carpentry in me.  I found myself admiring the newly sanded wood, smiling at the way the bumps smoothed down, and loving the feel of sawdust on my fingers.

I didn’t think to take a “before” pic, but here’s the case and shelves after staining.  I’ve still got to put the polyurethane coat on it. 

You can still see a bit of the discoloration on the top, but it’s ten times better than it was, and I was worried I’d go right through the veneer if I kept sanding.

And now the final point.  After staining the bookcase and shelves and getting things put away in the garage, I went back inside and cleaned up.  Then I grabbed C and dragged him towards the garage to go see what I’d done.  When I opened the garage door, the smell of wood stain (which I’d gotten used to before cleaning up) hit me like a bag of bricks, and the first thing to cross my mind was, “Hey, now the garage smells right!”

Maybe it’s just that my dad was a carpenter, and the smell of sawdust and stain is something I grew up with, but I felt like I’d just christened the garage and it was now really a garage.  Now it smells like home.