Author: peterb51

18th September 2022

Off I went to see if the tailboard was still there.

Even before breakfast, with my hair untidy and hidden by a cap I set off. There had been a heavy rain storm during the night, so it would have got a good soaking.

As I approached the turning, I couldn’t see it, my heart sank.

A lot of the pieces had been taken, the large bench was still there and also a few chipboard panels, but there, my heart stopped, the tailboard was there, laying on the ground.

I swung the truck around and threw it into the back and headed home.

It was a funny day, I was supposed to work on the garden, but the pool had to be emptied, so I had to set the pump up and attach hoses and drain the water.

I had to apply some lawn food to the front grass, and I noticed that my reseeded area was sprouting.

I had fun working on the tail board, the turned section was made from three pieces glued together then turned, all I had to do was split the glue joint. I used a heat gun to soften the glue and metal scrapers to force the piece apart. It could have gone horribly wrong, but it didn’t. Armed with the small wooden piece I glued it into position on the headboard, now it was complete.

I started digging out the new flower beds on the raised garden, there is a lot of turf to remove, with the sun beating down on my slightly burning head I made a start.

I loaded up the wheely bin with as much spoil as I thought the container could safely manage, and called it a day.

17th September 2022

Kelli’s peripheral vision struck again. The inertia reel seatbelts saved me head butting the dashboard as she made a u-turn.

She had spotted a collection of items outside a paint storage wear house and we were speeding back to the location.

And she was right, there were a couple of headboards, a couple of chairs, a brand new double glazed window, a tatty melamine cupboard and a home computer table.

Well, the bed bits and the window went straight into the back of the truck, then we headed off to lunch.

It was an odd series of events that led us to be in the area. It was my idea to have lunch at our favourite cafe, and Kelli’s that we took the road that the furniture was on, so we could have been guided by the universe to have these items.

I assembled the carcass of the kitchen cabinet, the front rails were tenoned and bonded in with epoxy, the back rails were screwed, these would be hidden by the back panel.

Kelli couldn’t wait to start on the headboards having them primed before the end of the day.

I did notice that one of the legs had part of the turned section missing, this would typically be against the wall, so no big deal.

Later that night whilst sitting in bed, I had a thought about the tail board that we didn’t take, because there was only one. If it hadn’t been grabbed by someone else, and was still there I could cannibalise it to repair the headboard.

Now we were thinking about getting out of bed and driving over to the place to see if it was still there, but we decided to wait until morning, but it didn’t stop us from thinking about it all night.

16th September 2022

We had someone who was interested in the sarcophagus, the joy was in my face.

I had my own challenges like cutting the tenons for the front rails of the kitchen unit.

There was a rebate that I had to machine for the back panel, a simple job some might say, but not for me. I could have used the table mounted router, but the bed is small and trying to hold a wide panel would be tricky.

I decided to use a clamp fence and run the router alone it. Everything was set up, I double checked the dimensions and switched the machine on. It was going well, then I noticed the fence had slipped about a millimetre, meaning my rebate was wider at one end.

Now I was in recovery mode, I had to correct the other end to make a parallel cut. All this faffing around took time, but eventually the rebates, and the tenons were complete.

Kelli on the other hand had a wild hair and repainted the tall dress because she thought the original colour was the reason it hadn’t sold. Off she went in a cloud of white paint, within a short time it was transformed, pictures taken and posted. Minutes later it was sold, I have learned never to question Kelli’s instincts.

15th September 2022

I finally went to the landscaping store to get some rocks to fill the gabions.

The ones I had at the cottage I filled with stones I found and scavenged, but round here there is none to be found in the wild. My only option was to see what they had available.

I ended up with some grey Mexican beach pebbles ranging from two to four inches. They were quite expensive, but I bought four bags to try out.

Once I was back home I tried the pebbles in one of the gabions building a wall around the perimeter hoping to fill the middle with smaller rocked, but it was difficult to do as the pebbles were odd shape and didn’t lend themselves to being stacked, so that idea failed. The pebbles would have to fill the gabions , but that would cost two hundred dollars for each, a bit much, I need to rethink.

Keli finished painting the sarcophagus, it was too heavy to carry into the house, it would have required six pole barers to lift that bugger.

We took pictures outside, and even lifting it off the trolley nearly strained my greens, I hope whoever buys it has strong floors.

14th September 2022

It was my first visit to Holland’s Farmers market. We rode on our bikes, just a short distance from the park, our frequent destination.

It consists of stalls either side of a short road, each lined with vegetables and fruit. It occurs on Wednesdays and Saturdays and may become a popular excursion for us.

We filled our bags with plumbs, potatoes and a string of sprouts that stuck out from my saddle bag like an alien spine.

I stripped the second small table, I thought was in worst condition than the first, but after removing the old finish and giving it a dose of oxalic acid the veneer looked great, so just the large one to go.

Kelli painted the sarcophagus, it is a big bigger, and received new knobs from Amazon, it should look great.

I made a start on the kitchen cabinet cutting the end panels to size, I had fun chasing the squareness around, but I got there in the end.

13th September 2022

What a difference a day makes, today I was full of energy and wanting to get started on the backlog.

I lifted one of the “Lane” style tables from the store room. I removed the screws holding the top on and started scraping off the surface. There was a dark stain in the middle that I treated with oxalic acid. In between that I sanded the drawer fronts from the sarcophagus.

Earlier we went for a ride to the park. On the way we were overtaken by a lady on a racing bike all dressed up in cycling gear. I didn’t think anything of it as we plodded on with the wine of Kelli’s electric motor in my right ear.

The lady shot ahead, then after a while she slowed, or we speeded up. Very soon we we right on her tail, now there was a decision to make, should we sail past with a smug look on our faces, or stay behind, Kelli took that decision and shot off like a rocket sailing past the lady like she was standing still. I tried to follow at the same pace, but not using the assistance it was a little more difficult.

I made up the distance eventually as Kelli switched down the level of assistance.

The lady cyclist disappeared in our dust as we continued on to the park. You could tell that autumn was just around the corner, a few golden maple leaves lay on the grass, where did the year go? It used to last for ages.

Kelli was determined to prime the sarcophagus, so that was the goal.

I had fixed two trollies together as the piece was nearly six foot long, this made it easier to move about.

Whilst she was doing the painting I wanted to draw out the kitchen cabinet full size on a board to check all the dimensions. The client wants to put a micro wave in the top part, so I needed to check out the clearances they gave me.

I finished the day watering the areas I had reseeded. The dog resistant grass was growing well, the tiny shoots had sprouted and filling the space nicely. Out the front there was no activity, but it’s early days, maybe next week things might happen.

12th September 2022

One important job to do was to remove the dresser from the truck. I have called the piece The sarcophagus. While Kelli was cleaning the beast I did some lawn-dressing and re-seeding on the front lawn. Knowing my luck with seeding I don’t expect much, although, there are signs of life in the area I seeded with the piss resistant grass. There is stuff called Dog Rocks that is added to their drinking water to reduce the nitrogen in the urine, that might be option B.

Both of us didn’t sleep very well last night, it might have something to do with it being a full moon.

The day was a non day, a bit of cleaning, moving stuff around, we both were not energised at all.

11th September 2022

We were up early to collect the mother of all dressers. The last time I carried something that heavy it had a body inside.

Three of us struggled to load it into the truck, it’s suspension groaned under the weight. Even taking the drawers out made little difference, I can’t wait when it’s time to extract it from our vehicle.

We were expecting a person to view, and hopefully buy the dresser, but the agreed time came and went with no sigh of anyone.

Now it just so happened that a coffee table that I had been repairing was due to be collected late afternoon, the customer had also showed interest in the dresser, so it could work out anyway.

And that’s what happened, we sold the dresser and got paid for the coffee table.

The original person that wanted the dresser had forgotten all about it, tough luck lady, you snooze, you lose.

11th September 2022

We hosted a birthday party for Kelli’s sister in law Brenda who is Matt’s wife.

She wanted to hold the event in our garden because she loved the flowers and enjoyed the space. We were happy to help her celebrate, and it was an opportunity to have all of Kelli’s children there.

There was cake and I bought a bottle of sparkling wine that I would drink, maybe giving a glass to Brenda.

We finally had a game of pickleball which is like short tennis. We’ve had the net in the front of the garage for the last three months but we never had the time to play.

At the end of the party we even had time to take pictures of the latest dresser.

It was posted and immediately had several people on it.

9th September 2022

Whilst floating in the pool for an extra day, I was looking across the bottom end of the garden where the wild flowers have taken over I spied a very rare sight, at least in this garden, this year, it was an apple growing on one of our trees. Okay it’s not a big apple, but something is growing at last.

I had thought that by having two apple trees of different varieties they would cross pollinate, but it looks like I have the most unsociable apple trees ever.

It was a hotter day than expected, I was able to get a couple of coats of finish on the long dresser top.

There was also a trip to Menards to buy timber for a kitchen cabinet that I have been commissioned to make, that should be a straight forward job that I will turn into a complicated over engineered piece.