Life in general

It’s been a while since we have posted anything here. The main reason is that we don’t now have many exciting events to tell you about. So I apologise now, the next few posts may become a bit boring as we tell you a bit about the more mundane things that we do.

Over the last couple of months WE decided that I should try my hand at making some ‘furniture’. This came about when one day we were looking for a table of some sort for the television to sit on. It was a problem finding something suitable, either too small, too big, too fussy, just plain melamine, etc. One we did see was certainly in the ‘looks just like melamine’ bracket, the tabletop was hollow, but the design was simple. Lainie looked and said, ‘I bet you could make one like this’. Now there’s a challenge!

We sat down with paper and pencil and worked out the measurements for what we wanted, and then next time in Kalamata went to a timber merchant with our shopping list. They offered to make the pieces from a melamine covered MDF, but the thickness was only going to be about 12mm. We both thought that this was going to look too thin and make the whole unit look strange. Then he showed us some oak planks that were 4cm thick, now we knew we were looking at what we needed. These were cut down to the sizes for the base, top and sides in a few minutes, loaded in the car with the off cuts and home we went.

A couple of days of careful routing to get the pieces to fit together, then some light stain and a few coats of varnish and in the end we had exactly what we wanted. I don’t think MFI, IKEA and anyone else has much to worry about but we are pleased with the result.

Off cuts, what could we do with them? They were slightly odd sizes and shapes, but we worked out that there might be just enough to make a couple of small side tables. We took the off cuts back to the timber merchant and asked if they could cut them to size for us. No problem and no extra charge for doing so. When I asked if the had machinery to joint some of the pieces together we were told that they couldn’t help us with that.

As we were about to leave Lainie was asking them to recommend a strong glue so we could try joining the pieces. ‘You want them joined? We can do that for you.’ Trying not to look confused we showed them what we wanted and three days later and for the sum of 15 euros they had made two tabletops for us. Another session of routing, gluing, staining and varnishing and we have two tables. Slightly different in sizes as they came from the off cuts, not exactly the design we might have had if we started from scratch, but two workable tables.

The next woodwork project was to make frames for mirrors. We needed some mirrors for the bedrooms, so from our local builders merchant we bought some lengths of tongue and grove. He also cut the actual mirrors for us and I have now put together three mirrors for the total cost of 21,50 euros. At the moment the wood has a light stain with varnish, but who knows perhaps at some time in the future these may change colour, a much darker stain or paint to give them another lease of life.

What’s next, who knows? Well, I have and idea……. If it works out I will tell you about it, if not, well maybe I’ll tell you anyway.