I finally started the assembly of the spice drawer, and you really need two pairs of hands one set to guide the bars into the holes, the other to position the shelf, needless to say there was fun to be had.
I did get it together and with an arrangement of clamps set it aside to dry.
There was another lunch at Kelli’s mothers, this time Greer and Dylan joined us. It was the usual family session talking about people and events that I knew nothing about, but somehow it was fun.
Afterwards because it was late, I didn’t feel like doing stuff in the garage, instead I made a start of de-weeding the garden. A satisfying task, but endless. I had Kelli jumping up and down shouting, “ That’s not a weed!”.
I have to devote more time to keeping the garden tidy, although I don’t know or remember the name of the plants, I do like a good display and order in the plots.
The two dressers had to be delivered to the north side.
We had to negotiate the traffic chaos cause by a line of traffic ones blocking one lane, with no one working there. The drive took us past wooded areas and into a pleasant collection of houses. The one we wanted had a steep driveway, which would make a great ski jump in winter. It took a bit of effort, and a potential nose bleed, but we made it.
The two dressers were destined for a daughter’s bedroom, and as they had more daughters, I hope they might want more dressers in the future.
Then it was off to collect another project piece.
This was priced a little higher that I would like, but the condition wasn’t bad, it needs a bit of love and imagination, but that’s Kelli’s department.
When we finally got back, I started on more pieces for the kitchen. All the parts for the pullout spice rack were ready for assembly.
I did a bit of work on the pantry unit and fitted one of the fronts, but as we have no handles yet the only method of opening it is a loop of string, not very stylish.
A bit of a late start today, I wanted to finish the lower drawer of the new larder cabinet. There was also the lazy Susan that needed the doors removed and new ones fitted. Well one out of two isn’t bad. Unfortunately the hinges for that didn’t open wide enough, so back on to Amazon for the correct ones.
Kelli was busy on the latest dresser, but she wasn’t into it. It must be the phase of the moon that was reducing our efficiency.
We loaded up the truck with the two matching dressers ready for tomorrow’s delivery.
The one job that went without hitch was replacing the rear windscreen wiper. The old one had corroded and the plastic became brittle. I found one on EBay and it arrived in a couple of days, now bring on the rain!
First day in shorts, a day in the seventies, fantastic.
We had to return to Menards because the wood glue was not in the bag when we got home yesterday. My wife was the packer, it was on the receipt, and I looked in the back of the car, but it was not there.
I returned in the hope that I could get a credit, instead I didn’t get anything. They checked the surveillance cameras and confirmed that it was put into the bag, so they had no comeback, and I was out of pocket.
We debated what had happened, and concluded that it must have fallen out of the bag and was left in the trolley, and as I put the thing away it must have been my fault.
That meant I had to buy it all over again, along with a few other things I didn’t really need, but that’s life.
We stopped back at the garden centre to pick up some ground cover plants, as we have plenty of that to cover.
Then finally it was back home to do some kitchen work.
I fitted the cabinet that replaced the dishwasher, it went better than I expected. Now there all the drawers with new fronts to replace.
We went to see our designer to discuss the trim colour for the top of the tiles. This, I thought would be simple, a plain white capping, low profile, job done, but no, it turned into a drama.
Kelli did not like the painted aluminium extruded part, she wanted a copper strip to reflect the copper sink. Of course no-one make a copper edge trim, so where do we go from here? We looked through all the samples, tried a variety of different edging but none met with approval, so her task is to find a metal supplier/fabricator who could custom make some.
I bought a new sander whilst I was at Menards picking up some aluminium rod for the spice rack, the sanders we have are not very powerful and takes a lot of work to sand anything, now we have the equivalent of a V8 muscle car at our fingertips.
One day I will finish the kitchen remodel, I’m looking forward to that. The disruption is a little depressing, I know it annoys Kelli who cooks every day that the pans are not where she wants them, the dining table is a storage area that is constantly full of crap, and the thought of eating there is still a future goal.
We did manage to paint the last cabinet that still needs to be installed, so the snails pace continues.
The biggest frustration of the day was making new legs for the latest dresser we collected a few days ago.
Once we got it home we discovered that plywood panels had been nailed to the sides in an attempt to give a more contemporary look. Some crazy legs had been added, and when we removed them the extent of the alteration was revealed. The original legs had been cut off very badly, the sides had also been shortened but the cut was not straight or square.
My first job was to improve the cuts, and then find timber to make new legs.
I intended to make two leg frames, that would be attached to the base of the dresser.
I thought that using dowels would be the best solution, but dowels don’t like me much. I have several dowel jugs, and when all the wood sections are identical they work fine, but when they are not it never works well for me. Worst are the pointed bits that supposed to mark where the holes need to be, but they never work. No matter how careful I am I can never get them to be perfectly lined up, and it drives me mad. I can’t believe how long it took to make two leg frames, I lost count how many dowels I used. Eventually I did get them glued up, but what a pain in the arse it was. It would have been quicker to use mortise and tenons.
Lots on today, first a drive to the North side to pick up some sheets that Kelli bought on Marketplace, then on to Plato’s to sell more of her clothes. This is often the case, taking from one hand and throwing it away with the other.
Next stop was a doctors appointment. He was happy with her progress, so a positive visit.
On the way back we had to collect the sink drainer that we ordered a couple of weeks back from the kitchen showroom.
The designer sent Kelli a message to say the new countertop would be installed early next month between seven and nine in the morning.
That required a return call to schedule a slightly later time. There was a discussion about handles and finishes, that we are still awaiting samples.
I did ask her to find a spice holder pull out drawer, but there was no mention of that, I had decided to make my own anyway, that way I get what I want, and don’t have to shoe-horn a commercially available piece into my enclosure.
To some extent, I think she might be losing interest because instead of her getting a slice of all the vendors orders, I’ve been making most of it, not because I was trying to be cheap, more that I wasn’t convinced I would get exactly what I wanted at a reasonable price. Some of the quotes were totally unrealistic.
When we eventually got home after doing the weekly shop I started on the pull out rack.
It was Mother’s Day over here, flowers and pollen in abundance. We went to Kelli’s mothers for dinner, joined by her brother Matt, his wife Brenda and Kelli’s son Cameron. Kelli had made two flower displays from our garden, they were a combination of wild flowers and weeds because we had no idea which was which, anyway they made a colourful display.
We finished the two matching dressers that had been built into someone’s wall. I made new tops and tidied up the bottoms, and they looked very decent. Kelli managed to sell them both without posting them on Marketplace.
I wanted to remove another part of the old kitchen worktop so I could remove the only dishwasher.
I ran my circular saw across to cut through the laminate, then did the rest with a hand saw, mainly to reduce the amount of dust.
Once that was done I moved on to removing the appliance. It had brackets that was screwed to the underside of the worktop that I had no idea how they were tightened. There was no space for a screwdriver, and even a flexi drive wouldn’t fit. I scratched my head for a while, and concluded the only possible way of unscrewing the fixings was to grip a pozi bit in a pair of mole grips. This took a while, but eventually I was able to remove them. Moving out the dishwasher was then simple. I stopped off the water supply, and disconnected the waste water hose, but the only thing left was the power. I couldn’t see where it was wired because it disappeared into the back of another base cabinet, and I didn’t want the mess around with those, who knows what Pandora’s box I would unlock.
My only option was to cut the wire. I knew that the electricians had used the circuit for wiring up the hob, so technically it was not live.
However not taking any chances, I put on a pair of rubber gloves, and gripping the cutters in my hands, I took a deep breath, “snip” it cut though in one slice, I was still alive.
Then it was just a case of getting it to the garage to be cleaned, but that’s for another day.
It was one of those days when I couldn’t get into my jobs. Quite early on I decided that we should go to the garden centre and get some new plants for the garden, and as it is Mother’s Day tomorrow get something for Kelli’s mother at the same time.
Of course it was raining, so the trip was quick, and we found things that would add colour to the bare soil.
I had a drawer to repair for one of the dressers that Kelli was working on, that started well and descended into chaos. I could apply myself to it completely and made by some silly errors that made me angry with myself. It didn’t help that it kept raining, so I resigned myself to a nonproductive day.
However I did visit the government website and found this interesting announcement.
Now once all my current obligations are covered I can plan my trip back to the UK.
Well today was supposed to be the day when the Covid non vaccinated restrictions were due to be lifted, but I could find anything on the news to say that it happened. The only thing that was, was the immigration activity on the southern border. I guess I will have to scour the government website to see if it’s been implemented.
The changes in the local weather have started to irritate me. I used to laugh at the thought of having a weather channel on the television, but I can see that it’s needed.
Every morning I look at the app on my phone to see what I have to look forward for the day. Based on that, I will set out the things outside to do my tasks. Like this morning, it was due for rain in the late afternoon, so I had my job list mentality set in my head.
As I was adding finish to some drawer boxes, I felt something on the back of my hand. “No it couldn’t be rain, my phone said it was at four”.
I looked at my phone again, RAIN! it showed happening now, where did that come from.
So I rushed to move everything back inside cursing. Next the weather was clear until five in the afternoon, so I carried things outside again.
I was well into staining some tops for the two dressers, when I felt something on the back of my hand, again. I checked the weather app and it showed rain happening again. I rushed to move everything back inside yet again cursing a bit louder than before. Would I dare to venture out again? Bloody heck no.
On a sad note, our robin’s nest, with a baby in it was attacked by something resulting in a messed up nest and a missing baby. Nature can be cruel.
Another Lifetime to go 