sniderkin

We’ve been looking for a dresser for Cavan’s room for awhile, but didn’t want to spend a fortune on one since it will likely be drawn on and stickered over the years, and we wanted something cute. Turns out, cheap, durable, and cute are pretty impossible to find so I decided to take it upon myself to buy an unfinished dresser ($39 at IKEA) and paint it myself.

Cavan helps me unpack the pieces of his dresser

My painting setup - priming on the kitchen table. The project took me a total of 4 days because of waiting for paint to dry, having to work primarily during naptime, and having to have everything cleaned up before cooking dinner.

The first day I tried to just lock Cavan out of the kitchen, he played nicely on the chairs for awhile, spent some time throwing things into the kitchen, and then decided the best way to get my attention was to cause trouble in the living room.

I chose to make the dresser blue and orange, I used a super high gloss latex based paint (easy to clean/touch up.) Here’s the blue in progress…

The orange in progress… - notice I had to improvise and raise the panels using canned goods so that I could paint the sides the same day as the faces.

Assembly starts - Cavan was awake during this process, he sat on me and the dresser most of the time, but he did take time to be a good helper.

Here Cavan is inspecting the screws he helped me put in. By help, I mean sat on my lap and held the screwdriver as I tried to turn it.

Once Cavan and I got the dresser assembled, he had to make sure the knobs weren’t loose.

And, the finished project!

Cavan playing with his new dresser, I think he approves!

Cavan and I went to Olive Park along the lakeshore last week when it was nice and sunny. We were both getting over a cold, but I thought the fresh air might help clear it up. If nothing else, it was very nice to get outside!

This is what I see as soon as I unbuckle Cavan from his stroller…His back side as he makes a break for it!

Cavan exploring the park, notice the big puddle in the background? Yeeeah, so did he.

He’s a happy boy, and he loves to explore!

Cavan exploring, notice his feet are moving so fast there’s a blur. He definitely keeps me on my toes!

There’s a long fence that goes along a sort of pier-park out into the lake, Cavan had fun inspecting it.

Who’s that handsome boy?!

I managed to get him to hold still for about 30 seconds by laying down the Lego mat we bought for our next project, the Lego Table!

Cavan really likes to inspect every little thing, he demonstrates this below by poking at a plant. As he was doing this, a herd of young women rode up on shiny rented bikes with bells and Cavan ran over to them as they parked to watch the lake. Luckily they thought he was cute, because he wanted to inspect every one of their bike tires before giving them each a flirty grin. They took turns ringing the bells on the bikes to get him to come over to them.

Here’s a picture I took with my phone during lunch a couple weekends ago, Cavan sitting waiting for his food patiently and playing with his airplane. Shannon didn’t like the faux-hawk, I thought it was cute!

And, in keeping with tradition, here’s your dose of Cavan weirdness:

I was cooking dinner and turned around to see this:

Cavan has also learned that when he’s stashing things away the trash isn’t the best place for them, the filing boxes are! (Note the bunny nibbles - luckily this box hasn’t been in use for some time)