Dan, Dan the Handy Man!

Folklore and misty legends seemed to surround all the descriptions of Ryan's dad before I had even met him.  Stories about him attempting to build some sort of machine that would create holograph images of his children so that he could then use a laser to carve busts of everyone.  About moving a large roll of carpet to the second floor by hooking up a pulley system to the car and having the carpet pulled up the outside of the house and through the window.  Those are just two of my favorite stories and I think that in this case, the stories all seem to be true.  

It's not surprising that for his visit we saved up a few household projects that needed to be completed.  It was good to watch him in action and have Melinda explain the steps.   With his help we got baby locks on the sink cupboards, the dryer to (hopefully) stop leaving marks on our clothes, a quote for the AC in the car (I know all of you 'SC friends who drove with us to San Diego twice won't forget that clicking sound!), and the new changing table painted and set up.  

It was perfect timing for this changing table!  I found it at a garage sale for 20 bones last Friday morning.  Dan and Melinda arrived later that afternoon and plans were laid.  I was so excited when I saw it at the garage sale, I asked the lady to hold it for me for ten minutes while I ran home to get money.  I had Willa in the stroller and after our purchase (after I paid, she put it inside until we could pick it up that night) we went on an extra long run.

Here he is reading some instructions and thinking, the spiritual creation period:

                                      

Here is the changing table during spiritual creation phase.  Not to shabby, eh?  This neighborhood has the BEST garage sales!  We decided to paint this pretty thing white.

The physical creation begins.  He has lots of good ideas and advice.  For example, painting outdoors on our balcony = bad idea.  "Stuff" could blow into the wet paint and get stuck there.  Brilliant!  Instead, we put a drop cloth on the floor and on the kitchen table, then painted it up there.  

 The finished product.  There's a little baby with a naked bum in the corner :)!

Yay!  I'm still so pleased with myself for finding it and I think it looks so great!  We've been wanting something since we took down the pack 'n' play because she likes to do all kinds of rolling instead of laying patiently to get a diaper change, but they all seemed really expensive.  Overall, the cost of paint, paintbrushes, etc. more than doubled the garage sale cost.  BUT, the Dan added in his military discount, we added in a Home Depot gift card that we found from our wedding!!!, and then Dan paid for the rest because he is a sweetheart.  So really, it didn't cost us a dime more, but Dan and Melinda now own half of it.