Author: peterb51

1st March 2022

We had to deliver the dresser to a local address, leaving it in a small porch that was full of shoes of every description. Once I had moved about ten pairs I was able to squeeze myself out, and back in the fresh air.

Our next stop was to a lady who wants a jewellery drawer added to a large pine storage unit. I thought it was a better idea to not to bring the entire unit back just to make a narrow drawer, but to take measurements and make it in the garage.

The storage unit was in the bedroom, the ten watt light bulb was shining as bright as it could, that didn’t help much.

It turned out that the lady only wanted a single drawer, but it had to be designed to cope with kitchen style hinges, that dictated how I approached the exercise.

Once I had all the measurements, I started sketching ideas so that I could give her a quotation.

Although quite a simple job the cost of the materials was quite high, I need to try a different design, but I’m not sure she can afford it as it stands.

We sold the second dresser this evening at a bit of a knock down price, but it’s a sale I guess.

28th February 2022

Well at least it wasn’t snowing or raining, but that was the best of it. As we approached the end of February we had three dressers and a headboard that hadn’t sold, not something we were used to.

A positive thing was my new passport arrived, all blue and robust. It had a hard plastic page inside front page, and my picture appeared FOUR times just to rub it in. But the system works, and I don’t feel so vulnerable now.

I finished off edge banding the top for the buffet, managing to apply a dark stain at the end of the day.

I started repairing the top for the pot bellied baker table. It had a lot of nail hole that I am plugging with a similar coloured wood.

In the evening we managed to sell a small dresser to be delivered tomorrow, Yay!

27th February 2022

If ever there was a day to stay in bed this was the one.

I wanted to finish the large dresser that we have had for ages. It was not a beautiful piece, but we have tinkered around with it for ages.

One of the drawers had water damage that required a ton of Bondo and a lot of sanding to make it look okay. On the other veneered drawers there was a pale band going across the width where a finger grip had been attached. I had tried everything to blend it in, but with no success. Eventually I bought a can of toner to blend the colour. This worked okay, but left the fronts a bit dark. Anyway, I was drilling the holes for the handles and attached a strip of masking tape that I had marked with a centre line to align my drilling jig. After I had drilled the holes I lifted the tape a strip if the stained finish lifted off, I couldn’t believe it, this piece is doomed!

It ended up being painted, but I was pissed, angry with myself for screwing it up.

Once that was dried we carried it into the house to take pictures. It is a bit of a monolith, dark and foreboding, ideal for a goth mansion or whip storage for a dominatrix, both of which don’t reside in Holland.

The only flicker of light in the day was that someone bought the bench, at last.

26th February 2022

Another inch of snow fell overnight, it has to stop sometimes. It is true, the winter last longer here, I long to see the spring flowers.

We took the dogs for a walk around the lagoon, the lake is still frozen, but with the sun and blue sky it looks wonderful. Even the new snow sparkles like a million diamonds, what I’d give for a handful of those.

We took new pictures of the repainted dresser hoping that it will appeal to someone out there, but sales remain slow. It’s not a complete disaster month, but it would have been nice to match January’s numbers

25th February 2022

Another two inches of snow fell last night, where is it coming from? The poor lawn doesn’t know what is happening, one day it breathes again, the next it can’t, no wonder it’s so depressed.

We met up with Mike and Lesley at the vegan cafe for lunch at twelve. We weren’t very hungry as we had breakfast at eleven. Oh the high life, get up when we like, forget the time, have more food, but it’s alway good to meet up for a chat. Poor Kelli she is the foreigner among three Brits.

Afterwards we had to drive to the North side to collect a bookcase thing. It was cheap, but was obviously the top half of a hutch, that will need to be creatively adapted to look less like the top half of a hutch, mmmm, another challenge.

We posted the latest dresser on Marketplace, an example of a springtime theme that has sold well so far, ideal for the buyer that has a cabin or cottage like so many of our customers seem to be.

Kelli had “a wild hare” and re painted a small dresser that hasn’t yet sold, the cedar drawer fronts had a paint over and the top was toned down with a dark finish, I hope we have better luck with this iteration.

24th February 2022

It was a sunny day, almost a good spring day if it wasn’t so cold.

We had a couple from Ludington (95miles away) to pick up the pair of side tables we posted yesterday. There was a last minute problem with a top surface attachment block glue failure occurred. Not the sort of thing you want to happen just before a customer arrives, so this meant a quick repair was needed. I threw off my coat because I knew I would get a little warm. Kelli sped off to get the tools and fixings I required enabling me to make the repair and everything was ready in time for the pick up.

We had a trip out to get some supplies from Menards, it had been a while, but necessary.

The grass looks very sad at the moment, it is in its dormant stage, I hope it will spring into life as soon as it gets warmer. The ground is still soggy trying to soak away all the water from the melting snow.

The problems in the Ukraine dominated the news, as expected, I don’t think many Americans actually know where it is. I was impressed that Parliament are all in agreement with the actions taken by the government unlike over here. It’s always an opportunity to criticise Biden, whatever he does. Who would want that job anyway, you cannot win. He is being blamed for the rising fuel prices that fluctuate everyday. If Americans had to pay the price the UK does they would have a stroke. But the idiots continue their bullshit, and I expect them to learn nothing from this, not even to find it on a map.

23rd February 2022

There was another sprinkling of snow overnight, delaying the thaw for another few more days.

Between the piles of snow that are left, the garden looks like Armageddon has occurred. I’m itching to get working on it, digging up the old grass and restyling the space. I want to build a three bay composter, so I have been working on the cutting list for that. As soon as Menards have their 11%off everything I’ll be do getting the timber. Kelli kids me, calls me tight, but if they are giving money back, I’ll be there to take advantage of it.

We collected a large corner display unit that was offered for free. It had a bit of damage to the plinth and lower door, apparently the owners dog liked the flavour of pine wood.

It was a large piece, we didn’t really have the space for it, but it was free so suck it in.

We still have a number of pieces that haven’t sold yet, causing Kelli to have doubts about the finish.

We did finish the two bedside tables and got them on Marketplace, and sold them a few hours later.

22nd February 2022

There was nothing exciting going on in the garage today, I was sanding tops, repairing drawer box sides and putting sealer on some tops, whilst Kelli was stripping paint and painting drawer fronts and dresser carcass.

Now I know I’m not that good at multitasking, I try to do as much of that as I can, but I look in wonder at Kelli sometimes, and I am amazed at the length of telephone conversations she can conduct. Today in particular she was talking with Kim her ex-sister in law. Being an observer, I could see the complexity of the conversation. I could only liken it to railway lines close to a main station. The topic for discussion leaves the platform then comes to the first set of points. The train then goes off on another set of rails until it gets to another junction, and so on. It went on for about an hour covering every subject under the sun, nothing is exempt from this fantastic railroad journey, all the time she is stripping paint, and talking as if it was normal breathing.

It is a wonder there is anything left to talk about.

The snow is rapidly disappearing with all the rain we’ve had, it is good to see the green.

21st February 2022

Today was the first day we could have the garage door open, the sun was out, the snow was melting, it was a great day.

It was good to breathe fresh air for a change, and the warmer weather should last a couple more days.

The stitches fell out of my gum signalling that the healing process is complete.

I tried using a toning spray on one of the drawer fronts of a large dresser that was a complete disaster. I now need to remove the finish right back to the veneer and start again.

I was bloody annoyed, I’ve used a toning spray before, but for some reason this had far more colour in it, meaning it was like I was spraying full colour rather than a blending tint.

The two bedside tables are coming along, I cut and stained the tops whilst Kelli completed the paint job to the carcasses.

We carried the dresser we got yesterday in from the truck, there was a bit of de-lamination of the plywood side panels at the bottom, so that needed a repair.

20th February 2022

We had to collect yet another dresser from Hamilton, or some place out in the sticks that claimed to be Hamilton. It was definitely in the crop growing area that still have Trump flags aflying. In other words an area of extreme dumbness.

The dresser was nothing special, the kind we’ve had a few times before, that get a rapid makeover and straight out the door.

We completed another dresser with the stripped wood fronts, dragged it into the house, took pictures and posted it.

We were expecting a customer for the dresser that I made the new drawer for, as well as the new solid top. She was originally due at 1.00pm, but messaged to say it would be more like 2.00pm. By 4.00pm we were getting concerned that she wasn’t going to turn up. A quick message to her confirmed she was still on route and would be with up by 5.00pm.

We continued working on a few projects when just after 5.00pm she turned up.

Now I’ve seen some vehicles that should never be still on the road, but this one should have been in a scrap yard.

The lady had a good sense of humour as you would expect diving a truck in that condition.

She already had a large dresser in the back, so with a bit of repositioning created enough space for the ours. However the bed of the truck was full of bark and crap. The truck belonged to her brother who used it for work, god know what that was. I got a shovel from the shed and scooped up a bin full. Then she got a tarpaulin out from the cab, it was the size of a hot air balloon, but we used it to line the bed so that our dresser didn’t get dirty. We then wrapped the rest around the dresser to try to protect it. We then noticed there was no tailgate, so nothing really to stop the furniture sliding off. The only solution was to stretch bungees across, not that they would do anything, other than provide a psychological barrier. We tried to secure the other dresser with more bungees, but giving the strength and rigidity of the truck itself I wasn’t sure what we hoped to achieve.

Anyway once we did what we could, she reversed out and headed back to Bloomingdale about forty five miles south.

We heard from her later to say she, and the tarp made it home.

That was a fun ending of our day.