Table Make Over

My kitchen table isn't very old.  It's been with us for at least 10 years.  It's got all kinds of "love" marks all over it.  Especially on the end where both of my boys have sat and learned to eat.  There are perfectly spaced fork gouges, nicks and scratches on the table top.  It's been lovingly antiqued over the years.  It's dark brown and I was tired of it, but didn't feel like shelling out the money for a new one.  This one is working just fine.  I just couldn't justify the expense.  So I got it into my head that I was going to paint it.

I did the only logical thing to do and went to Pinterest and typed "table make overs".  All kinds of things popped up.  All kinds of work I didn't want to do also cropped up - sanding, staining, base coats, top coats, glossing.  I was especially keen on avoiding the whole sanding bit.  I've got 6 chairs, and I did NOT want to spend all of my time sanding those things.  Enter - chalk paint. I'd seen it on several blog posts and read about people who did various projects with it.  I really had no idea what it was so I googled that too.  Turns out it's not that easy to find.  Anne Sloan chalk paint (a pretty famous brand) is only sold in independent shops to promote small businesses, which means for Switzerland it's nearly impossible to locate.  But I did.  I found it at some small boutique near Interlaken.  Thank goodness she ships, because my table make over would have turned quite pricey otherwise.  And the one major selling point is that you are supposed to be able to slap it on any project with very little prep work, which means no sanding.  
I was sold.

Here are all my supplies.  

I started with a chair.  

I really liked the results.  Off I went to paint 5 more chairs and the table.  It was a lot of work and for a while we had a half painted table.  I would paint one chair at a time, wait for it to dry and then rotate it around until all chairs were finished.  But now it's done and I'm pretty excited about it.

Isn't it pretty?

I've retired my DIY skills for a little while.  This was a big project and I think it will be my last for quite some time.  A friend of mine came over the other day and said she felt like she should eat Mexican food on top of it.  Sounds good to me.  Now if my jalapeño plants (teaser for next blog post)  will just get a move on it, we can do just that.  

Pickles

I've learned to live without decent dill pickles.  They just don't exist here.  They have jars that wear labels that say dill on the front, but it's pretty much false advertising.  They have dill plant floating around inside and that some how qualifies it to be deemed a dill pickle.  But friends, they are not really that great or very dill, to say the least.  So I did what any girl would do.  I tried to make my own.  

I looked up a recipe, rolled up my sleeves and went to work.  

I found some decent looking cucumbers.

Then I discovered that the dill flavor actually comes from dill seed and not dill plant.  When I went to the spices row in the grocery store I could not find any dill seed.  I could only find dried dill plant.  I stood there for a little bit trying to decide what to do.  I turned myself around and marched right into the nursery and picked up a packet of dill seed.  

Ta Da!

I could already taste the dill pickles.  

Next, I chopped up my cucumber, threw in the spices and then shoved those pickle slices right into the jar.

The recipe I found used apple cider vinegar.  Seemed good to me.  I put all the ingredients together (all whopping 3 of them) and made the brine.

Next you poor the brine over your pre-pickles and voila!  Put the lid on, put it in the fridge and wait a couple days.  And that's what I did.

My first batch was alright.  They were definitely dill, but the apple cider was so strong I wasn't a fan.

So I made them again, but this time with regular old white vinegar.  

Here is a video of me sampling my pickles after the 48 hour wait.  And for those of you who catch the Andy Griffith show reference, you get a gold star.

Alright, here's my thought.  They weren't great.  I'll admit it.  They weren't terrible either, but just not the dill pickle I was hoping for.  Looks like it's back to the drawing board.