{Days 3 & 4} Porch & Kitchen Island Updates

Day 3
We stayed home today and I cleaned up some chairs I'd found on the curb last fall to use for our front porch and ran the cushions through the washer and dryer.   I also sanded our existing bench and restained with some Flood stain we had safely stored in our garage from a project a few years ago. Between the two chairs I put a planter that is resting on part of an old stainless steel trash can (which no longer worked because the foot pedal was broken).  I'd love to put some flowers in there, but since I'm really trying to not spend money I just transplanted a tiny dianthus and hope it will fill until I can fill it up with fresh plants.

weathered bench - before

refreshed porch - after

Sold: small desk & pair of kid's sandals ($29)
No regular household expenses, but I did buy a plane ticket for a short trip I'll be taking in the fall to hang out with my university girlfriends. The dates had just been set and I went searching, more out of curiosity than thinking I would buy it today. The price was better than I've ever seen to this particular small city.  I could have waited until this no spend month was over, but have often seen fares 50 to 100% more than what I paid, so it seemed better to go ahead and buy the ticket now.

Day 4
I worked on putting our kitchen island back together (we moved it when I put a new floor in) and gave it 2 coats of primer and 3 coats of paint on three of its sides. The paint was left over from painting our kitchen 6 years ago. Because we don't have a finish nailer to put the trim back on I ended up using some contact cement adhesive because we had that on hand, probably from a project my father-in-law did sometime when he was visiting.  Liquid Nails may have been a better choice, but since we did not have that on hand, we'll just see how it holds up. I'm not entirely pleased with the result of the paint, but I'll live with it for a while. The island panels are that cheap faux wood so I didn't have much to lose.  I did not paint the side with the doors and drawers since I'm still trying to decide if I want to gel stain that side and the rest of our kitchen cabinets.  Progress, not perfection.

kitchen island - before

kitchen island - after

 For the record, unfortunately, our island is never really this clean. Just want to be honest here.

A much easier project was to make some more capacity for composting, so I just drilled several holes in an old bin we had on hand. I realize it is not something beautiful to behold, but I'm using what I have, not spending big bucks on a new compost system.

simple compost bin

We stayed home for most of the day then a couple of us had evening events and our smoke alarms started giving fits so we bought two multipack of batteries to replace all of them.
Sold: travel high chair & another small desk ($40)
Expenses: $34.20 for batteries