Looking at the back garden, especially the lawn, I have decided to take drastic action.
We are too busy with our furniture business to have the time to keep the grass in good condition, so come the autumn we will add more flower and vegetable beds, create a more manageable area close to the deck, and paths that wind around the wild grasses and trees.
I like the effect of natural gardens, so it will be fun trying to build it, and not so depressing watching the lawn dry out and die.
Now back to the present, we sold the bed frame to a great couple who want to install it in their home as a spare bed for an elderly relative.
I spent a long time talking to them about their house and the business he runs.
Another commission came in. This time we have to refinish a dresser and bed frame, it looks like bed frames are the thing at the moment.
There is also a mirror that is in need of some care and attention.
I made some progress on the kitchen island, I managed to glue up the second division frame.
However, with all this new work, space will be a problem, but commissions pay better than Marketplace pieces.
Back to the Byron Center for more woodworking with John. This was the final gluing together of the two sections that make the kitchen island top.
Whilst we were there John was distracted by another customer who wanted a plank of walnut.
That left me alone to do the final assembly. I could hear them muttering downstairs, finally emerging with the piece of lumber.
For me this was going to be a short day, but as always I got distracted by a piece of white oak that John had in his scrap bin. This would be ideal for another project that has been spinning around in my head, so I asked him if I could have it. The first job was to cut it through the middle to half the thickness, then run it through the planer to get it to the thickness I needed.
Once that was done John started on the sanding the island top, even though there were clamps still in place,he wanted to show me what the finish would look like, the beech was so smooth, it will be perfect when it’s finished.
I spent a bit of time helping him look for keys to the workshop, he put them down somewhere. I engaged my super powers and worked my way through the workshop. He didn’t help much trying to recall his movements that day, but I carried on regardless. He wandered back downstairs, and gave a squeal of delight when he found them.
That was a good time to close up the shop and head for home.
I wasn’t feeling it today, it was food shopping day, but my mind was full of other things.
I even missed a small free dresser that was on the side of the road, not that I noticed those kind of things.
Kelli turned the truck around, and I placed it in the back.
I needed more paint stripper, I still have a long way to go taking the finish off this bloody door.
I guess that what is pissing me off.
Kelli was busy cleaning the bed frame that we got yesterday. It seemed to be covered with some kind of wax finish that was difficult to remove, probably a silicone. I ended up rubbing the surface really hard, this turned, whatever it was into tiny bits that clogged the cloth.
I did the best I could, finally applying a coat of good old fashion beeswax, anyway it now looked better than before.
All that was required was some pictures and on Marketplace it went.
I saw in the news that Steelcase had been bought by NHI corp for $2.2 billion, it looks like this is the time for big changes in the furniture industry.
Drove to Hudsonville to deliver the blue dresser, and whilst we were there we collected a bed frame. I hate bed frames, but Kelli assured me that with a clean up and polish she can sell that without me ever touching it.
The height of the head and foot boards were so tall there was no way it would fit inside the truck.
There was no alternative but to put it on the roof rack. I placed a flattened cardboard box that we had in the truck, down first, then placed the head board on top of it, then another cardboard layer on top of that before laying the foot board on top. Everything was then tied down with bungees.
We must have driven a mile or so when the middle sheet of cardboard blew off somewhere, but we carried on. I’m pretty sure our address wasn’t on it.
Stopping for lunch at the winery was a pleasant rest, a glass of beer and a burger was a great Sunday lunch. We headed back to Holland for our usual ice cream treat.
We heard the story of the bats that have returned to Kelli’s mum’s garage roof, with some in the attic as well. Of all the people to have bats it had to be her, we will probably get a daily report of their activity.
We drove downtown because there was an Arts in the Park event, and as we haven’t been there in years, we thought we would take a stroll around. First of all I am not a big fan of these kind of places, most of the time it’s selling little knick knacks that are overly expensive and will get lost down the back of the sofa. There were very few actual paintings, some were images applied to a piece of rock, which might be clever, but not for me.
I didn’t get inspired by anything I saw, Kelli bumped into an old friend that she had seen in many years, and she bought a dragon fly made from an old spark plug with a couple of forks braised to it, mounted on a piece of Steel rod, mmm okay. ( you had to be there)
After walking around, Kelli’s knee began to hurt, so we cut our visit short and headed back to the truck.
Next stop was UPS store, where else, and then on to Lowes to return the three packs of dowels I bought yesterday, finally back home to finish’s the dresser that we posted yesterday. I had to make a new back panel and a bit of a touch up, because we had a buyer, who we will deliver it to tomorrow.
After my rant about the moon landing, I thought I would get back to something that actually happened today.
I drove down to Wyoming to pick up John the wood with an aim to get the top glued up.
I got there earlier than planned, I even remembered to take food and water. The food was eaten after just a few miles, a failing I’ve had most of my life.
Anyway, on the way to his workshop, I asked him if he had enough dowels to do the job, he said he wasn’t sure, I then suggested that we stop off at a store to get some, and he agreed.
There was a Lowes quit close, so we parked, and went inside. Rather than wander around looking I went to the information desk and asked a guy where to find them. He gave me directions, I turned round and John was nowhere to be seen.
I remembered when my boys were young, I had to stop them running off, would I have to do it with John?.
The guy from the information desk then came and led me to the location, fortunately I found John on the way. I picked three bundles of dowels, enough to be cut up for what we needed.
Proceeding on, we got to his workshop, and proceeded to plan what we needed to do.
The strips of lumber were laid out on the bench, but the end strip did not look good, so I asked him to run it through the jointer again, which he did. When he returned, the strip still wasn’t right.
I asked him if he had an adjustable square. He looked at me blankly, I described what it looked like, he was still blank. I tried to explain what I was trying to check, but It made no impression.
He shuffled off and later returned with a small adjustable square, I grabbed it quickly in case he lost it. The square showed that the piece was twisted, and the edge and face were not at right angles. The piece was no good, but luckily I found an off-cut that could be used instead.
Just that took a lot of effort, I was exhausted, and I’d only been there 30 minutes.
Now was the time to do the glue up.
John found the adhesive, but couldn’t remove the top of bottle. More time was spent looking for something to grip it and break the bond.
Once that was done, he went looking for a roller.
He opened a drawer, and with his elbow knocked over the bottle, the adhesive poured out and into the drawer he had just opened. I quickly found a container to catch as much of the stuff that I could whilst John disappeared.
I used a stick to direct the stream of adhesive in the container, my fingers were covered, and we hadn’t even started to glue up anything yet.
He returned with a damp cloth, and we managed to clean up the mess.
Finally we could start the glue up.
Everything was set up, all the clamps were ready, he went into his office and returned with a bag of dowels. I looked at them, and asked him why he let me buy three bags of dowels, he said that he had a hundred, and probably more.
There were a few words I would have liked to utter, but I kept my composure.
The glue up began, he was laying it on good and thick, I was trying to smear it evenly with my finger, I had enough to cover both surfaces.
Surprisingly the first pieces went together well, so we added another strip.
It was then that I realised that we were one strip out of order. I had marked each piece with a number, but I noticed that they went one, three, two, but it was too late to change that, I just hoped that the dowels were in the same position.
The next three went together well, thank goodness, leaving us to do the last pieces a bit later.
Just before finishing we joined the two section together, fortunately the dowel holes were aligned, so a problem was averted.
I dropped John back to his home, then went looking for a petrol station, I was definitely down to the fumes before I found one.
Once I got back we took pictures of the latest piece, considering what we started with, it turned out good.
We had two sales sneaking in on the last day of the month, giving us a good month despite all the hot weather.
Kelli is a frog mother again. She had advertised on a buy nothing page for some frogs, and lo and behold someone turned up with twelve little ones. Now our pond should be bursting with the buggers.
There was a lot of activity trying to get the pieces ready for collection, a bit of cleaning of drawer floors and a few touch ups.
There is another dresser nearly finished that required lots of love. On the back of the drawer fronts the veneer had chipped away and looked really bad, the only solution was to patch in new veneer. Once that was done I sanded the surface and brushed on a coat of polyurethane, now I’m happy with that.
I watched something on the TV that blew my mind and has caused me to question everything that has ever happened.
That is a bold statement, and I don’t have any concerns about writing about it.
There has been a long time belief that the moon landings never happened. I remember being on holiday in Newquay when it happened and the Sunday Times supplement had TV screen shots of the event.
The program I watched showed out takes of the moon landing being filmed in the Nevada desert.
These clips were released by Wikileaks, and probably was one of the reasons why Julian Assange had been persecuted for so long.
It was filmed in a way that would make people believe it was being transmitted back to Earth.
Other scenes were filmed in a large studio, It was grainy and a bit shaky, but it showed the planting of the flag, one of the key images.
What was the most poignant part was when Neil Armstrong was practicing different versions of his “ One step” announcement.
After viewing all this I was left saddened, it was like the moment when you realised that Father Christmas was not real, or the tooth fairy didn’t exist, it shattered something that was special, and poised the question, what next?
Yesterday there were tree munchers trimming another of Larry’s trees that was hanging over his barn.
We had been thinking about making a screen from tree branches for a while, and here was an ideal opportunity to get some. So I went over to ones of the men and asked if they could drag a few branches on to our garden, I would then trim them and throw away the small branches and leaves. Well that is exactly what they did, when I returned from my trip to see John the wood, it was there, a heap of branches on the front lawn.
That meant that this morning I had to set about trimming and salvaging what I could from what was there. I wanted to do it quickly because it did look a bit of a mess. That was the first job of the day.
The main task was to finish a mid century style dresser that Kelli found at the side of the road.
I had to drill new holes for new handles, plus continue stripping the parts for the kitchen island, this is taking a long time, and it’s boring.
We finally got rain, well most of the evening, the plants loved it and any grass that is still alive sighed “about bloody time”.
Kelli finished painting the bookcase for the lady up the road, so things continue to move.
I had the best time today, and it didn’t start out to be.
I called John the wood, to see if he was available for me to visit and discuss the wood top I need for the kitchen island. Once he remembered who I was, he told me he was available , I arranged to meet him at his home at 1.00pm. My timing was perfect and we drove from his home to his barn, a journey of ten miles. I showed him some drawings of what I wanted him to make.
Now the reason I went to his home was that he no longer had a vehicle, his doctor had told him he was unfit to drive and had his license taken away.
Okay, now John was alway an oddball, but once you get used to repeating yourself about ten times he will understand.
We descended the stairs into his lumber storage to seek out the beech planks I needed for this top. First of all the lights didn’t work, so we carefully walked through the dark to the other end of the basement. He was muttering all the time about the mains being turned off. I felt it was safer to stay exactly where I was.
Finally the lights came on, now we could see what we came down for.
The beech rack was full, John pulled out several lengths of wonderful material and I helped to carry them upstairs.
Then it became a bit weird, instead of him taking the lead and cutting the planks down, he wanted me to do it. Some of these planks were ten feet long and quite heavy.
So with me feeding the wood through the saw, John was on the other end receiving the cut pieces. That is how it went, I did all the work, getting the plank thickness to the required dimension, running them over the jointer, cutting the pieces to length, marking the pieces and drilling the dowels. I don’t think I have drilled so many dowel holes since I left school.
However time was moving on, we didn’t have the time to glue up the top, Kelli called to check on how I was doing, and I realised I had to take John back home.
I finally got home just after 7.00pm, my dinner was in the dog,(joke) I was exhausted, but it was a great day, I had a helper, who just did what I asked, and not like Mike Russell-Pell at HM who would look over your shoulder and say “ What the f*** are you doing shag?” Quite the opposite,
Not much gets done on a Monday, food shopping takes priority.
We whisked around Natures Market, the best way, then on to Aldi. This place serves the zombies, the people that just stand in front of the cabinet I need. I say “excuse me” and they continue to stare, eventually regain consciousness, turn around and walk off. By then I have moved on to another part of the store, but have to return to the now vacant cabinet, only to find what I wanted is not there.
Thank goodness for AC because it stops me overheating. There is also the masked crusaders who wander about, maybe they are allergic to humans? I do wish I could confront them, and asks them why they still wear them, but I let them get on with their lives, I guess they have their reasons.
Although Aldi sell organic products, they also have a good selection of crap, helping to keep the large people fed.
It was difficult to breathe in the heat of the day, Kelli cut short her visit to the UPS store, she wanted to cool in the AC at home. There doesn’t seem to be an end to this weather, the forecast of rain is usually a low percentage that fails to materialise.
I was interested in the new range of furniture that Herman Miller has launched. Designed by Architect John Pawson called Drift. It is a simple soft seating range with a price range that blows my mind. A single arm chair is priced at between $5000 & $7000 up against the classic Eames 670, I know what I would rather have. I know that the company want to sell to the ordinary customers, but there are not many who could justify spending that amount of money on that.
Another Lifetime to go 