7th September 2021
Kelli was feeling a little better today, although she hasn’t checked if her vertigo has been cured, I will let her do that in her own time.
Work in the garage continued with the spraying of the commissioned dresser whilst the final choice for the top has still to be decided. I did a sample in a dark walnut, but the client wanted “something warmer” whatever that means.
The hunt continued.
Day 1487
6th September Monday
If yesterday was a duff day for me, today was a crap one for Kelli. She had a re-occurrence of vertigo, and it knocked her back in her recovery. We carried out the Epley manoeuvre to her left side hoping that it was successful.
She now has to avoid looking down or any sharp head movements for at least twenty-four hours.
Having mentioned the lack of rain yesterday, there was a good soak last night which filled the water barrels, and the front lawn.
I started stripping the round table, it throws up a number of questions about it’s history.
First it had been stripped before, and not done very well.
The remanence of a previous finish was as hard as rock, and difficult to sand. I’m not convinced that the top is made from oak, even though the base was solid oak which made me think that the top was not original.
Today was labour day, one of America’s national holidays, where everyone goes to their cottages in the woods. It also marks the end of summer. It is noticeable that the days are a little cooler which makes it still pleasant to work in.
5th September 2021
This was a funny old day, I couldn’t settle on anything, I was bored.
There are a lot of projects to do, but I didn’t feel enthusiastic. I was thinking about England, and how much I miss being there.
Of course this wasn’t suppose to happen, my plan was to return frequently, but Covid and the residency is taking its toll on my patience.
At least we sold the bookcase, that was a consolation, and we gave away the old bed.
Which just goes to show you can get rid of anything.
I had intended to do work in the garden, I managed to cut up an old pallet and that was it. I got distracted by other jobs calling to me.
I fitted a wooden top to another dresser, hopefully we can get that posted tomorrow.
We had a couple arrive with a round dining table that they wanted stripping back and re finishing. It also had a broken leg the needed repair.
They were happy with my quotation, and left it for me to work on.
The day dragged on, I watered the prairie garden and the raspberry plants. There hadn’t been any rain for ages, and the grass really looks thirsty, I didn’t think I would ever wish for rain, but we could do with a splash
4th September 2021
“ Do you think the bed is too low?” Kelli questioned.
I couldn’t answer that because I had a good nights sleep, but obviously it was on her mind so I needed to take heed.
She researched an add-on pad that would increase the height by a couple of inches. At about seven hundred bucks it was an expensive two inches. Next she found a wooden panel for a hundred, but I wasn’t keen on that because it would stop the airflow around the mattress. All this was leading me into the trap I could see coming.
“Could you make something that would work?” Was the inevitable question, not trying to appear a wimp I said “Of course”.
I had laid myself open now, I had to think quickly of a solution because I had just signed a virtual contract and the clock was ticking.
I was going to construct a wooden frame that would fit inside, on top of the current battens.
This meant a trip to Menards to purchase the timber.
I selected a “Prime” grade which had no knots or blemishes and produced in New Zealand.
I was not aware that timber was sourced from there, I thought that only butter, sheep and Hobbits came from that country.
Once I got back I wanted to check out sticking veneer on top of laminate. I had an old worktop that would be ideal. The veneer I was using came from Dave’s secret stash, it was a fabric backed material, something I hadn’t used before.
The method I chose to follow meant rolling PVA onto the scratched laminate surface, then applying it to the back of the veneer.
I had to let both surfaces dry before putting them together.
Then with a hot iron I heated and pressed down on the veneer.
This re-melted the adhesive and bonded the two surfaces together.
The test piece worked very well, and I was pleased which put me in good stead for working on the bed.
I removed the sixty-five screws holding the slats to the frame. It only seem like yesterday I’d driven them in!
I measured and cut the timber and assembled the new support frame and the re-fitted the sixty-five screws once again.
We re-fitted the mattress onto the raised surface, and remade the bed yet again.
Out of interest I measured the old bed which was twenty two and a half inches, the new bed was one inch shorter meaning I spent forty- eight bucks to make the bed a half an inch higher.
I hope I don’t get a nose bleed getting into it tonight.
3rd September 2021
The FedEx man struggled up the driveway with a package that did not look like the mattress we were expecting. Quite the opposite, it fitted on his dolly very easily, and the two foot by two foot box was not bed size.
However “Avocado” was clearly marked on the box, so something was in there.
I did try to move the box myself, but it was heavy. With a bit of lifting, dragging and bad language we got it in the house.
“How can there be a king size mattress in that box” I said, gasping for breath. Kelli was equally worried that maybe she had screwed something up.
We debated where we should unpack it, and decided to do it on top of the old bed.
With shear determination we got the box onto the bed and slid the contents out very slowly.
I cut through the outer cover carefully, suddenly it exploded like the Alien bursting out of John Hurts chest. We both looked in amazement as it became a king size mattress.
I hope we never have to try to squeeze it back into the box.
We sold the cut down dresser this morning but the small bookcase has resisted all who tried to buy it, this time we thought it was sold until the prospective buyer realised how far Holland was and ducked out.
The first of our commission pieces turned up this evening, a dresser to be painted and something done with the top which unfortunately was a laminate, I might try putting a veneer on it, another challenge.
2nd September 2021
Some people piss me off, in particular those that say they will call round to buy a piece of furniture that we have lovingly rescued, and they don’t turn up. We go to a lot of preparation for our customers, getting a small pot of touch up paint poured, and tidying up the garage. We move the piece outside checking that everything has been painted properly. This disrupts any further work as we wait. When it doesn’t happen it’s a big downer.
We are always confident that the pieces will sell, but it’s alway encouraging to start the month off with a bang.
Another of Kelli’s “finds” had to be collected from Allandale. It was another dresser in a little distressed state. One drawer came flat pack, and bits of veneer were missing from others.
We made a good start to another tall dresser, and I fitted a new back panel to the one I cut down.
More pictures were taken and posted on Marketplace.
And a reminder of what it was
1st September 2021
With a last spurt of the spray gun the shelf for the French Provincial buffet was complete, but not content with sitting on her bottom Kelli had something else up her sleeve.
A drive to Drenthe to collect another piece of furniture. When we got to the house there was this thing waiting on the driveway.
I have seen exhumed coffins in better condition than this piece.
“It will be great, it has lots of character” a well used term to mean “You will have a lot of work ahead to turn this heap of crap into something“.
We loaded it into the truck, cobwebs and all, it was old, possibly early Tutankhamen, we will have to check if there is a preservation order on it.
We got back, still no mattress, apparently it is still resting in Chicago due to delays caused by Covid. There must be a bloody mountain of backlog, with no delivery date in sight.
We also finished the smaller dresser that I had cut down, production through Bristol Cottage is stepping up, I hope so, the garage is full of stuff, and we’re expecting two private commissions, one is a dresser for refinishing, the other is a dining table.
31st August 2021
Well the great day has arrived, the new mattress is due. Kelli checked the tracking information and saw that it left Chicago at 08.30am.
We had to collect a dresser from the north side of town, but felt confident that nothing would be delivered in our absence.
The address was a little run down, no one would dare squat in that place, but the piece was decent, so we kept the engine running whilst we loaded it, then made a rapid escape.
Once back we stripped the bed, and I moved the new wood frame into the living area with intensions to build sub assemblies to make it quicker and easier to build up in the bed room.
The bed frame was very well secured, the hardware were all labelled and all the wood parts were individually wrapped.
The product was purchased from Pier 1 and manufactured in Brazil, and once the box was opened I removed the polystyrene pieces, along with a number of packets of white powder ( not sure what they were) and set them aside. I assembled all the middle sections, and fitted the dowels in the main frame components.
Kelli was now anxious about the delivery, as the information on the tracking site hadn’t updated. She then called FedEx again, and spoke to a real person. She was assured that it would be with us by 3.00pm, in the meantime we got on with finishing the French Provincial buffet.
By 4.00pm there was still no sign of our mattress. Kelli primed the dresser I cut down yesterday while I stained the top.
Still not here by 6.00pm, Kelli called FedEx again.
“It will be with you by 8.00pm” the agent responded, the clock is ticking.
9.00pm came, and we gave up and remade the bed, not looking forward to another waiting game tomorrow.
30th August 2021
There was a fly buzzing around the sunroom where Kelli was sitting.
The fly then landed on the lamp shade, she searched around for something to hit it with, and picked up some sheets of white paper.
I said, “what are you going to do with that, get it to write out it’s last will and testament?”
Twack! She hit the little bugger and it fell to the floor.
“Wow!” I said, “you did that with a sheet of paper?
“Well there were four sheets”
“Oh that makes a big difference” I said sarcastically, I couldn’t do that with a piece of 4 by 2”.
That American printer paper sure is deadly.
We both had an identical thought concerning the latest furniture piece. We hauled it out of the truck and had a good look at it. The door was missing, but all the drawers were good.
I was suggesting that I make a new door, even though it would have been a lot of work.
There was a moment of silence, then I went to make another suggestion when Kelli’s eyes lit up. That is when I knew she had the same idea, but we couldn’t decide who would go first. Eventually she blurted out her idea, and it was the same, we would cut the unit down, and move two small drawers over to the space where the door used to be, it was modular, so they would fit.
I was so excited to get started, fortunately it was a knock down construction, so taking it apart was easy. Then it was simply a cut down of end and centre panels, adding a couple of holes and it was back together, and the best of all was, we might have it sold already.
29th August 2021
Against my better judgment we drove to Hudsonville to collect a free dresser. The place looked like a bomb site, crap was all over the place. Apparently the owners were moving, but they had a lot of stuff to get rid of. We loaded up the piece, sat in the truck and bathed ourselves with sanitizers before driving back.
It was too hot to do the yard work I had on my list, instead we finished off painting the French Provincial dresser.
I had restrained the top and added a sealer leaving it to dry in the heat.
The other thing that has been nagging at me for ages is a old router that stopped working a long time ago. It was one that I inherited from Dave and could be classed as an antique, as were most of his tools. I think it got a bit hot during a cut and stopped working. It was a good router that was fitted in a small stand.
There was no thermal cutout in it like some modern tools have, so I put it on a shelf and found another on EBay.
For a time it was working perfectly, but yet again I might have been marking a deep cut, and it to overheated and stopped working.
Now I had two identical routers on the shelf that kept looking down at me.
I have others, but these fitted the table perfectly and I don’t like the thought of throwing them away.
Since I missed finding the faulty wire fault on the fan, maybe I should start there. If that doesn’t work I will try to find someone who could repair them, maybe the fan man might be able to help?
Another Lifetime to go 