Author: peterb51

11th February 2019

Viewed three houses today, one was around the right price, but frankly it was shite. I did not relish viewing the truck,parked in the garage, from the bedroom window. Yes, the structure was a lean-to built on the side of the house, but against the side with the bedroom windows.

The other two were at the top end of the budget, but I was curious to see the difference in relative terms to those we’ve already viewed.

The first was fully renovated and ready to move in, but the layout was a little unconventional. This place appealed to me having gone through the pain of remodelling.

The place was finished to a good standard, with the basement fully plastered, with an additional bathroom.

It had a new deck just waiting for summer.

Unfortunately there was no garage, although there was room to build one.

The last place was much larger, with old style wooden flooring in the lounge and dining room. Kelli was excited that it had internal French doors, and a laundry chute. The kitchen was a homage to the pine tree. It was everywhere, a place where the opportunity to get splinters just making toast was a damn certainty. The outside needed a lot of work with peeling paint on the wooden sidings. That being said, it could work, and Kelli already has the room colours picked out and the furniture placed, however, the price is too high for the amount of work that needs to be done.

News of a good sell came through. The new piece we delivered last week was snapped up.

There has been a slump due to the weather, which is not usually a reason for Michiganites stop shopping. Hopefully that our latest sell will create an eruption of activity.

We stopped off at another thrift store that supports an animal charity, and it explains why there are many cats roaming about.

A couple of weeks ago there were a number of oak dressers on sale, but they were too expensive for us to buy and re-sell. As luck would have it, there were two left and marked down to $25, so we grabbed the best one. The other was a bit ropey with cracked veneer, and in my opinion was only worth $10, so we will keep an eye on that one.

Later that evening we had a sell through Marketplace, a gate leg table and two chairs that we had at Farmgirl for ages finally has a new home. We were planning to go there to take our new dresser, so we will pop it in the truck to bring back.

There has also been some interest in Guitarshapes. Kelli put pictures on Marketplace of the styles I have here. Someone contacted us about customising a couple for two heavy metal fans, that would be fun to do.

As we sat relaxing watching “ Extraordinary Interiors” minds dumb from the days activities, Kelli turned to me and said “Are you hungry?”.

Now it had crossed my mind, but as it was close to midnight, I had second thoughts, but this was a way back in. “Mmm, I was just thinking the same” thinking she would get a few crackers. “I could make a little pasta and red sauce covered with fake cheese” she said excitedly. She had obviously been thinking this out for a long time. The TV went on pause, as she scurried out to the kitchen. It seemed minutes later we were tucking into a bowl of hot pasta. “ You realise we won’t be able to go to bed until after 2.00am” I said.

“Don’t worry, I won’t be able to sleep, I have the upstairs of that house to decorate”

10th February 2019

It snowed again, and singing “Jingle bells” doesn’t work anymore. I had a few things to prepare to take up to Dave’s to cut. Kelli has wanted me to cut up books into large letters. These are not unique, but no one at Painted Farmgirl does them, and a few that we put in the booth sold very quickly. The best, and least disrespectful to serious readers are Reader Digest books. They come with decorative covers that look charming as they are.

I set up the bandsaw, and choosing the simplest letter, cut away. I was quite pleased with my first attempts. Next I worked through the other easy shapes, carefully putting the offcuts into a carrier bag. There were a few loose paper pieces floating about, but generally the mess was minimal, until I picked up the carrier bag. Kelli had given me a bag with no bottom to it, so everything fell on to the floor, and small bits of paper can be a bugger to pick up.

On a visit to Goodwill, we found a small sofa table that we snapped up.

9th February 2019

We had a customer on the new dresser, or so we thought. Someone who had bought something in the past wanted it, so settling on a price, we awaited a day for collection. Then things got a little muddy, the new dresser was going into the same room as the other pieces, and the customer thought it was the same colour, unfortunately it wasn’t.

A lot of the times Kelli mixes up her own colour so the chances of two pieces are the same are pretty low. So communication slowed down and eventually stopped, so we assumed the sale was off, disappointing, but it is such a good piece it should sell quickly.

We had a response from the customer who had problems with the knobs falling off, she was going to get her husband to fit them back on. The tone was much better, she thanked us for the quick response, so hopefully that will be fix the problem.

I started work on the island by glueing up wood for a new top. This piece will either work or be a disaster, but that’s what we’re in it for.

In the evening we had Lesley and Mike over for baked beans on toast, with a splash of HP sauce on top. Then out came the wine and the dominoes and the chocolate, I of course came last with over six hundred, but I know my place in this world, I am the makeweight, someone who makes others look good.

8th February 2019

“Mansplaining, what the flipping heck is mansplaining?” This was my response to something Kelli accused me of. I merely asked if she had fully tightened the drawer knobs of a unit we delivered a week ago.

We received a message from the customer who bought it saying the knobs pulled off, and she felt that she had been “taken”, which implied that we sold her a dud. This is not what we wanted to hear, as this could effect our Marketplace place seller rating, so we switched instantly into damage limitations mode.

Kelli replied that the drawers worked perfectly when we delivered it, but offered to visit her home to fix it personally. We never had a reply even though we responded as soon as we received the complaint. This was puzzling in itself, but as we had met the lady halfway between her home and ours, we had no idea where her lived.

So going back to the start, I was innocently asking if the knobs had been fully fixed, or if they had been hand tightened in order to see what they looked like.

I had never heard of mansplaining, I accused her of making it up, as with many other words she uses.

“ Google it then” which I did, and I laughed out loud at the meaning.

mansplaining

/ˈmanˌsplāniNG/

nounINFORMAL

1. the explanation of something by a man, typically to a woman, in a manner regarded as condescending or patronizing.

The snow is back, and also the cold wind. I needed some materials so we braved the cold and drove to Menards whilst Kelli went on to Aldi.

We have finished another dresser, that just needs the top polishing, but more importantly we will make sure the knobs are fully tightened on this one.

7th February 2019

Finished off the dresser repairs and handed it over to the creative department to turn it into a wonderful furniture piece. Meanwhile I turned my attention to the desk thingy that we bought yesterday. One of the ideas was to convert it into an island, these have proven quite popular, and ones we had before sold really quickly. The main problem will be the height, normally islands are thirty six inches high, but this measures thirty inches, so I need to extend it. Kelli And Greer went off for the afternoon so it left me alone to do stupid shit.

One occasion where I ignore my golden rule of measure twice, cut once drove me into a rage. I was cussing and shouting at myself for being so dumb, especially when I had glued up two pieces of wood to get the correct thickness, only to cut it two inches too short. Anyone passing outside might have thought there was a heated argument going on, well I was, with myself.

6th February 2019

The lady who had bought Old Shaky came to collect it. She was delighted with it, which is always a relief, but I am glad it is going to a new home.

We drove to Hudsonville, the first time in over a week, but Kelli wanted to take the new piece.

The booth is now pretty full with some cool furniture, we just need cool people to go and buy them.

We stopped off at Goodwill as usual to see if there was any thing of interest. I did my normal trawl not seeing anything that excited me. I saw one piece that was a bit strange, so I left it. A few minutes later Kelli saw the same piece, and of course she went crazy over it.

It was an odd piece because it was open, with a drawer accessible from both sides. I have no idea what we can do with it, but I’m sure she will had some cunning plan.

I have continued to work on the dresser in the garage, trying my hand at repairing the veneered top. I follow a furniture restorer on YouTube that is really good, so I have learnt a lot of things from him. So far I have made some good repairs, and some okay ones, but I’ll keep at it.

5th February 2019

We were frantically trying to build on our backlog after we had an offer on Old Shaky.

These are the best sales for us as there is no commission taken out.

The unit we had next in line was the three drawer unit with a door. This originally had textured glass in it but that went almost immediately. For us, this was a simple paint job with one small modification to the door.

I thought I had a bit of time, so I was also working on a dresser out in the garage. The quick sale speeded up the need for this to be finished. I had to work out how to fix chicken wire where the glass went. I had used it before, but I was never happy with it.

Trying a different approach of stretching the wire over a sub frame was far better.

Once the subframe was fitted into the door the job was completed.

4th February 2019

Old Shaky was finally finished. It was moved into the garage to await its next move. Kelli wasted no time in putting it on Marketplace and within a short time had her first bite.

We have two more pieces, plus the chairs, that are work in progress. The one in the garage needs a bit of repair, so I started on that one.

With the higher temperature it is quite pleasant to work out there, but I must give the place a good clear out.

There was quite a bit of rain that got rid of most of the snow, but it might be back by next week.

3rd February 2019

The rapid thaw continued. A lot of the snow had disappeared, and the temperature was a pleasant 43 degrees. We worked on Old Shaky in the Kitchen trying to get it finished, although we didn’t get any news of any significant sales we at least have a back log of one. I had the pleasant job of sanding wooden knobs back to raw ready to stain black.

Kelli did a great job of the paintwork, as always, so it looks like another one off the production line.

It is the day of the Super Bowl, a day when all Americans watch a game most have no idea is happening. I have only watched a game once when I was in New York with Bob Wood and Stephen Perkins. They both fell asleep half way through, bloody lightweights.

We were invited by our British friends Mike and Lesley to their friends for a dominoes evening. What I knew about dominos could be written on a postage stamp, and Kelli knew even less. So we were the ideal couple to play that game.

The evening started well, with Pete (another one) and Laura, Mike and Lesley explaining the rules. The last time I played with dominos I was using them to build little houses. So once we started playing we soon got the hang of it. Kelli took to it pretty well, and I pretended to be cool and strategic, making a few smart moves and a lot of dumb ones. Eventually Kelli came second, and I supported the lot of them by coming last.

2nd February 2019

The warm weather hit Holland like a smack on the cheek. At 40 degrees it was almost springtime, the snow turning to watery slush.

I decided I would have to buy a half sheet of plywood to make bottom panels for Old Shaky.

Whilst I was waiting for Kelli to get herself ready for the outside world to see her, a person turned up to pick up some pieces that had be placed on Marketplace. This was part of our “we’ll sell it and make money from it if it kills us” strategy which has been working to a degree. This guy turned up to collect some china storage jars and a small wine bottle stand. He checked over the storage jars several times, lifting the lids and peering inside, I was not sure what he expected to find. He then turned his attention to the wine rack. “It looks a lot smaller than the picture” he uttered in his broken Mexican accent.

“ Well it holds just three bottles “ I responded.

“ I thought it would be a lot longer, like the picture ” he said.

“ If it was any longer the bottle would fall through” I smiled. He then muttered something about his wife, and then handed me the money and carried the box to his truck.

A little later a lady arrived to collect the chicken drawer knobs that had originally come from Old Shaky.

Then it was off to Menards, and the inevitable visit to Goodwill in the hope that someone had risked their lives to donate some furniture. The answer was an emphatic no.