Sunday, March 3, 2013

Sunday Salon... take a seat, well not just yet

It's Sunday again, sunny and cold, a balmy -7C or 21F. I don't see any birds, only rabbit foot prints. First, I'd like to thank all of you who commented on my post regarding "wasting my time volunteering"  I do KNOW that it's not a waste of time, it's just some days you feel like "WHY" am I doing this?  Some coordinators make you feel like you are just not doing enough, or not doing something that is all that important.  You know I'm an addict, shortly after deciding I'm "wasting" my time, I was on another task. Thank You all again.
 It's been a regular week.  Thought I'd post my progress on the princess chair. When I acquired this gem, there were two, each had it's own issues.  One had the back harp badly damaged, but perfect legs, (I'm a leg woman) and a crack in the upper back.  The other had a perfect harp and upper back and a cracked leg.  So the obvious solution was to switch out the legs. Originally there must have been four chairs, I discovered this when I took the webbing? off.  Well I had chair 2 and 4 and this was seat three, it sort of sat on top, awkwardly, (couldn't quite figure that one out at time of acquisition), nothing a decent grinding wouldn't fix.
I removed the old seat and webbing? not sure I'd call it that, but, the wood was so dry I was forced to apply the secret formula, and wait. I guess it's tea time. The formula is extremely smelly and oily.  Off came the burlap and onto the frame switch out.  Well that was not such a big deal with the dry wood, but cleaning the joints took forever, note: glue guns don't belong anywhere near princess chairs.
The Princess Chair in a tight grip
Once the joints were cleaned up new and improved dowels fitted and realigned, not a smidgen off, reglued and gripped, drying in progress. Tea time again. Did I tell you I'm in the workshop morning and afternoon. I've often though I should put Jenners suggestion of tea at 3p.m. and a nap into practice here.
new and "fitted" improved seat, re-webbed, and burlap next horse hair
Here she sits, new corner brackets, new webbing, new burlap, all polished up. The green tape is a spot I needed to fill in a gap, and I use the tape to catch the over fill, so as not to mess up my finish.  Tuesday morning, if we don't have yet another snow storm, the formula will be dry and I'll be set to sew in some horse hair and felt. Not sure what the fabric will be ... I may take the leftover to Tony and see if he can come up with a little foot stool/tea table.

Beyond that adventure, I almost finished In the Bleak Mid Winter, Julia Spencer-Fleming.  The book begins with an abandoned infant, on the doorstep of a church.  When we were growing up, a family of 5 plus two parents, my mother always said if someone left an infant on her door step she'd keep it.  I was very young, I recall this being quite a way of getting rid of your baby if you didn't want it.   My dad always kept saying he couldn't afford anymore kids, but I'm sure he would have complied with her wishes.  Did people really just keep these babies?  Well, the other day we, my sister and I, found out that we almost had two more siblings, not quite the infant on the door step, but... you could write a book about the adventure we had on Friday. The first time in my life I've seen my sister speechless, she looked like one of those deers that  looks into the night at the approaching headlights. Hilarious!   I must write this all down, in my notes, it's so unbelievable... I can't publish right now so as not to hurt someone but someday boy... 

I won't be in my salon today, too much neglected house stuff.  My husband has been working out of town and I'm sure I'll get a load of laundry the minute he walks in, and he'll be a hungry hippo, so off I go to be a good little wife, "little" being the humorous word here. I need to test a couple of recipes today as well, so we'll be eating sweet today, and tomorrow.  What are you up to today?

*Tony is a little man that has a woodshed, where I suspect he escapes, and likes to build things. You must be really specific about what you want, Tony likes to do his own thing.

6 comments:

Nise' said...

Nice chair! I agree with Jenners, tea time at 3pm with a nap. I am not doing much today but sitting around and resting, my cough is back.

Donna said...

It's incredible the amount of work that goes into a restoration like that! You saved it, LOL! Such a pretty chair.

bermudaonion said...

I'm impressed - that's quite a project!

Vicki said...

Reminds me of my sister, she loved to restore stuff!

Parabolic Muse said...

Well, as usual, I got interrupted with WORK while I was trying to catch up on blogs, and I'm home now and have to walk the dog and do some art stuff while I try to watch what's sitting on the DVR so that I free up space, but I'll probably delete most of it without watching because I don't have time and can't watch when I'm arting. Oh, and I joined another swap, which is MY FAULT, so I'm not complaining, but my POINT is, I have not read your post about volunteering, but your mentioning it here, leg woman, reminded me of my friend Jeanette, who started volunteering last year when she retired, and she got so beat up by the various heads of the projects that she stopped completely for four months and wasn't sure she'd go back. She kept saying, excuse me, I'm a VOLUNTEER! And I know she's not a slacker so she works hard for these people.

off to read more, now. Nice chairs.

Jenny said...

Sounds like it's time you started writing your memoir, dear Irene. You can get an outline whipped out during teatime. No nap for you!

Happy Birthday

Happy birthday to my wonderful son,  it's bee 33wonderful years. Hope this year proves to be the best yet.