Another Lifetime to go

22nd January 2022

We braved the snowstorm to deliver the Child’s kitchen to an address in Zeeland. It wasn’t in the Zeeland I know, it was way out in the wilderness.

The ribbons of snow snaked across the road in front of us, there were no hedges to obstruct the cross winds. This was when I realised how bleak the countryside is around here.

The number of the house had five digits, almost to many to fit in the mailbox, but we got there.

The family were excited to see us, and their two year old daughter couldn’t wait to get her hands on it. This is always the fun part of the job, seeing how happy people are with their purchases.

They later sent us a picture of the kitchen in their child’s bedroom.

Next stop was to Byron Center to collect a free dresser. The drive took longer than we thought, but we got there, it was outside covered in snow. When I went to lift it, it had frozen to the ground. I thought it was really heavy, then it released itself, and it was still heavy.

It had some damage to the bottom of the end panels, but it was cold, we just wanted to load it into the truck and bugger off back home.

The decision was to scrap the free dresser that we collected a few days ago, it was a piece of shit. I set about dismantling it saving some of the wood that I could use again, but nothing else was worth saving, so I broke it up and I started a fire outside, put it on, and burnt the lot. It was disgusting, but it burnt well.

21st January 2022

Thank goodness for the ATM, as I can’t have a bank account yet it is my only way of getting cash. But around here the bank charge for every transaction and I really hate that. Also each machine has a different card orientation which, if you’re standing out in the freezing cold is bloody annoying.

Some banks charge up to $4 per transaction, so it pays to draw out a large sum ($300 maximum), but if that amount is not needed, you’re carrying around a wad all the time.

I managed to find a Credit Union bank that doesn’t charge anything. At first I thought it was an introductory offer to get me hooked, but so far I keep getting cash out for free.

Kelli had a doctors appointment where she underwent a bit more toe pulling and neck stretching. He seemed happy with her progress which is key to her recovery.

I joke that with all the visits she has had he’s bought a new boat to go with his car collection.

We stopped off at a thrift store where Kelli collected a pile of things that she can sell on.

One thing was a duvet cover that she paid $4 for, and sold it for $45, a nice little earner.

She also sold the knobs that we got from a dresser we recently collected for half of what we paid for the dresser, swings and roundabouts.

We sold the kiddies kitchen to a family from Zeeland, unfortunately they couldn’t fit it in their car, so we will deliver it tomorrow.

20th January 2022

There were two pieces completed, first we carried in the toy kitchen, and Kelli dressed it with some play items, it was fun, and I expect someone will buy it for their little darling.

Once that was posted we brought in the white two door cabinet, took the pictures, and posted it straight away.

I glued up the extension pieces to the other two drawer dresser, there is a few holes to fill, but that will be ready for priming tomorrow.

There was another flurry of snow this morning, and there is more on the way.

The dry heat from the central heating really dries my skin, in the evenings my legs and back are so itchy that I feel like I could scratch so hard I would burst into flames.

19th January 2022

We had a good look at the free dresser that we picked up on Sunday, and this might be the piece that will defeat us. If it had been on the side of the road we would have left it there. There are no redeeming features at all, the drawers are cardboard, and the fronts look like hardboard. This would win the prize for the biggest piece of crap ever.

There was another dresser that we were due to collect, but when we got to the house the dresser was in the front porch. Negotiating the snow and ice on the path, we climbed the steps and opened the screen door. We were hit with a waft of stale cigarette smoke, and on a chair was an ashtray that had a hundred stubs sticking up. We turned around and left, it is difficult to get rid of the smell that gets into the furniture, it was not worth the hassle.

We met up with our friends Mike and Lesley for lunch at New Holland. She recently had knee replacement surgery and was in a little discomfort due to the cold weather.

I can’t imagine how it must feel to have metal parts in such a key part of the body. Mike was explaining to me what the procedure was, I didn’t hear the end as I had passed out.

Back in the garage the children’s kitchen was close to completion, that has taken way more time than we had anticipated, but it’s looking okay.

18th January 2022

There was a quick visit to the Post Office to send off boxes of Kelli’s Marketplace sales plus my passport. I do feel strange without it, but I have to trust the postal service to deliver it safely.

We took the dogs for a walk around the lagoon, the first since Christmas. I fitted studded clip-ons to my shoes to avoid slipping on the ice, no broken bones please.

The sun was shining but lake Mac was iced over. We got back without incident, and set about our working day.

Amazon delivered a new dog poop scooper, this one was all steel, as opposed to the last one which was nearly ninety percent epoxy resin because it had broken so many times.

Kelli couldn’t wait to test it out, this just goes to show how interesting our lives are at the moment. I am pleased to say the the test was successful and we might do it again tomorrow.

There was progress on the children’s kitchen, I fitted a couple of doors and made supports for the shelves. All this extra timber usage has taken a toll on my stock, I can feel another trip to the shops coming up.

17th January 2022

It’s Martin Luther King day so there is no postal deliveries, or Post Offices open, so my old passport will have to be mailed out tomorrow.

I am also expecting my floor standing Anglepoise lamp this week, my cup is certainly floweth over.

We had to collect a free dresser that Kelli found on Marketplace, it should have been collected by someone else but they failed to turn up, as we were second in line the honour was all ours.

Often these can be a jewel in the rough, other times a rough in the rough. This example is the latter, it will take divine intervention to breathe life into this piece.

We stopped off at Menards to get some supplies, this is usually a casual mooch around for me, but as Kelli needed the bathroom, and refused to use the store facilities, it had to be quick race around.

Whilst Kelli was painting the little children’s kitchen I was farting about repairing the upstand I wrecked yesterday.

16th January 2022

The temperature was low again, enough to freeze the sliding doors in the sunroom. The poor dogs were waiting patiently with their legs crossed. Once again I let them out the back door in the garage, boy did they run fast.

I managed to free the door with my trusty heat gun and shop towels.

So it looks like the dehumidifier was a bit of a waste of money.

I made a start on the commission piece by trying to remove the top. Thinking I had to remove the back panel to get at the rear fixing screws was a complete waste of time. The top was nailed down with the fixings hidden by decorative upstand and screw at the front.

The next problem was removing the upstand that ran from the sides and along the back.

I had never worked on anything similar before therefore was not sure how it was attached.

I tackled one side by sliding a thin spatula under the upstand, this seemed to work.

When I got halfway along I realised how it was fixed. There was a slot machined in the top, and the upstand had a tongue that fitted into the slot, and dipshit here, was sheering the tongue with the spatula.

I finally removed the top part, but the tongue was still in the slot. Eventually I dug it out in a few pieces, thinking I could glue the pieces back together.

Now I was left with the back and side piece to remove.

I then had the thought to tap the nails back through the top and force the fitted upstand out.

Gradually it came out. I tapped the nails in sequence and Plop! It fell out, now if only I had this thought earlier I could have saved myself a lot of extra work.

Now these were out I could now strip the old finish off and get it ready for finishing.

There was a bit of repair to some veneer that I managed to do and the good old familiar sanding, but at least I made a start.

I needed to renew my passport which runs out at the end of February. I went on line and was able to fill out the appropriate form, add a new photo and pay the fee and in approximately eleven weeks I should receive a new one with a blue cover, all I have to do is send my old one back, that makes me nervous because I’ll be without any identification.

15th January 2022

We had a few things to do this morning, so I checked how my repair to the drawer box side panel that was damaged yesterday on my day of woe. I removed all the clamps and all was well. I trimmed the excess, and fitted it to the rest of the box as soon as I could to avoid the possibility of it getting damaged further.

We had to deliver the small dresser to a previous customer on the north side, and whilst we were out there were a few collections to make including another dresser.

But first we had to unload the two heavy pieces we left in the truck overnight.

The delivery of the small dresser went without a hitch, I like the fact that I was able to carry it on my own without sounding like I was having a heart attack.

There was time to kill before we had to collect the dresser, so we stopped at a thrift store

There we found two matching side tables which Kelli snapped up (they went on Marketplace as soon as we got home).

We had to wait in the carpark of a blueberry processing company for the lady to arrive.

Eventually she turned up with a car full of people. She was Mexican, and it is well known that all family members travel together no matter where they go.

We loaded up and headed back, we were expecting a couple to bring us a dresser that they wanted re-finishing. I had done an enamel topped bakers table back in February 2021, so they must have been happy with that, as they had driven from Kalamazoo, which is about fifty-two miles away.

Now the garage is full again.

14th January 2022

We had to drive to Lowes to meet up with a chap who was selling a greenhouse. This has to be the longest transaction in Holland history, because Kelli had been communicating with him for months. We thought it had died a death as the guy stopped responding, but suddenly he started up again. We decided to buy it for our plans to grow more veg for ourselves.

On the way back we stopped off at Goodwill, we hadn’t been to that one for a long time. There wasn’t much there except for a black painted desk. As our stock was rapidly diminishing, we thought it would be a good piece to have, and as it was only five dollars it was a bit of a bargain.

It was a heavy beast, I had to get help to move it from the store through the back room to the loading bay. The person available was a large lady, who had problems walking. She waddled in front of me, I wasn’t sure if she was capable to helping me carry the furniture, and that proved correct, instead she pushed it.

The scraping sound echoed around the store, I pretended that I wasn’t involved. Once through the double doors she handed the baton to a young lad to do the actual carrying and lifting.

With a struggle we got it into the truck, the first Goodwill purchase this year.

I had one of those days when things didn’t go right, a day when things might have been thrown as far as I could throw them.

It started when I started making a sample of the extension piece for the unit that has to be increased in height. I decided to use my new dowel jig to join all the parts together. I cut up all the parts and marked every piece so I could align the doweling jig. I drilled all the holes, and then came the time to assemble the frame.

There was perfect alignment on the faces but a small step on the ends. This shouldn’t have happened! All the lines lined up, I refitted the jig and tried to re-drill the holes. This did nothing, the steps were still there.

I then started checking every piece of wood and found that the end cuts were slightly out of square. I need to recalibrate the saw now.

Then as I was fitting the bottom panel into the drawer box that I had made, one of the panels dropped on to the floor and chipped the bottom corner. Being a soft plywood it just broke away, I cursed out loud!

I decided to stop for the day in case something else went wrong.

13th January Thursday

We had a customer come to collect the dresser we posted yesterday. There was the last minute rush to make sure everything was painted properly. The market has picked up a bit as January is often slow with low sales.

I began working on two dressers that need my expertise whilst Kelli finished the small drawer unit which she posted on Marketplace.

Then she started on the kiddies toy kitchen.

I repaired a bit of damage on the side panels with a big dollop of Bondo.

One of the dresser units is going the be repurposed to use two glass doors we had in stock, but I have to increase the height by about four inches.