Another Lifetime to go

23rd October 2025

I spent a wonderful afternoon with Tom Newhouse. Tom and his wife Jill had just moved from the house he designed forty seven years ago to a new townhouse two miles away.

I had never been to the house, and as Tom still had the keys, he invited me over, and gave me a tour. 

Over the years I had heard stories of it, but seeing it in the real was breathtaking. Although stripped of its contents, and just containing staged furniture to help sell the property, it had a warmth of a home that sat comfortably in its natural surroundings.

I asked the question, why? I could tell that it wasn’t an easy decision that they took, but he explained that it was for health reasons. He is suffering from arthritis in his neck, sometimes leaving him unable to do the necessary work on the large garden.

I don’t know if I could leave a place where I put my heart and soul into, it was not just a home, it was a personal environment built with sweat and tears, and whoever is the new owner is taking on someone else’s dream.

 After the tour, he drove me to a local pub where we continued to talk, he told me stories of his experience’s with George Nelson and Charles Eames, things that only he knew about. It was filling in gaps that have never been public. 

I have often urged Tom to write a book about his life in Design, I’m sure it would be an inspiration to any young student. I have even offered to write it for him, or at least document the details, whether that happens, I would like to think it could.

22nd October 2025

There was I sitting in the coffee shop waiting for Henry. I got there a bit before three, that allowed me to eat a cake and find a suitable table, Henry, on the other is fashionable late. Well it got to twenty past three, and I began to have doubts that he would turn up. 

I had finished my coffee and was deciding if I should have another one, instead I decided to call him. I think that is when he realised where he should have been, and started on a series of apologies. I hid my disappointment, he was still in the throes of remodelling so I helped him make the perfect excuse. 

That is when I thought that both him and John the wood were making old people look bad. Forgetfulness is not a funny subject, I have alway used a calendar to keep track of my appointments, it is my second brain. 

My failings are names and numbers,I can’t keep those in my head, I have to look in my phone for my own number, but times and dates, I never miss appointments.

There are many ways of keeping the memory in tune, mostly good food, and problem solving.

But it’s hard when a lot of damage has been done by vaccines, drugs and highly processed food all through our growing up years. 

I know what you’re thinking, “He’s off on a rant again”, and yes I am. I can’t understand why so many people just ignore the damage that is being done. Over here in the US a child has nearly seventy vaccines though it’s school times, most of which aren’t necessary.

That is why fifty to sixty percent of children have chronic illnesses, and still the penny hasn’t dropped.

Why don’t people listen? we know that all governments lie, there is nothing they do that is for the good of the people, just look at Covid.

Now the latest UK government plan is for digital IDs.

It is not for your convenience, it’s not for security, it the thin edge of the wedge for government control. It might be voluntary now, but once eighty percent of the sheep sign up for it, it will be mandatory.

Then everything will link to it, facial recognition, carbon footprint, travel allowances, and bank accounts before long it will be like China with social credit scores will govern what you will be allowed to do, it’s all out there, do your research. The media will all paint a positive picture and urge you to sign up, but they’re all liars too.

It is not for your convenience, don’t be taken in by it, think! And do your research, freedom is something we all take for granted, don’t let THEM take it away.

21st October 2025

I gave John the wood the usual call at 11.00am not expecting for him to answer, and I wasn’t disappointed. Now normally it’s because his phone doesn’t work, or he doesn’t hear it, but I left a message that he would never listen to.

When I arrived at my usual time, he looked surprised to see me, but then remembered who I was and what we had planned to do. 

We chatted on the way to the workshop, I asked him what he had been doing, and he mumbled something that he had to make for the church. 

It was the same story he told me last week when he showed me the laid up slab that he planned to cut up to make the piece. From what he said I did expect some progress, but when we opened the door, the slab was in the exact same state as last week.

I tried to urge him on by offering to help him cut it up, but he said that he had people coming to help tomorrow.

We then got on with my project, the pieces that I glued up last week looked good, and I was excited to get on and do the next part.

By the time we finished I did lay up the next pieces, and probably next week the slabs should be finished.

The wind was whistling around the windows, and the clouds were full of rain, mmm, only a few weeks ago we were complaining about the lack of rain, now there’s plenty of it.

20th October 2025

On the way to our shopping experience, we drove to an address that Kelli had found who were giving away loads, and I mean loads of solid flooring strips. They were stacked up in an old barn, apparently the husband was a contractor who acquired them from a house they were refurbishing. 

We had planned to put a solid floor in the sunroom, but that would have cost a few thousand dollars, but this was an amazing find.

We agreed to take the lot, but first we have to make room in the garage.

We did all our usual shopping, and then I had to go to Menards to find out why I hadn’t had my refund for the fence panels that were crap.

I found a suitable manager, I explained the problem, she went to check the returns.

After a while she came back, no paperwork was found. Several phone calls later, there was not documentation anywhere, however, she made the executive decision to reimburse me the cost of the old fence panels plus the tax.

I did some finishing touches to the fence, then the buyer of the buffet arrived to collect and pay the balance due.

I then started to tackle the CD/DVD drive mechanism, the shutter doors were a bit stiff, so with the aid of YouTube, I started to remove the shutter assembly. There were a total of five screws, four were the smallest I’ve seen, but I managed to remove them all. 

I thought the assembly would then pull out, but no. Of course the video did not explain just how difficult it was. There were two posts moulded to the assembly that were a tight fit in a metal bracket. With extreme force I managed to dislodge them. I did a small modification to the plastic webs, and then refitted it. However trying to refit the micro screws were difficult, so rather than get stressed out, I decided to tackle it another day.

19th October 2025

There was a lot of rain overnight, and it was still coming down in the morning, just like a typical day in England, I felt at home.

There was no plans to do anything today anyway, although I put another coat of finish on the top of the buffet. Kelli had a message from the prospective buyer, that they had a flood in their basement and wouldn’t be driving down to view it. Kelli took that to mean that they would pass on the piece, however another person popped up and paid half, phew!

I spent the morning trolling the internet for clues to why I could not get WiFi or Bluetooth on the new computer.

Everything I could find out on the internet did not help me define what the issue was.

The machine itself has been well designed with sliding cards and hard drives, so the whole of the insides can be easily stripped down.

After about the twentieth video I struck gold.

I took off the side panel and noticed a few wires with numbers on them, at the time I did not know what they were, but the video cleared that up.

The WiFi and Bluetooth board was missing, the numbered wires were the ariels. I sent off a message to the seller asking if he had a board that I could have, I was polite, after all it should have been fitted when I bought it.

I will wait to see if he responds.

It was a relief to find that out, I’m sure fitting it should be simple, after all the video itself was only two and a half minutes long.

Being Sunday it was Goodwill day, so hoping to find some reasonable priced furniture, we set off for the north side. 

It was obviously the Mexican family outing day, young children were wizzing about on scooters and generally being annoying.

There were no furniture pieces there, well there was a horrible dresser painted in black gloss paint, priced at twenty five dollars, not money I wanted to spend, so there it sits.

We had our weekly ice cream fix at Kelli’s mums, and then came home, exhausted.

I think I’m getting acclimatised for winter, I have trouble keeping awake in the evenings, it must be an age thing.

18th October 2025

The last main part of the fence was done today, fitting the gate.

There were a few cuts and the fitting of the hinges, and the assembly into the gap in the fence. There was great relief when all that was done, although fitting the latch was more problematic, I should have read the instructions.

In total I took the thing off four times before I got it right, but it works, and if I don’t build another fence I will be flipping happy.

Once that was done I helped Kelli finish the buffet, fitting handles and doors and attaching the leg frame, that just raises the carcass off the floor a bit.

The rest of the time I spent struggling to sort the wi-fi on the computer. That was not made easy because I had a wireless mouse that I couldn’t connect, and it’s not easy to use a keyboard.

Anyway I need to research how to set that stuff up, you know that technology hates me, so it could take a long time.

17th October 2025

A message came in from the lady who had commissioned the kitchen island, she had a flood in the house and she feared the island was damaged. That was news I didn’t want to hear.

We got in the car and drove to her house.

We felt the pain in her eyes as she opened the door, Kelli gave her a hug, and as we entered the house we saw the extent of the water damage to the kitchen. Something happened in the bathroom where either a pipe burst or there was back pressure somewhere, but gallons of water soaked through the floor into the kitchen and down to the basement. I was nervous to see the island that had been moved into the living area. Now from the message I thought there was a massive crack, but actually there was nothing, other than a bit of movement in the timber itself. I gave a huge sigh of relief. I checked around the rest of the structure and found nothing that would need repair.

Panic over we returned home, I wanted to fit the panel under the buttress and bang in the last post. The final task will be fitting the gate, that will be tomorrow’s job.

I had a message from Chris the musician friend who was due to come tomorrow for a recording session, he couldn’t make it this week, maybe next. I was kind of expecting it, anyway it gives me a bit more time to relearn the software.

Kelli finished painting the large dresser leaving me to stain the base frame ready for the final finish.

16th October 2025

There was no work on the fence today, we needed to do some furniture.

We finally sold the small cedar dresser, that I had to line the drawers. Remarkably, it went better than my last one, the drawers were smaller, so the lining flopped down, almost perfectly.

Kelli wanted to paint the buffet, meaning I had to carry on building a baseframe for it. That was something I had forgotten, I had built half of it, so I just had to do the rest.

The problem was, I just wasn’t into it, everything started to annoy me. I couldn’t find the things I needed, and when I did, I lost them again. I would trip over things, which I usually do, and then I would throw stuff around. I tried to do it in good humour, hoping it would relieve stress.

So, I’ve had better days, maybe the fence took more out of me than I thought, and maybe I’m thinking about too many things at once. The landscaping, collecting hundreds of small stones that have to be moved to the other side of the new fence, all these things are rolling about in my grey sponge.

I discovered that the phone number I had tried to get Henry on was wrong, I inadvertently got the area code wrong, so some guy in Texas must have received my texts and voice mail.

Which was amusing because this Texan called my phone, Kelli answered it, probably said that I was English and doesn’t know what he’s doing, she is probably right on that today.

15th October 2025

What a great day for a drive to Zeeland for another Doctors appointment.

The highlight was looking around Goodwill for any furniture that we can flip, but there was nothing, so we had to contend with doing more work to the fence.

There was one final panel to fit, and the one that gave us the most trouble. I’m sure the professionals would have done the hardest one first, but not me, hard job Pete at your service.

What made it difficult was the design of the house had a buttressed feature that the panel had to fit under.

I took careful measurements, marked it out on the panel and cut the panel to shape. I had also dug a deep trench for the thing to fit in.

What followed was a comical scene of complete mayhem as we both tried to fit this panel into the remaining space.

After a couple of hours of lifting it in and out we made the decision to remove the piece that fitted under the buttress which made it much easier. 

The hard bit was I had dug the trench a bit deep which meant it had to be lifted up to match the other panels, we did it using the old method of leverage, but the effort was enormous, I’m sure we will feel it in the morning.

14th October 2025

It was a wonderful drive down to pick up John the wood from his home in Wyoming, the trees were starting to change into the autumn colours.

That is one thing that I love to see are all the maples in their golds and reds, it makes going through the black and whites of winter bearable. 

Kelli had packed me a lunch, consisting of a sourdough roll with pepperoni in, an apple, and some small biscuits.

Now I have a weakness, that is, if I know there is food close by, I will eat it, if not, it will tempt me until I do. So most of the food had gone before I got out of Holland.

John was his old self, starting a conversation then forgetting what he was talking about. It’s like playing a game of “Guess the next line”. I usually respond with a “Um” or “Mmmm” that serves the purpose.

He did say that he tidied the shop, and that was evident the moment the door was opened. 

The tidy wave also went into the basement where now you can walk without tripping over stuff.

The material that I wanted for the project was white oak of which he had an amazing stash.

He pulled out a few planks, just to check the quality, it was good, I needed eight planks.

Carrying the first few up the stairs I forgot to duck, as the thump resonated through my skull, John warned me to watch my head, thanks mate.

Then it was cutting, planing, thicknessing, and cutting to width, this was great fun, I could spend days doing all that, and I think John enjoys being involved.

By the time I had to get him back home I had glued up most of the middle sections of the chair.

I had taken a model of the finished design with me to show him the stages we would go through, it was a lot easier than trying to explaining it.

I had arranged to pick up an Apple ProTower from someone on Marketplace, the address given was Grandville, I had no idea where that was in relation to John’s house.

I punched it in to the GPS, and up came 4 minutes. 

I had over forty minutes to kill. I decided to look for a coffee shop, could I find one on one of the busiest road in Grandville? Not for several miles.

I got to the place right on time, it was a small business centre and warehouse, Leyland, the chap was there to meet me. He deals with old computers, and he does pretty well with them.

After going over all the modifications and additions he did to it, we loaded it into the back of the truck, and I headed home.

I certainly had been busy, and I was still covered in sawdust when I pulled into our driveway.