They tell us the weather is going to shift. Those of you who have struggled weather-wise and from the floods, I hope this foretells a change and a better season. Once the cold comes down, we may shovel, but it’s not friendly to hurricanes, at least. And we don’t mind shoveling—better than summer heat, in my book.
I’m (in between writing) sanding the weathered surface off our old wooden back yard rocker-chairs: several things occur to me—1) a thought on the 10th anniversary of losing my father—I could very vividly remember him telling me what to do with the process, almost as as if he was standing there—we’d done it so many times. Parents have a way of staying with you in little ways. 2) wood is more durable than metal in unexpected ways. I can just sand off that neglected surface and revarnish and have it as strong as ever. The metal is far more fragile, re rust and other destructive processes. If you have to choose something of that nature, wooden chairs are not a bad deal, if you don’t mind a little maintenance. Rather than trashing some unsightly chairs, they’ll have another decade of service. 3) there’s a real pleasure in working with wood. I’m quite allergic to recently live wood, particularly oak, but I love it. This is cedar. And the grain in it is occasionally so pretty it could be in a musical instrument. I can’t bear to paint it. It’s going to get Min-waxed, transparent color, probably as Jane suggested, in a reddish stain. 4) Some aspects of writing are easier while working with one’s hands on something totally different. I can stand there and run the sander and think.
Yes, I’ve been wanting to get some nice wood Adirondack chairs and paint them in jewel-tones (periwinkle, violet, a bright sage green, cobalt blue) around a large ceramic container with some calico ryukins in it plus a nice little ivory Helvola waterlily (I have 2 ryukins that need a larger ‘place’ AND a Helvola waterlily). Maybe wood rocking chairs are a better choice, as they are easier to get out of when the knees/hips are complaining. And you reminded me that my father would have loved to help! Lost him in 2007 just before choosing the new house (sigh).
Try the local second hand stores. Disassembling, sanding, finishing a chair that’s had a hard life is fun. The Adirondacks are hard to beat, esp. with good cushions. Grip the front end of the arm rest and you actually can get out of them :lol:—I know what you mean. But the bentwood rockers with all the curlycues are wonderful, too. Plus the swing-rockers that are less hazard to kitty tails. 😉 And I bet your dad would stand there and help, in a sense, the way mine helps me.
I’ve been wanting a couple of chairs for my patio, and at some point, I’ll likely get them.
I’m a fan of letting the wood grain show through the finish. The wood is usually more beautiful than any solid paint finish…usually…though those can be purty too.
It’s still hot and dry here, as in drought, wildfires (not too near), and highs still over 100. We so need rain, and lots of it. Even a tropical storm, but not a hurricane would be welcome, needed. But the heat and dought can’t last forever.
My father has been gone for six years but he is always with me. For some reason I can’t mow the lawn without thinking of him. When I read your post about Painting cedar furniture I could hear him saying, “Paint cedar? Why would you paint good lumber like that? If you’re gonna paint it get cheap wood.” Dad was like that he hated to see the beauty of natural wood covered up. So he would approve of the min-wax stain.
Same as my dad. I learned to wipe stain pretty well at age six—agility is a bonus—I knew not to let it overlap, and I got to do furniture legs, down where the grain was odder and there wasn’t going to be the close scrutiny a table top gets. But I got a can-do attitude from being asked to walk wood into the table saw or pound a nail straight in very few strikes. I got my own packet of nails and scrap board and I had to do one perfect nail-studded board before Dad would let me loose on the real project. I was about 7 when he gave me a pocket knife—he’d said I’d either cut a finger off or lose it, but I persisted in asking, and promised to be careful. So he got me a nice one. It was white, plastic pearl handled, the sort of thing a dad would pick out for his daughter—just a little shiny; and over the years it became just silver, as it had lost its casing due to hard wear; it went with me to camp; it went with me to the lake; it went with me when I got my own house and had to do repairs. And one day when he was in his sixties, I took it out to do something and realizing he couldn’t possibly recognize it, asked if he remembered giving me a knife all those years ago. He did. No, I’d not lost it. We laughed about it. And it’s still among my most treasured keepsakes.
I thank my father, although at the time it seemed he was just using my brother and me for cheap labor. Thanks to him, I can dive into the innards of my car, rewire most things, frame a wall or window, lay brick, install drywall, replumb a sink, recane a chair, refinish furniture, paint trim, replace shingles, and a few other handy-dandy things. I scare DH, but we aren’t paying out the wazoo for many home improvement projects.
As a consequence of being a country boy, I could drive by the time I was 12, repair an electrical circuit, lay/repair steel or PVC pipe (what a revolution PVC pipe was!), buck and stack hay, milk a cow, and butcher a hog. I wasn’t much on joinery but could sand/prep/paint or stain pretty well.
My family operated a fluorite mine, so by 12 I could spot a semi truck & trailer for loading by backing it up (you needed to be a bit patient for that one!), remove/break down/repair/reinstall a flat split-ring truck tire that weighed considerably more than I did, operate a front-end loader, crimp blasting caps and load a round (I could not handle the weight of the drill well enough to drill the round until I hit 16), and handled a mine car well enough to ship a truckload of ore. At 16 I was operating the hoist to lower men and bring ore to the surface. I was the envy of my school buddies, I got to handle explosives! 😀
The thought of my kids doing these things at those ages would have given me the spiky-haired horrors, but of course this is unfair–I had grown up in that environment and knew how to do the work properly.
I hate to be a wet blanket, I’m not sure if my dad was my biological one, so when I listen to CNN’s … etc. coverage of lost family members I think, well some of us were really glad they’re gone because if they were our fathers then some of them caused us untold grief and we are really glad they are not here to torment and renounce us any more. To move to a brighter note? my recent stint as a translater led to unexpected improvements in my financial situation so I invested in a cat tree, why shouldn’t SHE enjoy our prosperity, oh NO! me climb on THAT! I feel a kitten coming on.
I find that doing something manual like woodwork helps “reset” the mind so writing is easier.
Just don’t let my publisher know I said this or he’ll draft me to help at his place in the hope I’ll get the next book done sooner.
I learned various tricks, such as thinking of electricity as like the garden hose and 220 as like a fire hydrant, re wire gauge; knowing you want it to go certain directions and not others, insuring against leaks, understanding voltage as pressure, being sure the flow is cut off, etc, and the fuse box as kind of like the master pipe branching to the lesser ones. For a kid who well knew how to set up the watering hoses, it was a quick and dirty way to understand electrical wiring, so I was pretty confident taking a socket out or putting it in by the time I was 10…only thing I didn’t touch was the fuse box and the 220. I guess nowadays people would have a fit about a kid doing wiring. But I never pulled on my dad what the neighbor did—newlyweds, with a floor furnace problem: he had just about fixed it when the young lady decided to help and throw the switch…resulting, of course, in a considerable fireball of burning gas. At 10, I was not that dim. So many things in home repair are ok if you’re just methodical—and don’t throw switches without a request. 😉
I remember watching my father, not so many years ago, peeling paint of a set of doors with a heat gun. Several coats of paint. And then having to put at least two back on, because the door panels were redwood and it bleeds through if you don’t seal it with shellac. The pine frames were still fragrant, though, after about a hundred years under paint.
I also remember him refinishing a set of red-oak dining room chairs that were a wedding present to his parents (98 years this year). He took them apart, stripped the varnish, then reglued and revarnished (satin-finish spray).
Today I stained the chairs in Minwax Red Oak—but the wood is so weathered it took it very dark. I decided that a real fast wipe would keep it lighter—ended up with the stuff all over my hands, but I had Goop-off in the kitchen. Next coat will be Spar Varnish..it should look good.
Turned out Lowes is selling Spanish-language-only Minwax. Not a word of English on the instructions. Period. Fortunately Latin gives you a fighting chance with any Romance language, and I found the ‘wait 8 hours’ instruction. You kind of expect that in Texas and Oklahoma—but up here 90 miles from the Canadian border, hey, they went to some effort to ship it this far north of the southern border.
I believe in a polylingual world anyway—but that was a little surprise.
I love the look of weathered cedar, kind of a silvery sheen to it. The only thing I ever did to our cedar fence was slather on as much Thompson’s Wood Protector as the wood would absorb. Messy stuff, almost like mineral oil, but far more smelly. My father has no skill with power tools, is not confident in using a hammer, but my mother used to do her own projects in the house, including building a cabinet for a double-sink in the kitchen, laying out the forms for the walk-up to our steps and helping level the concrete as it came from the truck. I have learned mostly by watching others do things, as well as not being a real man and actually reading the instructions before I jump in. As a Cub Scout, I had to do one repair project in the house in order to get a check mark on a promotion list. I learned basic plumbing, how to change outlets, how to repair/replace lamp sockets, how to change the washers in the faucets, etc. When I bought my first house, I learned how to do many more things that professionals command substantial fees for doing. I like to do it myself, not only for the savings (which usually never happens to me) but also for the learning experience. I’ve learned to make my own beehives, I don’t have to buy the kits that cost $35.00 each and then add on the $17.00 shipping, when I can go over to Lowes, buy a 1 X 12 X 8 piece of whiteboard and build my own, including the box joints at the corners. I just can’t get those fancy scoop type handholds cut yet, and I suspect I’ll need a shaper to do that.
It’s been rainy here and we are down in the 80’s finally. My dad was quite handy when he was younger (he’s 89 now and is nearly blind from macular degeneration) When I was a little kid, he built a stereo — not just the amplifier, but the cabinet as well. He helped my mom’s stepfather and brother build their first house. He worked on cars. A lady I worked with had a dining room table that had been out in a portable building. The roof had leaked and ruined the table top but the legs and skirting were still good. She let me have it, and my dad and I put a new top on it, completely with leaf. It was my dining room table for many years until I got a “store-bought” dining room set. I wouldn’t mind having some “porch rockers” — especially if I had a porch and particularly if I had a view like your back garden.