to every thing there is a season

A time to be born, and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to paint furniture.

I just decided to quit painting furniture for money one day. 

Letting go of something you like to do can be hard. 

Saturday mornings I would drive around looking for perfect furniture at yard sales to paint. 

I would drag the kids to the thrift store every chance I would get. 

It was such a thrill to find unique pieces of furniture for a steal. 

I also loved how a coat of color made such a huge difference to a once tired boring dresser. 

Selling was fun- especially when I made quadruple the money I invested. 

before: (these are actually my mom and dad's bedside tables they used for years)

After: 

However, I started to evaluate my life and the time it took to find, prep, paint, sell...and I also factored in how I became super psycho mom every time I got the spray gun out. I  secretly wished I could cage up my kids for the 3 hours it took to paint and let my furniture dry. 

Before: Cami's hutch (see all the pile of unfinished furniture everywhere?)

After: 

Cami added the cute back to the bookshelf and I loved her choice of hardware. So fun.

I would read daily how to improve on painting furniture. I seemed to know a lot but knew there were more techniques to try and I knew I would eventually get really good if I kept at it. It was fun to learn a new skill. 

before: (Cami's dresser- which I decided was possessed by the devil by the time I finished it. This thing fought me to the end. It did not want to be painted yellow.) 

The picture quality isn't the greatest- bad camera and bad lighting. But BEAUTIFUL yellow. Right out of the 50's. Such a great color. 

And you have all seen the white table:

And then there was this huge random modern thing. I imagined it as a changing table for some boy's nursery. Sold quick. Before:

After:

And my blue desk- that I grew up with. I kept this. Christmas time 2010. 

I have other dressers and small projects I have painted but I can't find the pictures right now. 

My back porch and basement were cluttered with furniture waiting to be painted. You can see from some of the pictures that I had quite a few things to paint. I was always juggling time between being a mom to little ones and being a wife (Chay was not a fan of my Saturdays being eaten up by painting furniture). Most of the time it didn't feel like the right time to paint and so my collection of stuff became overwhelming. Chay was mostly patient with chairs in every corner and bed frames next to the BBQ grill.

Once I came to the decision to just let it all go- it seriously all went...fast. I sold every piece of furniture I had in 2 days on KSL. GONE. Space. Clean. Done. Over. 

 It just isn't the season in my life to do things that take me away from family. When I felt stressed, upset, confused, overwhelmed, cluttered, disorganized, moody and neglected family responsibilities too often over this certain hobby of mine despite how much I loved doing it- I knew that was the Lord telling me, "There will be another season for this April, just not now. "  

The hard part was listening. 

I finally did and I feel so FREE!

Now I have more time for the things most important in my life. Like these certain people for example: 

 Plus I hear it's not good to snort and sniff paint while pregnant.