We’ve been needing to make new soap shelves to take to the various festivals and shows we do. It’s been on our (rather lengthy) to do list for quite a while.

So we had them done in plenty of time, right?

Of course right.

Well, actually I mean no. Not unless you consider starting them 3 days before our big soap show to be “plenty of time”.

Jim cut all the pieces in the barn/garage/workshop without incident (ok, maybe there were a few incidents, but all he will admit to are 2 broken router bits). Then he sanded down all the pieces.

Now it was my turn to stain the shelves. Not a problem. I had an entire day to get it done. I just needed to do the first coat early in the morning. Let it dry. Then do the second coat in the afternoon. Piece of cake.

Except for the fact that it was something like 10 degrees outside. Stain doesn’t dry very well when it is 10 degrees.

So you know what that meant. That meant I had to stain them inside. Inside the house. Inside my house! And I had to do it with a cheerful attitude because the children were watching – which of course was much harder than the actual staining.

First thing I did was to send Colter after some tarps.

Cole: “Mom, there are no tarps.”

Me: “What do you mean there aren’t any tarps?”

Cole: “There aren’t any.”

Me: “Doesn’t Dad have tarps somewhere?”

Cole: “Nope.”

Me: “What about the tarps in the garden shed?”

Cole: “I can’t reach those.”

Me: “Of course you can – climb up there.”

Cole: “They’re full of dirt.”

Me: “That’s ok, shake it out outside.”

Cole: “Mom, there are mice in them.”

Me: “Mice? Ok, no tarps.”

So – onto plan B – which involved the recycle bin.

The children had fun spreading every piece of paper we could find all over the floor. It looked like a tornado hit:

And of course I didn’t make it clear that they were supposed to clean up the floor before they laid down all those papers So as you walked, you kept stepping (or tripping) on bumps under the newspaper.

Then proceeded the staining lessons. I had Brett, Cole, and Emery do the bulk of the work. As long as you don’t look too closely it looks great.

Once they were stained, Jim put them all together. And tada! – new soap shelves! And we even had 12 hours to spare.  

These are the risers that sit out front and hold the display soaps (I stained these):

Not a bad looking soap display. 😉 Now, if I can only remember to stain the next set on a warm, dry day!