Author: peterb51

7th December 2020

We had to collect a dresser from Allerdale, it was nothing special, but we can make it better.

There isn’t much about, both on Marketplace or in Goodwill, so we have to get the slim pickings when we see them. That is not alway easy even dealing with people on Marketplace.

Often when we reply that we are interested in something, the seller will take a long time to answer, then it’s usually to inform us that it is sold. Many do not even reply at all which is the most infuriating.

The drive out was a welcome break because it is so easy to shut ourselves away for days on end, but we have made a good start to the month which is a bonus.

The landscape is devoid of colour, it’s like a sepia painting, you feel cold just looking out of the window. We’ve made the drive to Allerdale many times because once Kelli has a booth in a store there, it didn’t last long as the sales didn’t cover the expenses of getting there.

We worked in the garage until seven in the evening, one dresser is finished waiting for knobs to arrive, another in nearly finished, so I need to get my finger out and finish the top.

I did have a video call with my son Ryan, I hadn’t seen or heard his dulcet tones since I’ve been here, it was my fault, I often get so wrapped up in my projects that I forget everything else. If it wasn’t for Kelli dragging me inside for food I would starve to death.

It was great seeing the family again, and I must make more of an effort to keep more in touch.

6th December 2020

It was haircut day, so Kelli got out the dog shears and started hacking. What little hair I have ended up on the floor. Having a haircut in the old days meant sitting and looking at yourself in the mirror and listening to the hairdresser talking about the holidays he had taken. The event always finished with a mirror showing the back of your head, whatever that was supposed to do. It would be the only time I saw that view, and it did nothing to make my life better other than giving me an opportunity to see what I looked like from behind.

I started work stripping the paint off the table top and side leaves. We decided that we would give the table and chairs to Greer and Dylan as a wedding gift.

There is a lot of sanding required to bring it up to a good standard, I can look forward to some sore fingers in the next few days.

Kelli brought the old Christmas tree out of retirement, amazingly the lights all worked, so it now has pride of place in our living area.

5th December 2020

We sold the dresser that we were let down on yesterday to a return customer who even rented an SUV to collect it. With a struggle we loaded it,strapping the rear hatch door down to keep it closed.

They were happy, even saying they might be back again soon.

We also sold four Windsor style chairs earlier in the morning, so things were looking up.

I had a top to stain and more finish to add to another, but that was about all I wanted to do.

Kelli went off to get some supplies and came back with a gate leg table and two chairs that she found at Goodwill for $5, it will need some work but should be a cute piece.

We heard from Greer that she and her boyfriend Dylan plan to get married as soon as the licence comes through.

This was good news, Kelli as always at times of high emotion was crying with happiness.

I managed to get all the lights working on our Christmas display. I removed all the ones that didn’t light, and checked them one by one with an eyeglass. I found four that had “blown” and using the ones we got from Goodwill yesterday they all illuminated like a sign from heaven, it was another success.

4th December 2020

“One hundred and fifty one dollars!” I shouted at the man behind the counter at the post office. We had intended to send two boxes of sweets to my two sons in England for Christmas, but this was ridiculous. After shopping around for some typical American “candies” Kelli had lovingly parcelled them into two boxes using half a roll of packing tape and patiently filling out the customs forms.

The first thing that happened was handing over the forms to which he took one look at them and handed them back along with two new forms.

“These are old forms, you need to fill out the new ones” he said in an unconcerned voice.

Kelli nearly reaches over to rip his head off as he had given them to her yesterday.

“Sorry, I didn’t know there were any old forms left” which was not an answer Kelli was particularly impressed with.

I slowly re-filled out the forms as the post man took the packages to weigh them.

As I was writing out the second one I heard him say what the cost would be.

It was one of those occasions when I thought that I hadn’t heard him correctly, it was only when I heard Kelli groan that I realised that I had.

“That is outrageous” I said, the man shrugged his shoulders “That’s the cost, sorry”

Now I know it is the season of goodwill, but that is just crazy, gone are the days when you could hand it to a man on a horse who would gallop away into the distance. I’m sure Kelli could find a horse on Marketplace and I’ll deliver them myself.

That didn’t put us in a very good mood to start with, the next event nearly threw us over the edge.

We we due to deliver a dresser that we sold yesterday, it was a heavy bugger, so we struggled to get it into the truck.

As we started off towards the north side of Holland the phone rang, Kelli picked it up, it was a text to say the customer had changed her mind. She said nothing, stopped the truck, reversed it into someone’s driveway and headed back home. I wasn’t sure what was happening, but I knew from her expression that she was not happy.

“I nearly broke my back getting it into the truck, now she doesn’t want it!!” The pitch of her voice raised with every syllable, my ears were close to popping when she finished.

There was no option but to take it back and unload it again.

My next thrilling episode was going to Menards to buy some spare lamps for the outside display. I rushed in leaving Kelli in the truck still seething.

In my hurry to complete the task, I forgot my glasses. Reaching the area where the Christmas lights were, it looked like there was a robbery because the stock they had looked ravaged. I located the shelf with the spare lamps, but with no glasses I was unable to find the parts I needed. Also the area was so dark you needed a torch to find your way round.

I picked what I thought was the correct ones, and made my way out. Once back to the truck, and with my glasses on, I could see they weren’t right, so I had to take them back.

Needless to say they didn’t have the ones I wanted, so another success down the toilet.

To cheer ourselves up we went to Goodwill, and I think I found a bag of spare lamps, at least they look like the ones, what are the chances of that?, we will see if I’m right.

We did have a bit of good news, we sold the buffet to a nice couple from Rockford, about forty-five minute drive away. This gave me just enough time to cut, and fit a new floor panel for the cutlery tray, as the old one was tatty, and not very appealing. I just managed to remove the masking tape holding the repaired joint together as they arrived.

3rd December 2020

I finished the last part of the decking with the addition on the bedding area.

Now I will wait until the spring to add the decking panels.

We finished the long dresser and dragged it into the house to take pictures, but it was too long for the space we had, so we had to carry it outside.

We off-loaded the heavy beast out of the truck, it came out quicker than it went in, but it was still bloody heavy.

The city finally came around to collect the piles of leaves that had been arranged at the side of the road.

There are times when all I want to do is nothing, especially in winter. I miss burning logs, but as we don’t have a open fire, a log burner is on the list to do once the kitchen worktops are replaced.

Many months ago we had a heating man come round and give a quotation for cutting two holes in the inside walls of the sunroom and fit some vents so we could tap into the heat from the boiler, as yet they haven’t turned up yet. I even had the boiler maintained by them thinking that as they came to do that they could cut the vents at the same time. That didn’t work as the guy who did the boiler didn’t have the experience to fit the vents, guess another phone call is due.

2nd December 2020

We were let down by a couple of potential buyers, who we were expecting to purchase a set of Windsor chairs that Kelli bought on a whim from Goodwill a couple of weeks ago.

We were hopeful that the Buffet, that we were quite proud of would be snapped up once the people saw it.

We had to drive to Grand Rapids to collect a piece Kelli had found.

When we arrived, it was waiting for us on the front porch. To say it was heavy was an understatement, I tried the common test to see if I could lift on end, it barely raised a millimetre.

The best option was to remove the drawers, this made a little difference, but in the end it was down to the two of us to man-handle down the steps, along a path, down another two steps, past the rubbish bins, along the pavement and into the truck.

Both our arm had stretched a couple of inches by the time we’d finished.

We headed back to meet the couple who inquired about the chairs. We laid them outside the garage whilst I got on to installing the lights along the berm as our contribution to the Christmas decorations. They may not be as complex as some houses along the lakeside, but we did our best.

I switched on the lights to test them out only to find some were not working.

I fitted my head light, and started to check for the faulty lamp just as the people turned up.

The lady said that she was looking for chairs large enough to take her husband’s fat arse. He was a tall dude, and he was doubtful that they would be big enough.

They looked, and tried them, but decided that they would not buy.

The day was not turning out to be a good one, although we got close to finishing another long dresser, the top that I stripped was looking great, hopefully that will go quickly.

We seemed to have hit the buffers a bit, although we have a bit of stock now in the garage, Kelli get despondent when they don’t go immediately, I try to calm her down, we just have to wait for the right person to see them.

Trump had a forty-six minute rant on Facebook and YouTube continuing his belief on extensive voter fraud. It was embarrassing and it took Facebook five minutes to slap a disclaimer on it.

I am certain there was something wrong with the vote, I can’t believe he got seven million people to vote for him.

1st December 2020

I don’t get people sometimes, this evening Kelli invited the person who wanted the pair of dressers that we had been working on, to come over and view what we had.

She arrived with her mother, and within a short time the tall dresser that we picked up yesterday was ruled out as it wasn’t of the right quality. Then attention was paid to the long unit that we had finished. The mother was concerned that the drawers weren’t thick or heavy enough. The piece was well made with a manufacturer’s name on the back, so it was typical of the quality of domestic furniture.

For some reason she was suggesting to her daughter that she should wait and see if we could find different pieces. I wanted to be sure that the long unit was off the table, and not that we would have to hold on to it until a taller one of more acceptable quality was found.

Having established that, we brought the piece into the house even before they had left the driveway.

Kelli posted it straight away, and it sold an hour later.

We broke our quarantine rule on the first day, firstly we had to deliver a small item that Kelli had posted yesterday, and then went to the “Habitat” outlet to find handles for another dresser.

I have been meaning to string the lights that we got last year, along the front of the berm to brighten the house in the dark winter nights.

Yet again I was distracted, and forgot all about it.

I worked out the remaining materials I needed to complete the decking, I also discovered that Menards have stopped their 11% rebate offer.

This would have been a significant amount that I would have got back, so maybe I will wait until it returns before putting my order in.

30th November 2020

Kelli found a dresser that could be made a match for one that we had a potential customer for. It wasn’t made to the same quality but could work. We collected it from the north side of Holland, so whilst we were over there we stopped at Goodwill to see what was about.

A quick look round resulted in a big fat zero, on the way out, my attention was drawn to a life size Santa in the doorway rotating its hips in a suggested manner, I went up to it and told it to stop, Kelli, embarrassed, ran out to the car. I thought it was funny, I explained because I was wearing a mask no one would recognise me.

There was the same bleak result at the other Goodwill, so we headed back to await the arrival of our buyers of the grey dresser.

During the communication with the customer for the other dresser we learnt that she didn’t want the top drawers in the stained wood finish that I had done, instead they had to be painted to match the other drawers. That pisses me off as I had spent a lot of time on those fronts, but if it meant a sale of two dressers, it would be done through gritted teeth.

The buyer for the grey cabinet turned up and after he inspected each drawer, he phoned his wife to tell her to send the payment through.

This way of payment is very popular, and in this current climate it works perfectly.

29th November 2020

On the whole, people in Holland are sticking to the Covid measures pretty well. I went to Menards to buy some stock that should tied us over for a while, and all customers were adhered to the mask wearing , although some just covered their mouths leaving their noses free.

I picked up the last of the timber I needed for the deck area, this was to make a small bed between the paved area and the deck, once it warms up a little I’ll finish it off.

Kelli was moving like a painting machine finishing one of the free ones and starting on the priming on the other.

We had someone interested in buying the grey one that had been posted over a week ago. This one was a bit concerning because usually they sell immediately, however it looked promising for tomorrow.

We had someone interested in the buffet for a couple of days, Kelli was answering questions, agreed to hold it until Monday.

Then communication stopped, this is often a danger signal, when they might chicken out.

There was also another open conversation with another potential customer who missed out on the matching units we sold last week.

We had one unit finished and Kelli was looking for another taller unit that we could grab and finish them in the same colours.

This can be a blessing or a curse, often it means that we are committing money to two pieces hoping the customer comes through with the cash. I usually want some commitment to buy, like a deposit, just to save us the hassle of tailoring the finishes to one person, and then refinishing if the sales falls through.

But that is me being pessimistic.

28th November 2020

Off loaded the free dresser from the truck, it was a heavy beast even without the drawers.

It was originally an oak piece but had been painted really badly, however with a lot of scraping it should be a nice piece.

Kelli was working in the garage on another free piece whilst I worked outside on the decking frame.

I had another go trying to get sound out of the TV through the stereo.

I looked on line to see if it was a common problem. There were a number of forums with similar issues, but nothing gave me a Eureka moment. My last resort was downloading a user manual, there had to be something there.

I found the page dealing with connectivity and there it was in black, white and colour.

The ports that I thought were outputs were inputs, to plug in a video camera and view through the screen. The only output was an optical one, so in order to get sound though the amplifier and through the big speakers would be using an optical lead into an analog/ digital converter and into a tape input on the amplifier. I have so many little boxes with wires everywhere Kelli rolls her eyes at the thought of another, but that technology for you.