Another Lifetime to go

26th December 2021

Oh, the day after, it’s back to normal. We had to drive to Hudsonville to collect another dresser, what a surprise. This was similar to many we’ve sold so it was a no brainer. Then it was off to Grandville to collect a free dresser with a broken drawer. When we got there we discovered it was not a broken drawer, it was another piece missing a drawer. I now have two dressers that need drawers, so I’m sure I will become an expert in making them by the end of it.

It was important to get back quickly because the buyer of the bedroom set of dresser and headboard was coming to collect.

It was good to get that out as it had been gathering dust for a while.

The little coffee table was finished and posted on Marketplace, hopefully that will go soon.

Not having a Boxing Day always feels that I’m being shortchanged, there is no excuse to lounge around and play with any new toys that I’ve got. You could say, and many do, that is what retirement is for, but there is no formality in that, every day could be the same.

Boxing Day gave a reason to go for a long walk to wear off all the excesses of the previous day. When cold leftovers were the norm, and drink the leftover wine straight out of the bottle without dirtying a glass, oh bliss.

Over here the machines in the factories are turned back on so as not to waste good production time.

25th December 2021

Okay it’s Christmas Day, it started with a fantastic breakfast, at least I thought it was as I cooked it. Kelli didn’t complain. We both had a good night sleep it was almost a pleasure to wake up.

Although there was no snow, we had periods of sunshine which gave a wonderful light.

After breakfast we opened our presents, and as usual Kelli found things that were so useful for me and also very personal.

The useful things included a set of leaf collectors. They look like the Incredible Hulks hands, but are used to gather up the leaves, can’t wait for next autumn.

She gave me a hand painted picture of a boxer dog which she knew was my favourite breed. It reminded me of “Turk” who I had during the seventies. It was quite emotional, and yet again she found something that hit the spot.

The presents I got for Kelli were quite predictable, she had planted the seeds in my brain around June, so plenty of time to for me to acquire them, and sufficient time for her to have forgotten what she had suggested.

There were a few surprises that were my own ideas, and I’m sure that foot pump will be useful. (Joke, can you imagine the response to a present like that? I’d still be in hospital at new year)

The family came at three, and the various meals went down extremely well, as did the bottle of wine that I had to consume myself as everyone didn’t drink.

Earlier I had a FaceTime with my youngest son Ryan and his family, we laughed at each other’s presents including the gloves with built in lights, they will be useful for seeing in the dark corners I have to work in.

When the evening came, we crashed out, it was a fun day, and another Christmas was over.

24th December 2021

Weee, Bang! Crash! Kelli’s phone re-entered the atmosphere and the landing was hard.

It was a bad night for her. For some reason the podcast she listens to every night to help her sleep failed at around midnight. This was not helpful, she tried multiple times to get it to play, but each time it bombed. This was a start of a terrible night. I gave her my phone to install the app, but even that didn’t work.

She tried again to reinstall, but the result was the same. That is when the phone was launched skyward.

The result was a smashed screen, not a cracked one, this was well and truly broken.

So we had to go to the phone store and wait until all the other poor saps were attended to.

Then there was the tiresome process of installing the new phone on to the network, but soon it was done, then the process of reinstalling all the apps back on.

All this and it was Christmas Eve, usually a day of panic, but for us it was back to the garage.

We had to remove the heavy dresser that we picked up roadside a few days ago. The amusing thing is that we have passed that house several times. It was like we were gloating at them. It would have been funnier to have unloaded it in the same place and driven off, but that’s not us at all.

Kelli started sanding the drawers and I continued to strip the small train wreck.

We have started watching house renovation programs in the evenings, they are quite fun. Everyone seems to be hosted by a big guy with a large bushy beard and a midget wife. It is well know that she has to stand on a box to get in the shot. Alternatively the wife is so thin that she is hardly visible, but that’s American TV.

I had a FaceTime session with Damian and his two boys, for once they were well behaved, even little George didn’t lick the phone screen, so he’s really growing up.

Seeing them made me want to get back to old Blighty as soon as I can.

23rd December 2021

It was good to be able to take things a bit easier. Our high sales this month meant that we could just coast to the end of the year.

However not in Kelli’s eyes, she always wants something to focus her energy on.

We did a second coat of primer on the mid century dresser and started removing the paint on another small buffet style piece.

It would have been easy just to slap another coat of paint on top of the four that it already had. There were some cool mouldings that had lost all of the crispness that they needed. So that is what we started doing. Suddenly a wonderful piece of furniture emerged. There is still a lot of scraping required, but once you get a glimpse of what has hidden under layers of paint, it spurs you on.

Kelli had another doctors appointment to get herself “tuned” for Christmas.

I took the opportunity to wrap Kelli’s Christmas presents. I used to be able to make a good job of wrapping, but this time I made a bit of a pig’s ear of them even though everything was in boxes, and in regular shapes

Still all that will be lost in the mad frenzy of opening them on Christmas Day.

22nd December 2021

It was all hands on deck to complete the dresser that was due for pick up today.

I had to fit new drawer guides to the two bottom drawers and fit the top. It was a relief not to be rushing at the last minute.

There was a bit of tweaking to get the fit right to one of the drawers, nothing that a few passes of a sander wouldn’t put right.

Kelli worked on the coffee table, painting the leg frame. I sanded and stained the top ready for finishing tomorrow.

I wanted to continue painting the mid century dresser, but it was too cold for spray painting, we normally have the garage door open, but not today.

21st December 2021

Kelli’s head almost rotated 360 degrees as we passed a dresser by the side of the road. We were returning from another scavenging excursion when we saw this piece, but we couldn’t stop, as the back of the truck was full.

We sped back home to unload the stuff and for Kelli to visit the bathroom.

We had started the day by driving to the north side to collect some free stuff, but when we got there only a coffee table that was worth taking. There was a bookcase that turned out to be vinyl covered chipboard, and a red velvet ottoman that wouldn’t look out of place in a brothel, so we didn’t take those. Next stop was to our side of town to collect a two door cabinet, that wasn’t free, but in a good condition.

This led us to be on the road with the roadside dresser.

We hurriedly unloaded the truck and drove back to see if the dresser was still there, it was. There always seem to be a rush to load roadside stuff, maybe it’s because we don’t really like to be seen, well that’s my excuse.

It was a heavy bugger, but we made it, and drove off victorious.

There is nothing better than free stuff, and to top the day, the five arts and crafts dining chairs that we were given, finally had a buyer, and she was driving two hours to collect them.

These were good examples of reproduction Stickley furniture, a top American brand, and the lady was happy with her purchase, and we were happy that she was happy, and I was happy that there was a pile of dollars on the countertop.

20th December 2021

It was out picking up two furniture pieces this morning, one from the north side of Holland, the other from Zeeland. They were not that exciting, one will require a lot more work.

This meant that we had to unload the dresser we picked up yesterday . I was able to study the condition, apart from the missing drawer that we knew about, there was a lot more structural work required. The whole unit dipped in the centre, and the previous people put a screw through the top to try to straighten, but that did nothing but mess up the top. This was put in the “Requires a lot more work than we thought” category.

I made a start preparing the mid century piece for painting, it was a wretch, but that’s what the customer wants.

19th December 2021

The black and white dresser went off to its new home this morning. The whole transaction lasted minutes, money handover, load up and off.

They didn’t even feel the top that I spent time(before they arrived) waxing.

Then we had to drive to Allandale to collect another dresser. Unfortunately there was a drawer missing which is why it was so cheap. We had been led to believe that the drawer pieces were included, obviously that was not correct. When we pointed that out to the seller, she smiled and said “ Well that’s why it’s free”. Having driven all this way we decided to take it anyway.

This will be the second piece that I will have to make new drawers for.

I had a fire going outside to burn all the off-cuts that had built up and causing me to trip up all the time.

My part of the garage has become a health hazard. I have a stack of off-cuts that occasionally decide to slide out when I pass. These booby traps alway get me, Rambo couldn’t do a better job setting them.

18th December 2021

“We missed Steve’s party!” I exclaimed, as I sat up in bed and saw what the date was.

“It was on the seventeenth, and I thought today was the seventeenth”. Kelli was equally shocked, “ I should have known, but I didn’t do my blog yesterday” was my feeble excuse.

This happens a lot where we lose track of the days, but it was disappointing.

We had a number of collections this morning, so the log jam has been eliminated, and replaced by a stack of dollars.

However Kelli has already trawled Marketplace for new projects, finding a couple of pieces to pick up over the next few days.

Also news that we have a buyer for the white dresser with the stained black top. Only a few days ago we were concerned that we had three unsold pieces, now there is a large hole in our production that needs filling.

There also was interest in the five dining chairs, now that would be a good cash injection, I might even take the rest of December off.

We finished the bedroom set of single headboard and dresser, this turned out to be pretty good, I hope there is a customer out there who will appreciate it.

17th December 2021

Well I have been proven wrong again. After bringing the dresser and the two side tables into the house and taking new pictures Kelli posted it. Within a short time they sold! I was gobsmacked.

This means that I will probably be wrong on that decision as well, so I plan to button my lip and just get on sanding in future.

We finally got round to picking up a mid century dresser from Hamilton that the customer wanted painted white. It will break my heart to do this as the condition is good and could be renovated.