Many many days ago, in a shopping venture far away, I came across the granniest of granny chairs, and was enraptured. Ignoring my (at the time) housemate’s remark of “Looks a bit shagged to me”, I wrestled my newfound treasure into the back of a Volkswagen Polo and vowed then and there (well, somewhere along Beaudesert road) that I would restore my curvy, flower-embellished Thone of Nanna to a form of glory.
Today, after reassuring myself far too many times that it’d be fine to sit in a chairs that’s missing as many screws and bolts as it actually had, I took the first step in the process of pimpin’ out my geriatric rocking horse- taking the damn thing apart.
Today I wasn’t feeling oh so well, so I called it in, rested, drank some tea and cuddled puppers, and decided to do this update.
I’ve been slowly sanding back pieces when the mood takes me, but also was a bit stuck on how to deal with some delamination on one big piece, so I’ve taken some time to research it, and next on the shopping list is some proper clamps - the process is to clear out the space between the layers, get wood glue in there and then clamp it together to dry. Hopefully my next update will include that!
The other bit I was stuck on was taking apart the seating pieces. I couldn’t see/tell if there was any special woodworking trick that held the pieces together or dark sorcery, so I consulted @ITP88. He couldn’t see any bits of unicorn horn either, so glue it must be, and therefore panels that could be easily pushed out.
Now, I have all the upper body strength you’d expect of a 30-something female in the teaching profession, so I had to come up with a smarter way of separating the panels than brute force. So I used gravity and a piece of firewood leftover from the last time we went camping to do this. By carefully placing the firewood against the board and leaning my bodyweight onto the frames, I managed to separate the four pieces out. Result
So now I have two more bits of wood to add to the sanding pile, and I need to decide whether I should try and salvage the two panels and put new foam/fabric on them, just recover over the top of what’s already there, or check them both and try to cut new panels and then cover that.
This is one of the sadder project updates. Sadly, not all projects are destined to be completed, and this is one that I’ve abandoned, for a couple of reasons:
Recently, my partner fell off his electric unicycle and broke his shoulder. We have always had a good 50/50 split on household tasks, which has allowed me time to do projects (And game, let be honest), but now it’s more 90/10, I don’t have the time.
I have been continually overwhelmed by my innate ability to over-commit, but Corona kicked that habit into overdrive- I took on extra at work and signed up to do an online CS50 course after guilt over working from home and lock-down inspiration each took a turn at encouraging my bad habit. Lack of time part 2, Electric Boogaloo.
Our couch is starting to break (It’s a second-hand IKEA ourdoor futon), and while we already found a replacement, the replacement needs a bit of work to make it ours.
I found the exact same chair in much better condition at another op-shop.
So, despite the time I have sunk into sanding, I have decided it’s better to let this one go and concentrate on finishing everything else I’ve taken on.
And as further evidence of the lag that’s occurring due to current circumstances, we took this chair to the tip on the 18th of July.
For some people making things can be a personaly time thing. How ever if you would like help or collaboration on any projects please let me know. I have a lot of spare time, and have some general skills that could be useful in some of your projects.
Pm me if there are any ideas that come to mind, or anythinf you would like to discuss
