Author: peterb51

24th July 2021

It was expected to be thundery for most of the day, but this is Michigan, which means that everything can change by the minute.

There was no rain, but the humidity made the heat almost unbearable, as I was spraying primer on to the chair I was working on, my perspiration was trickling down inside my respirator and filling up the place where my nose rested, it was really uncomfortable. I was drowning in my own nose sweat.

Kelli finished the first dresser she’d done for months, it was a cute unit, with a shelf where the missing drawer was. It was posted in the afternoon and sold by the evening, good result.

I was spending half my time repairing drawer boxes for another small dresser.

The sides are made of thin softwood that mostly crack below the rebate where the floor panel fits. This can be tricky to repair, and usually takes a lot of time to do.

I have been following a Canadian lady who does the same as we do,on YouTube. However the quality of the furniture she finds at the side of the road is amazing. There is never anything damaged, no drawers broken, certainly no disasters that we find.

She does make a good job of them, and sells at three to four time that we can get for them.

Maybe there are more affluent people in Canada unlike the skinflints of Michigan.

There was a torrential rainstorm later in the afternoon, followed by bright sunshine.

There was a bit of drama in the house when Kelli, who was trimming Phoebe’s nails cut one a bit short causing it to bleed. There was panic, as we searched for something to stem the bloodflow. Of course dogs never understand that things wrapped around the foot are there for a reason, she kept tearing it off then preceded to leave a trail of blood around the floor.

We called the vet, and they suggested a powder that did the job, so we drove to the surgery to collect it. In all my years, I didn’t realise that dog nails could bleed. I hope no one asks me to clip their dogs nails, I would faint at the thought. I would have to get them to wear them down on a sandpaper covered treadmill.

23rd July 2021

It was very thundery with humidity at 92% making it difficult to work in.

I had my list of small repair jobs to work on, plus I did a bit more stripping of paint from the first chair. I was hoping to give it a quick sand to give a key for the finish coat to adhere, but the existing paint was thick and impossible to feather in, so I had no option but to scrape it back to bare wood.

I had an amusement thought, whilst I was India, I would often see men sitting cross legged in the street doing a repetitive job, like stripping paint from a chair, and here am I doing the same bloody thing for an Indian bloke in America.

Kelli continues to make small progress, and is now more enthusiastic to overcome her issues.

It’s great to have her working with me in the garage again.

22nd July 2022

We needed black ink for our printer, Kelli has been selling lots of things that required a printed label. First we tried Office Max, but no luck, all sold out, apparently there is a shortage of HP black ink, or at least the sales assistant, who had the worst fitting jeans ever, told me. He shuffled towards a terminal to check. The guy didn’t have an ass, the seat hung down past his knees and flapped as he walked. He confirmed that there was no stock, but could order it for me. I nearly offered to order him a pair of jeans that fitted, but only my instinct for survival stopped me.

I decided to try somewhere else.

Next place, Best Buy also didn’t have any black ink, we should have known.

It had to be Amazon then.

I started work on the dining chair, sanding the drips, they were everywhere, this is going to be harder than I thought.

Between the work on the chair, I was working on a small dresser, finishing the top and shelf. The garage was full of jobs in progress, and I was glad that I had bought more trolleys.

21st July 2021

I had the first opportunity to use my portable dust extraction for the first time, it was wonderful, no crap to clean up.

I had a lot of paint to buy, so I had Menards on my radar, but first a stop at the doctors to collect a new supplement to help treat Kelli’s ocular migraine, either that or it’s the only bottle of stuff the she hasn’t tried.

When I got back I saw three dining chairs outside, these were left by an Indian chap down the road who wanted me to repaint them black. They had been hand painted , and they looked like it. Now I had four of them waiting for my attention.

Mike and Lesley were off to Pind, the Indian restaurant in Grand Rapids and stopped by to see if we wanted anything bringing back.

“Oh yes” I cried, “bring back some samosas” I thrust a twenty into her hand, and off they went on a mission.

When they came back, I was salivating at the thought of tasting these divine works of art.

And they didn’t disappoint, there were eight of the beauties, and I scoffed one down straight away. Wow it was spicy, but fabulous, I would probably dream of those tonight, if I don’t get up in the early hours for a snack.

20th July 2021

I had plenty of jobs on my list to work on. I wanted to make progress on the dresser I had used as my test piece for using the sprayer.

I was surprised at the amount of paint I had used, I had a quart, and that wasn’t enough to finish. I had read that on average paint usage is increased by twenty percent using a spray gun, that needs to be factored into our costs.

We sold the four upholstered dining chairs we had bought at Goodwill for a decent profit with nothing done apart from a good clean.

There were hardly any beetles in the trap today, that doesn’t mean I had caught them all, but it could be the wind direction that made the difference.

Today it was announced that Herman Miller will be changing their name to Millerknoll.

DJ DuPree must be spinning in his grave.

Personally both brands could have continued, they had history and the value that has should not be lost or cheapened.

19th July 2021

Kelli was on a roll today, she actually drove the truck for the first time in months.

We went to Goodwill on the north side, it had been a long time since we were there last, we weren’t sure there would be anyone we would recognise, and sure enough there wasn’t. Most of the staff were new, but we wandered around hoping something would jump out at us, but the only furniture worth taking was some upholstered dining chairs. We squeezed them into the back of the truck then headed off to Harbour Freight. This store is popular for selling cheap tools, formally part of Sears they sell things for about a third of the price of the other large DIY stores. I was looking for trolleys to move our furniture about. As there are quite a few pieces filling the garage It is necessary to have the space to work in.

I came away with two large, and a small one, these added to what we already have will give us the flexibility we need.

We returned home, and immediately Kelli cleaned the chairs and took pictures, they were on Marketplace before the seats were dry.

I must have caught another twenty Japanese bastards, sorry, beetles, it’s becoming an obsession, every ten minutes I would check the bag finding at least one of the buggers.

This has inspired a new game called “ Guess the bugs in the bag”.

The man turned up with the portable dust extraction unit that I had paid for, but had been sold to someone else. Anyway there was no hard feelings, and we chatted about projects were were working on.

I’m looking forward to hooking it up and not have the garage covered with wood chips.

18th July 2021

Something had been eating the leaves of my plum trees. It had happened really quickly and not being experienced in growing tree I was in a state of panic.

I showed Kelli what was happening and she was shocked, but later I saw a beetle like creature on one of the leaves of the larger tree.

I described it to Kelli and she immediately said it was a Japanese beetle, and that the area gets plenty of them, so much so that people put up traps to catch them.

I drove to the nearest hardware store to buy a trap. I came away with a metal stand that had a hook on the top and a pouch with a sweet smelling bait pack. I quickly installed between the two trees, and waited for the little bastards to be enthralled and drop into the pouch.

It just seemed to be the plum trees they were attacking, the Apple trees were in harmed.

As the afternoon progressed I had caught ten.

I can see why the pouches were so large, but I hope my tree can recover.

Kelli did really well today, we decided that we had been away from Goodwill far to long, and as they hadn’t gone out of business because of our absence we would enter their doors again.

Unfortunately there was no furniture, thank goodness, but she bought a couple of small items to sell on.

Later we retraced our steps to a storage facility to collect a small dresser. The sellers purchase the contents of storage rooms that have been abandoned by the renters. Apparently a lot of people do this to make money, pick the right one and you can make a lot of money, or you could be left with a room full of crap.

Kelli collected any items we had laying around and set them out at the roadside, then announced it on Facebook. Like flies around shit we had cars pulling up, and our crap loaded into their boots and driven off, brilliant!

17th July 2021

Kelli was up bright and early, not something she was happy about, but at least she had a smile on her face. She had her medication laid out on the counter minus the adrenal supplements. She went out into the sunroom to try to get a short nap in. She had recently found a website titled “bedtime story for grown ups” these were designed with sleep in mind, and they have worked on her a couple of times.

I gave her an hour whilst I got up to speed with world news then, once I knew she was awake inquired what’s she wanted for breakfast.

“ I’ll have toast with fake cream cheese, a fried slice of fake meat and a fake egg omelette on the top, oh and a small fake sausage on the side”.

There used to be a time when I dreaded asking, trying to get her to eat anything was difficult, but hopefully those days are in the pass.

I was glad to make it even though I had to dirty a pan to fry the sausage and meat. I would curse jokingly under my breath.

I always struggle with the timing of the different components of the breakfast, usually I forget the sausage and it become a chars stick.

“ you have the temperature too high” was the usual comment, but I have taken notice and changed my behaviour.

She was a different person,watering the flowers, collecting the dog poo, painting hinges and handles for a dresser, and spray painting a wicker table, all these things were a fantastic achievement.

We even carried the dresser into the house to take pictures.

16th July 2021

There was an optimistic air blowing about this morning, Kelli had an appointment with her doctor with a list of items she wanted answers to.

First we had to collect a free dresser from Kelli’s old neighbourhood, this was a mid century dresser that had seen better days.

It was a good positive start just to get her into the car and travel around. She had about five hours of sleep which was good, and she was feeling happy about it , although waking up at five in the morning was not appreciated.

We arrived at the surgery a few minutes late, so went straight in.

She handed him her list which he read and gave answers.

The first question was about hormones and could he check her for that.

Normally he will test her with a particular sample and test her muscle resistance to it.

He picked wheat germ oil, she placed it under her tongue, he then tested her resistance to it.

I could tell from his expression that this was a eureka moment as his reaction to it was significant.

This was the breakthrough we wanted to hear.

Many from our families had suggested that maybe, because of her age, changes to her hormones may be the reason for some of her condition, that had proved true.

In addition he noted that her adrenal treatment had taken it’s course and advised her to stop the supplements as they may be contributing to her sleeping problems.

This was a great relief to her and I could tell by her expression that maybe the light at the end of the tunnel was not a train coming towards us.

We drove home with smiles of relief on both our faces, now we have something new to focus on.

We unloaded the truck and then a drive to Zeeland to collect another dresser then get back as we were expecting a person to collect the dresser we had for sale.

Two ladies arrived just after two, and gave it the once over. I could tell that things were not right. They were muttering about the size, thinking it was not as big as they thought, bottom line was she decided to pass on it.

Kelli had kept the dialogue going with the lady that passed on it yesterday. We had a pine unit that I hadn’t started on that might have been of interest, but now the white dresser was back on the market her interest was rekindled.

She came back in the evening for a look at the pine unit, which was in good condition, but in the end her bought the white unit, but was still interested in the pine one.

So, to sum up the day, good result from the doctor, two pieces collected, one sold, therefore a good day for Bristol Cottage Furniture.

15th July 2021

Things were looking promising at the prospect of selling our latest dresser.

The lady arrived around ten in the morning, and was pleased with the piece. However she wasn’t sure her daughter would like it.

I suggested that she bring her daughter round to see it, which she thought was a good idea. So off she went, I was sure she wouldn’t be back, and told Kelli to contact the other person interested in it.

Later she had a message from the first person saying that she would be bringing her daughter to view the dresser again.

I got the little pot of touch up paint ready and waited for them to arrive.

I had a few jobs that I could get on with, later Kelli stuck her head round the door to say the person “had crapped out”

That pissed me off a bit, but that’s show biz.

I decided to get on with the repair work to the small pine dresser. There were a couple of drawer fronts that were damaged.

I set up the small router and cut away the broken area then set in a new piece. A bit of glue and some clamps and hey ho! It was done.

I had promised to spend a few hours sorting out what tools were left in Dave’s workshop.

It saddens me to be there now that most of the kit he accumulated has gone.

Rick had arranged a garage style sale in a couple of weeks at his local church, so I was helping to sort out things that were left into small boxes and carry them up into the garage ready for them to be collected.

Dave was a collector of everything, I came across a set to dental tools, a collection of match boxes and oil cans. I need a few more hours to finish that part then I’ll move into the next room and carry on with that. There will be lots of stuff that will be unsaleable, but as Kelli reminded me if her dad bought it there are bound to be others who will buy it also, I can’t wait to watch.