There is over a foot of snow outside and a sick baby inside. The kids have made their snowmen, their snow fort, their snow thrones and now we are inside trying not to get restless.

It helps that we had a Christmas tree to set up, and snowflakes to cut out.



It helps that Campbell doesn't mind keeping an eye on his baby sister while he reads the Lemony Snicket novels so that I can take care of the other children.



It helps that their father is helping them make a very cool castle out of paper, and that when he is not available they can play Cathedral together, and that when they are tired of Cathedral he tapes together an entire room-full of newspaper so that they can color in castles, knights and dragons.



And it helps that at the end of the day they all (for the most part) go to sleep nicely. And that I am left with a moment of peace, rocking Gypsy in the soft glow of the Christmas lights.

This is the hutch I picked up off the Freecycle list last month.



I wish I had taken a picture of it all put together before I took everything apart and started working on it because it was so truly horrid! The person I got this from must have had it in their kitchen for a very long time because the whole thing was sticky and entirely covered in grease. There was dirt and all sorts of things stuck to that. I ended up taking almost the entire thing to pieces and scrubbing it all.



This is the bottom painted but not assembled. Some of the fiberboard backing couldn't be salvaged so I had to cut that off completely.



Now that it is finished I wish I had done a more careful job with it because I actually like the way it looks and don't mind having it in my house. I wasn't very careful when I put it together and think I may have actually glued some of the pieces together crookedly. I also should have painted it with a gloss but didn't want to spend the money so found some eggshell in the back of one of our closets leftover from the previous homeowners. I also replaced the knobs with some white ceramic ones from Target. That oyster color is actually kind of nice and I am thinking about matching it this summer when I paint our Living Room.



It is not very sturdy and probably won't last too terribly long in our crazy house, but for now it looks kind of pretty and is doing a great job displaying my favorite cookbooks- and hiding the kid's messy schoolbooks behind those bottom doors!