Author: peterb51

8th September 2022

We were in the pool for possibly the last time this year. The temperature takes a bit of a dip next week, and the water today was a little fresh, but we both grinned and bared it.

It was a sad day with the news of the passing of Queen Elizabeth the second, both Kelli’s children called to see if I was all right, which was touching.

It was an interesting day, she had been Queen for all my life, and it will be strange not seeing her profile on the stamps.

Charles has now got his first dream job in seventy three years. I was telling Kelli about the various comic sketches on Spitting Images, showing Charles’s puppet trying various ways of bumping off the Queen, saying “please mummy let me be king”, I can see the funny side of it, but Kelli was horrified that it would appear on tv.

7th September 2022

I had a number of drawers to repair, these were obviously made very cheaply, no dovetails here, just nails, classy furniture.

We cycled down to the lake at Point West, only the second time year, we passed straight through the security gate that is now empty for the rest of the year.

Although Kelli knows someone who has a lakeside cottage there, the mention of their name always gets us through.

She wasn’t alway comfortable using the name to gain entrance, it felt better when there was no guard there.

The lake was a shimmering expanse of diamonds in the bright sunlight. There weren’t many people on the beach, the holidaying families had all gone home, there were a few cottage owners doing garden maintenance, no doubt sitting on a stash of dollars paid to them in rental fees that on the lake front are not cheap.

6th September 2022

We drove the last dresser that we bought up to Georgia’s garage to store, and to celebrate, we collected another from Zeeland and stored that as well.

Although our garage is full, we will sell what we have and be able to control the space better. No longer will I be freaked out by the amount of stuff in there, I won’t trip and fall over things.

The temperature is starting to drop, although the bike ride was fresh and still okay with short sleeves.

There was plenty to get on with. We finished the single side table, Kelli posted it on Marketplace quickly.

I got on with cutting radius’s to the corners of the coffee table, and sanding the dining table.

Wow! That is hard work. The original table was made in Indonesia and the clear coating is as hard as steel. I managed to do about a quarter before I got bored and did something else.

We managed to get a bike ride in and on the way back we stopped off at Kim’s house. Kim is Kelli’s ex-sister in law, and we wanted to check out some old windows she had for sale.

I noticed a guitar neck sticking out of the dust bin. Being nosy, I pulled it out, it looked perfect except that a repair had been made to the headstock. At some time it had snapped off from the neck and glued back together.

The guitar was Matt’s, Kelli’s brother, he didn’t think the repair was good enough, and hadn’t wanted to use it.

I watch a guy on YouTube who repairs guitars so I thought I might have a go at putting it right.

The problem was getting it home, it wasn’t a long way, but a guitar is not the easiest shape to carry on a bike.

First we thought of strapping it to the back of Kelli’s bike, on top of the battery pack. It had two bungees that came with the bike, we used them to tie it down. Keillor traveled three feet before it slipped down and nearly hit the road.

The only alternative was for me to carry it in my right hand.

It must have been odd for people to see me riding down the road with a guitar flaying in the wind. I had to be carful crossing roads, hoping that I didn’t need to use the brake, because that was the hand I was using to hold the instrument.

Tonight was “Take out” night, so I drove to Hop Cat to collect our meal. I had to wait for a while and had a beer at the bar. It had been ages since I’ve done that, it felt special, and tasted great.

5th September 2022

The customers for the tall dresser arrived early, we were hoping for a lie-in being a holiday, but no, we had a quick breakfast and opened up the garage.

They had come from Grand Haven which means that a lot of our recent customers have come from that area.

They brought with them a coffee table that had areas of damage caused by a small dog.

Two of the corners of the top had teeth marks, and they agree to have the four corners rounded.

We then went to collect a another dresser spotted by my observant wife, who seems to think the garage is the size of a cathedral.

The rest of the day was spent with the family who came over for Labour Day the official end of the summer.

I managed to get up courage to ask my mother in law it we could store our “backlog” in her garage. I crawled lower than a snakes belly, and was overjoyed when she said we could.

It just so happened that we have one in the truck, and we are picking up another tomorrow.

4th September 2022

We made a return trip the the house with the fairytale garden. We wanted to thank them in person for letting us explore their yard.

The man of the house was Bill and his wife was Jeanine, they moved into the house in 1991 and have spent the last thirty one years creating this masterpiece. They built the various buildings out of reclaimed materials.

The large rounded windows in the Greek temple came from an old church, and the bottom half of the same windows were used to build the greenhouse.

It was great to meet the people who made it all and were proud to show it to anyone who was interested.

We left with an open invitation to visit any time we wanted.

I started an experiment to re-seed a portion of my new lawn damaged by dog piss.

I had bought a bag of seed more resistant to animal pee as an attempt to stop the unsightly brown patches.

I mixed the seed into a bucket containing good quality lawn soil, then I scraped the dead grass and then soaked the area before sowing the soil/seed mix. I then covered it with a fine net to stop the dogs, birds and squirrels.

Now I wait and see what comes up.

3rd September 2022

House cleaning is never enjoyable, and at four in the morning it is even less when I’m trying to sleep. Kelli had a bad night, so she took out her anger by cleaning the house.

Of course when she has a sleepless night so do I, and the next day is torture, but we tried to finish a couple of pieces.

I pulled out the dining table we picked up the other day from the back of the truck. It was heavy so I stripped off the legs and under frame to make it easier.

The damage was then made obvious because it looked like the legs had come from something else and crudely attached to the frame with pocket screws. Some of them had split the legs, so some extensive repairs need to be done to this bad boy.

I took a drive to Menards to buy some paint, and bird food, stopping off at Starbucks for a black coffee, this was just the kick I needed

2nd September 2022

The air was thick with the sound of workmen re-fitting the last fallen cable, well no there wasn’t. True there was a bunch of yellow dressed men standing around our house talking, whilst their three big vehicles, still with the engines running lined the road.

Eventually something caused the men to jump into action and go an do their jobs.

I never got round to cutting the wire, so that was winched back into position on the pole, the last remanent of the Sunday night storm.

We had a couple of pruning jobs to do whilst I had fun making some short legs for a mid century side table that’s been hanging around in the garage for ages.

Later we went on a bike ride, or an adventure to find a house that had a fantastic garden full of flowers.

The trouble was Kelli couldn’t remember where it was. I thought I knew the direction, but after riding up and down the road we couldn’t find it, or it would only appear on even days of the week. Finally she looked on the GPS and we headed in the opposite direction to which I had suggested. I had the excuse of being a newcomer.

We finally found the road and the house.

The owners were just reversing down the drive as we arrived, and seeing that we were interested in their garden gave us permission to look around.

It was a garden of amazing flowers and shrubs, a wild assortment of height and colours, but as we explored the path, it led us to another secret garden with strange objects and wind chimes hanging from trees.

To the furthest point there was a small cottage, a beautiful secluded hideaway full of fairytale character and charm.

Along another pathway was a seating area made from old round shaped windows reminiscent of a Greek temple all this was hidden in a Holland suburb.

Everywhere we looked there was an unusual object. A coloured snake was positioned at the base of a tree, to anyone unsuspecting it could give them a heart attack.

1st September 2022

It was going to be a chilled day, we had planned to wash the garage door. It was decidedly dirty and my little test clean area didn’t help, but that didn’t happen.

Kelli arranged to show the lady who wanted matching side tables, our latest creations.

The time was set for five thirty, but there were things I still needed to do. The tops had to be fitted and oiled, there was a drawer runner missing that had to be made and fitted. Plenty of time for that I thought, and making good progress I then discovered that the drawers wouldn’t close properly. That I couldn’t understand, because I had done nothing to the carcass except for some repairs at the back.

Anyway, I had to trim the back of the drawer front so that it cleared the cross rail of the carcass.

I managed all that without any more surprises, so to celebrate we had lunch at the Way Cup cafe.

It was warm enough for a dip in the pool, a great relief.

The lady came for the side tables, and was happy with them, more money in the bank and a happy customer, getting September off to a flying start.

Kelli also found a free dining table with a damaged leg, so we went off to collect that.

This was successful which is more than could be said about our other attempt to collect a dresser.

We were returning from our bike ride when we noticed a white dresser in the driveway of the house that was having a garage sale because the owner was moving, this was obviously not sold, so was out for free.

We rushed back to get the truck, but in the time it took someone else had got there before us. That was a blow, but all’s fair in grabbing free stuff.

31st August 2022

I noticed that the temperature is down in the morning as I have to wear my work coat until it warms up, a sure sign that the autumn will soon be here.

I had two desk tops to cut down to fit the side tables, that was going to be my limit because I had to use a chemical stripper to remove the old finish, a dirty and smelly job.

We still have a wire hanging down across the back garden, so Kelli was on the phone to the power people again.

They sent a man round to survey the situation.

After a quick glance he said “It’s not one of ours, it looks like a phone line, you will need to get on to your phone provider for them to reinstall it”

That is all well and good if we knew who the phone provider was, as we don’t have a landline.

Kelli then got on the phone to AT&T who agreed to send someone round.

The man from AT&T arrives and I showed him the wire,

“That’s not one of ours, that looks like a cable tv line.”

We walked next door to see where the wire was attached.

The was still a thick cable laying on the ground, the other end was still attached to the pole down the end of the street.

“That end here has to be attached to the pole, I guess the cable people will reattach it, and that will lift your cable up out of your yard.”

Kelli then contacted Comcast, the cable provider.

The man from Xfinity arrived, I showed him the wire.

“That’s not ours, that’s AT&T’s ,ours is already up there” he said pointing to the second cable down on the pole, “They’ll have to come and reattach it”

I explained that the man from AT&T said it wasn’t theirs, a bit of head scratching occurred “ Well it’s not ours” he replied.

“ Can I just cut the bloody thing myself?” I asked.

“ I guess” he replied, “if you don’t have a land line, just cut it, coil it up and leave it next to the cable that’s still on the ground”.

So that is what I will do, tomorrow.

30th August 2022

James Dyson went through the wringer again today. The handheld V6 model was pulsing, meaning that it was not sucking properly.

I had all the comments about it being crap, badly designed and overrated, but I was not going to let the stalwart of British entrepreneurship get slagged of any more, it was time for “ Repairman Pete” to take things in hand.

I have become quite familiar with the product, and with a handful of tool can disassemble it in a short time. Normally this problem is down to filters, so that is my first thing to do. I changed it for a new one, but still the problem persisted. This meant checking the other filter at the pre motor side. This cover was a bitch to remove, but with the aid of a knife, fork and spool it came apart in my hands.

It didn’t seem very dirty, but one of the foam filters disintegrated in my hands. This piece was not available in the spare parts list, I expect no one from Dyson expects anyone to open this part of the appliance, that’s why it was so difficult. I manage to replicate a filter of sort, and reassembled everything.

I pulled the trigger again and it still pulsed.

“What the heck” I shouted, frightening the dogs, in desperation I looked down the end of the short tube that we had been using, and it was blocked. That was the problem all along!

I had spent a good hour cussing and breaking fingernails to fix the damn thing when that was the first thing I should have checked.

Note to self, do the bleedin’ obvious before doing anything else.

The customer arrived to collect the long dresser, she barely looked at it or even try all the drawers, it was “yes I’ll take it” and in the back of her van it went.

Kelli went on a painting spree to prime the two side tables and drawers, but I forgot to clean the gun out afterwards. It wasn’t till I was in bed that I remembered, so panic stations ensued.

I managed to clean everything, fortunately it was not the paint that sets hard in the gun, so a good soak was all it needed.

Then it was back to bed, and you guessed it, to dream about cleaning spray equipment.