Author: peterb51

2nd September 2021

Some people piss me off, in particular those that say they will call round to buy a piece of furniture that we have lovingly rescued, and they don’t turn up. We go to a lot of preparation for our customers, getting a small pot of touch up paint poured, and tidying up the garage. We move the piece outside checking that everything has been painted properly. This disrupts any further work as we wait. When it doesn’t happen it’s a big downer.

We are always confident that the pieces will sell, but it’s alway encouraging to start the month off with a bang.

Another of Kelli’s “finds” had to be collected from Allandale. It was another dresser in a little distressed state. One drawer came flat pack, and bits of veneer were missing from others.

We made a good start to another tall dresser, and I fitted a new back panel to the one I cut down.

More pictures were taken and posted on Marketplace.

And a reminder of what it was

1st September 2021

With a last spurt of the spray gun the shelf for the French Provincial buffet was complete, but not content with sitting on her bottom Kelli had something else up her sleeve.

A drive to Drenthe to collect another piece of furniture. When we got to the house there was this thing waiting on the driveway.

I have seen exhumed coffins in better condition than this piece.

“It will be great, it has lots of character” a well used term to mean “You will have a lot of work ahead to turn this heap of crap into something“.

We loaded it into the truck, cobwebs and all, it was old, possibly early Tutankhamen, we will have to check if there is a preservation order on it.

We got back, still no mattress, apparently it is still resting in Chicago due to delays caused by Covid. There must be a bloody mountain of backlog, with no delivery date in sight.

We also finished the smaller dresser that I had cut down, production through Bristol Cottage is stepping up, I hope so, the garage is full of stuff, and we’re expecting two private commissions, one is a dresser for refinishing, the other is a dining table.

31st August 2021

Well the great day has arrived, the new mattress is due. Kelli checked the tracking information and saw that it left Chicago at 08.30am.

We had to collect a dresser from the north side of town, but felt confident that nothing would be delivered in our absence.

The address was a little run down, no one would dare squat in that place, but the piece was decent, so we kept the engine running whilst we loaded it, then made a rapid escape.

Once back we stripped the bed, and I moved the new wood frame into the living area with intensions to build sub assemblies to make it quicker and easier to build up in the bed room.

The bed frame was very well secured, the hardware were all labelled and all the wood parts were individually wrapped.

The product was purchased from Pier 1 and manufactured in Brazil, and once the box was opened I removed the polystyrene pieces, along with a number of packets of white powder ( not sure what they were) and set them aside. I assembled all the middle sections, and fitted the dowels in the main frame components.

Kelli was now anxious about the delivery, as the information on the tracking site hadn’t updated. She then called FedEx again, and spoke to a real person. She was assured that it would be with us by 3.00pm, in the meantime we got on with finishing the French Provincial buffet.

By 4.00pm there was still no sign of our mattress. Kelli primed the dresser I cut down yesterday while I stained the top.

Still not here by 6.00pm, Kelli called FedEx again.

“It will be with you by 8.00pm” the agent responded, the clock is ticking.

9.00pm came, and we gave up and remade the bed, not looking forward to another waiting game tomorrow.

30th August 2021

There was a fly buzzing around the sunroom where Kelli was sitting.

The fly then landed on the lamp shade, she searched around for something to hit it with, and picked up some sheets of white paper.

I said, “what are you going to do with that, get it to write out it’s last will and testament?”

Twack! She hit the little bugger and it fell to the floor.

“Wow!” I said, “you did that with a sheet of paper?

“Well there were four sheets”

“Oh that makes a big difference” I said sarcastically, I couldn’t do that with a piece of 4 by 2”.

That American printer paper sure is deadly.

We both had an identical thought concerning the latest furniture piece. We hauled it out of the truck and had a good look at it. The door was missing, but all the drawers were good.

I was suggesting that I make a new door, even though it would have been a lot of work.

There was a moment of silence, then I went to make another suggestion when Kelli’s eyes lit up. That is when I knew she had the same idea, but we couldn’t decide who would go first. Eventually she blurted out her idea, and it was the same, we would cut the unit down, and move two small drawers over to the space where the door used to be, it was modular, so they would fit.

I was so excited to get started, fortunately it was a knock down construction, so taking it apart was easy. Then it was simply a cut down of end and centre panels, adding a couple of holes and it was back together, and the best of all was, we might have it sold already.

29th August 2021

Against my better judgment we drove to Hudsonville to collect a free dresser. The place looked like a bomb site, crap was all over the place. Apparently the owners were moving, but they had a lot of stuff to get rid of. We loaded up the piece, sat in the truck and bathed ourselves with sanitizers before driving back.

It was too hot to do the yard work I had on my list, instead we finished off painting the French Provincial dresser.

I had restrained the top and added a sealer leaving it to dry in the heat.

The other thing that has been nagging at me for ages is a old router that stopped working a long time ago. It was one that I inherited from Dave and could be classed as an antique, as were most of his tools. I think it got a bit hot during a cut and stopped working. It was a good router that was fitted in a small stand.

There was no thermal cutout in it like some modern tools have, so I put it on a shelf and found another on EBay.

For a time it was working perfectly, but yet again I might have been marking a deep cut, and it to overheated and stopped working.

Now I had two identical routers on the shelf that kept looking down at me.

I have others, but these fitted the table perfectly and I don’t like the thought of throwing them away.

Since I missed finding the faulty wire fault on the fan, maybe I should start there. If that doesn’t work I will try to find someone who could repair them, maybe the fan man might be able to help?

28th August 2021

“ You didn’t really want to do that dad”, sums up the day I had.

Instead of my tried and tested method of finishing stained worktop I decided to do something different.

I had already stained the top and was ready for the sealing coat.

I wanted to use the sprayer and a water based polyurethane to finish the top.

Everything was going well until it started to dry, then I noticed every stain and blemish and generally looked rubbish. I had only one solution, remove the coating, re- stain and start again.

Meanwhile, Kelli primed and finish coated the French Provincial carcass in the palest blue, looked really classy.

We also had a couple round to collect the latest dresser that was posted.

It turned out, that the man was a teacher who had taught Kelli’s son, Cameron, so there was a lot of catching up to do.

We learnt that he was a Trump supporter, the cap he wore gave a big clue, had I had known, I would have charged them double.

27th August 2021

Kelli unstuffed my pillow this morning, I am hopeful it will lead to a calm and peaceful sleep, let’s hope the mattress will have a similar effect.

We finished the small dresser, and once I shaved the guides down so the drawers would fit it was ready for pictures.

We both worked on the French provincial buffet, Kelli sanding the carcass and I removed the top ready for staining.

In between the work, Kelli received her Tibetan singing bowl. Now the house is getting closer to becoming a monastery with the incense and now the bowl, soon we will become a stop off for passing monks and Tibetan priests.

It is all about vibrations that our body’s responds to. Part of Kelli’s treatment is to send vibrations through various parts of her body to help soothe her immune system.

I kind of understand it better now although I remain sceptical, but whatever guides Kelli back to health is top of my list even if I have to hear the Tibetan singing bowl all the time.

26th August 2021

Today was trash and recycling day. The big automatic muncher truck gobbled up our bins emptying the contents into their bellies. There are two trucks that arrive at different times each tasked with their duties. We also have a yard waste bin, but I didn’t put that out at the roadside because there was nothing in it this week. I had plans to start digging more beds in the back garden, but the small area I did do almost killed me with the heat.

We had to deliver the two side tables that we repainted to the north side. It was a simple spray job, but we didn’t charge enough for the job. This always comes back to haunt us. I would rather not take on these types of jobs in future unless we agree on a minimum charge.

As we sold the large dresser yesterday there was space to move around. We decided to work on the French provincial buffet that we got free a week ago.

Originally it would have had a plate glass cover on top of the wood, because there were plastic pads a fixed on the top. I managed to remove them then started to strip the top. As the top is quite ornate it was a difficult task stripping off the edge, but it will look great.

The excitement of the day came with the arrival of the new pillows. These contain all natural materials and will be a perfect match for the mattress, when it’s delivered.

They came with extra padding material that Kelli immediately stuffed into the already full pillow. When it came to bedtime, when her head hit it, she bounced, up she got, intent on removing the excessive material. What was left on the table looked like a fight between the wigs of two High Court judges.

I must admit mine was more buoyant that I was used to, but I’ll de-stuff it in the morning.

25th August 2021

Kelli had an early morning appointment with her doctor. These are usually unheard of, that is our breakfast time, running with a casual work schedule that we do.

There were a number of things she wanted to discuss with him, mainly some of the supplements she was taking and whether they were still relevant. As he scribbled notes in her file he responded positively to her questions.

Then he got down to the treatment.

Kelli had complained about weak arms, and a trembling in the muscles.

He took her right arm, moving down to the wrist gave it a sharp tug.

Snap! It went, taking Kelli and me by surprise. I have been used to her cracking her knuckles, but this was new.

He moved up to the elbow, holding it he snapped the wrist again. More noises of shock occurred, he then tackled the shoulder. There were clicks and snaps down the whole arm.

With a wry smile he went back to his notes, saying he would tackle the left hand side on the next visit.

Overall he was pleased with her progress, and with her more positive attitude, which has been helping her getting back to some normality.

We got back home and immediately finished off cleaning, and touching up the dresser that we posted yesterday. This was due to be collected this evening.

I did a bit more spraying to the two bedside tables, loading them into the truck ready for delivery.

Kelli started on the small dresser we found at the side of the road. I cut the back panel from the sheet I had bought yesterday, that could be ready by the weekend.

24th August 2021

Another day of high humidity to get through.

I went to pick up the fan that we had dropped of yesterday. The chap had messaged to say he had fixed it, apparently it just needed a new lead, the only thing I didn’t check.

I had to go to Menards to buy a sheet of hardboard and a tub of Bondo. I came back with the largest tub of the stuff they make, that should us forever.

I attached the top to the large dresser so that we could take pictures, we need to get this sold because we need the space.

Kelli was in spraying mood, just as well as she had two end tables to paint.