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Wednesday, May 24, 2017

Rainy Days and Wednesdays....

It's raining cats and dogs outside today
so I am sitting here nice and cozy at my dining room table with my kitchen lamp on writing about the latest adventures.
Bill came home from work and the doors for the china cabinet were laid out on the table. Mr. Skellie wanted to make sure he didn't miss anything...
"Pretty hard to miss you sweetheart...Ha! Ha!" Just be quiet over there or I'll put you back in the shop. Just the kind of "help" I need....Dear Hubby gathered up the tools he would need and started by mounting the piano hinges on the doors.

Since the bookcase is a particle board wonder, we decided on one long hinge instead of 3 small ones. It was kind of a balancing act to screw the hinges to the side pieces,
but it wasn't long before it was done.
When I woke up the next morning, I was hit with an idea. Bonk! Ow! When I took everything out of the bookcase, I pulled off a piece of tape I had used to hold up a saucer. It took the fake wood film off the shelf with it. What could I use to prop up the plates and saucers to display them? Bill and his sister have been building a coffee table out of leftover oak flooring. He cut off the tongue and the grooves along the edges and set them aside for me. The plan was hatched! Of course, Mr. Skellie thinks it was all his idea, but even if it was, I ended up doing all the work. I cut each piece to length, stained them,

and glued and clamped them in place.
I could remove all but the last shelf so that worked fine. When I got to the bottom shelf, I used an old trick I had read about. Wood glue was rubbed along the bottom of the wood piece, then dots of superglue were added too. I held the wood strip in place for a couple of minutes and the superglue holds until the wood glue dries.
These were left overnight to dry and I put a few pieces of china in the cabinet this morning. When I got home from running errands, I washed up the last bits of china and had fun organizing it into a pleasing arrangement.
Nice to look at while I eat my breakfast...Hey, wait a second, what are you doing in there?!
Not sure I want to drink out of a cup that held Mr. Skellie's bony butt! So, another project done....on to painting more window trim for the quilt shop! Have a great day!

Sunday, May 21, 2017

Spending time in Bill's Shop...

The top molding and hinges needed to be done on the quilt shop before more progress could be made. So since it is raining outside today, I got out my umbrella and carried the quilt shop out to Bill's shop. We evened up the sides and added a clamp to keep everything lined up while the hinges were being applied.
He used a spring punch to march where the screws needed to go
and just put one screw on each side of the hinge to see if it was going to work the way I wanted.
The screw coming through the door side had plenty of room

so I added some Gorilla super glue around the screw.

When that's dry, I'll nip off the point of the screw and file it down even with the wood. Where the hinge was attached to the body of the quilt shop, there wasn't as much for the screw to grab onto so Dear Hubby was searching for a thin piece of wood. "How about a paint stick?" I said. And of course, that's exactly what we used...😊 When he cut the pieces on his big radial arm saw, the pieces flew through the air! We managed to find them
and then removed the hinges from the wall and glued the extra wood in place.
So, what to do do while the glue dries? I came back into the house and went into my shop and found the jar of paint I had picked up at Lowes a couple of weeks ago.
The white craft paint I had was getting kind of old so I wanted to try this out. After a light sanding, the window frames were ready to start painting.
This is going on pretty good so far.
Tomorrow when I go into Johnson City for my visit with the chiropractor, I'll stop by the glass place to pick up the doors for the china bookcase, I mean, cabinet. The doilies are all dry, I'll just have to wash all the china before it goes in. Now I know why my collection isn't any larger....have a great day!

Saturday, May 20, 2017

It's hot here!

When it's hot outside, my thoughts turn to....cleaning?! Not very often, LOL! But since dear Hubby is caught up in projects in his shop, the trim on top of the quilt shop is sidelined for a little while. I have lots of window frames to paint so put the skellies to work cleaning up the mess they made while I was at my mom's house.
There was the usual whining, but I soon heard them in there sweeping and vacuuming and saw a cloud of dust drift it's way into the dining room. While they were busy doing that, my job was to remove all the tea things from the bookcase in the dining room so that the doors can go on.
After taking everything out and putting it on the counter, I realized this is going to take awhile.
One of the reasons I asked Bill to make doors for me is dust...and as you can see, I have quite a collection of that too!
One of the skellies came out to see what I was doing and started sneezing and complaining. Then he walked over to the side of the bookcase and found a friend.
He wants to keep him as a pet hoping he'll grow big enough to ride someday. I told him spiders were outside pets and with the new swallows nesting in the yard, the fly population had greatly decreased so it would be pretty hard to find him enough food. I pulled out the vacuum and told Mr. Skellie that the spider was going to take a trip down a long tube to spider paradise. He was content with that and Mr.Spider is no more! (Whew! Close one...) The cabinet is all nice and clean and I moved all the tea stuff to wash later as we are having company tomorrow and I am making my potato salad that Bill likes.
The doilies got washed too,
and I even have some great hardware for the doors.
But, looks like the doors will be another day so wanted to show you what I found waiting to go out with the trash. I'm sure something cool can be made out of this!
So the ribs are in the smoker, company is on the way and here's a picture to make you drool....
Have a great day!

Friday, May 12, 2017

A Rainy Day in Tennessee...

Well, you're probably wondering what on earth I've been up to all this time. A while back, we thought we'd replace the front door and decided to price them. Front doors ended up being kinda pricey, so we went with a nice can of paint...and some new door hardware. These things sat around for awhile as the weather turned cold and I didn't want to leave the door open to let paint dry. The end of last week was the perfect time. As I lay in bed thinking about what I was going to do the next day, the thought hit me. If Dear Hubby is going to be putting new hardware on the door, I have to paint the inside too! Fortunately, I had paint left over from when I painted the inside of the french door in the back.
I found my small paint pan and roller and a good stir stick and we were off and running.
Here's the before
and two coats later.
Now to start the outside of the door. I chose a different kind of paint for the exterior and after reading the can, found out I had to let each coat dry for at least 24 hours even though it was an acrylic paint. I taped off the window in the door and started.
Two coats and two days later I was this far.
After a third coat and a third day, we put the new hardware on and I hung the wreath back up.
The paint was still a little soft, so the door stood open for another three days. So what was I up to during that time you ask? I went up to Virginia to visit my dear Mumsy. Brought her a present, took her out to lunch and took her to her favorite shopping place....the thrift shop! Found some very loud shorts for myself there..."Ha, that's not the only thing loud in her shorts!" Hey, where did you come from, get back in the shop you silly skellie! So I just got back today and when I walked past my shop door, this is what I saw:
I hate to think what went on while I was away...guess I will find out tomorrow. Sitting here watching the rain come down and wondering if we should start building a boat...have a great day!

Friday, May 5, 2017

A Rainy Friday Afternoon...

Worked on laundry today and also tried to get my computer to run a little faster. It's interesting when the program that is supposed to be fixing glitches has a glitch...this skellie is getting quite a kick out of it...the blue circle of death...
Before the clouds moved in today, I got a nice shot of the mountains out front.
They're now green all the way to the top and you forget how intensely green everything is here in the spring. Really enjoying all the plants Bill has been putting in and watching my Boston ferns sway in the breeze on my front porch. Ahhh....I'm afraid this post is going to be full of randomness today, LOL! Was looking at Pinterest the other day and saw a pin about making a small fairy garden in a container glued to a candlestick. The parts looked familiar so I rummaged around in my kitchen cabinets and came across these.
I don't know why I only have one of these candlesticks, but that works for what I have in mind. With a little E6000 cement, the two have become one.
So somewhere down the road, I'll build a teeny fairy garden. Come to think of it, I even have the fairies for it...
Don't get distracted! The next thing on the quilt shop was to look for the molding for the top edge. I went to Lowes and found out I had to buy an 8 foot piece. The only thing is, I only need 4 feet and have limited storage area. The guy there told me I could buy 4 feet and just pay the 8 foot price...why would I want to do that?! So went back today with Dear Hubby and showed him the molding. He started searching through the pile and found a nice piece that was severely warped.
He went over to talk to the guy and got it for half price! So I got 8 feet for the price of 4...I'm bringing him along everytime I go. :) So this is what it looks like:
Looks like it had been in the store since 2002!
I'll use some sand paint on it and then paint it gray and antique it so it will look like the cement decorations on life size old buildings. I spent some time looking at hinges while we were in Lowes and found these to use on the hinged front.
I'm going to need a little help installing the hinges and the molding on the top, but Dear Hubby doesn't mind helping me. And as a final look, these were the glasses I returned.
Magnified eye bags and racoon eyes! LOL! Have a great day.