A Prince's Suite

Princess Kate of ... Ok I don't know where she is from or what she is 'of' - Wellington? Cambridge? Who knows. Anyway, she's busy making over their palace and their royal apartment. Or something. I think I saw a headline on people. Ok my story is losing strength.

Princess Kate is making over their living quarters and designing Prince George's living quarters. Meanwhile, halfway around the globe, Prince Charles is having his suite designed as well.

Suite may be a stretch, but we'll go with it. It's almost a suite. It's a room with a closet...and it has a bed (crib) and a couch. So it's kind of like a suite right?

We haven't been busy worker bees like we were with William but hey - I've been a crazy insane worker bee with tax season and we have still been busy bees with William, so I'd say the fact that Charles has a mini-suite in the making at all is quite successful. If it were a third child (ahem...like me...) it'd be lucky to have a place to lay its head. :)

So - some updates for ya.

Austin refinished our/his/cici's old nightstands. Candace told me she bought them sometime around 1984, so they're about as old as me. She passed them on to Austin when they moved in with his step dad, and Austin took them when he moved into his first non-barracks place. We had them in our Denver house up until the last year or so and then we moved them to our guest room where they've resided ever since. They were constructed very well and the quality is great, so it was hard to ever imagine getting rid of them, they style just wasn't quite right for us. (Me) 

When I first pitched the idea to Austin I heard some grumbles so I thought I'd drop it. Next thing I knew he bought some sand paper and pitched some ideas right back at me! A few marital lessons along the way (amazing what you can learn by refinishing furniture) and hours of Austin's love poured in, we have a finished product!

Here they are in the first few stages of construction. It's hard to tell but he actually used his router to make the edging different than it used to be - has a softer feel to it, I like it a lot! Nice subtlety.

We found out halfway through the project that the top drawer was fitted for 3 inch handles and the bottom 2 was fitted for4 inch handles. This made hardware shopping challenging because there are very few matching handles of different sizes at local hardware stores. We finally found some we liked, then found out they really were fitted for custom handles...2 7/8 inch handles and 3 3/4 inch handles. Soooo back to the store we went to get wood filer and single knobs.

In the end - I like them much better with knobs as opposed to drawer pulls!

Today after one of the most stressful days of tax season I found some release in sorting through and organizing some of Charles's stuff. Not done at all but I like how the nightstands are working out - we need new lamp shades and I have an idea of what will actually belong on this one ultimately, but for now I'm enjoying the view of the cute gift basket and my sweet baby bear!

When Prince Charles's suite is complete, what do you think the odds are that Austin will go for my pitch to make this his next project?

And I think we've established what prop we will be using for Charles's monthly photos...

Horsie (big horsie not yellow horsie whose head moves on its own in a freaky way) came from a sweet sweet friend at Charles's baby shower. Shower you ask? Why yes - and I promise to write more on that. Someday.