Bike, Stuff, And Prep for A New Year of Running.

Where Cheryl and Ethan's Stuff goes

Yesterday was a busy day.   We finally cleared out our stuff from the shed and had Stuff Etc.  come pick it up.   The guys where very cool about everything and carried it all off to the Coralville store for processing.  With a little luck, we will break even for the cost of them coming to pick it up...and possibly even have a little left over. (Our furniture always sells quickly there.)

Pick up was EASY.  No coupon needed.

With all that clutter out of the shed,  I could finally focus on repairing my bike.  It has been a long and rough road for the Giant Green Monster,  but Cheryl finally allowed me to get it fixed.   I knew it was missing several spokes, possibly had a broken axial, off line front tire and sticking brakes.

World of Bikes.   Where Bikes go to get Better

When informed of the "known" problems,  the mechanic suggested we ditch the rear wheel completely and put on a better, stronger, heavier duty one for "chubby guys like me" ( my words, not his) It is double walled for strength and has a built in bearing that is stronger because it is part of the actual wheel.

New Rear tire. rim. axial, and Cassette

 He also noticed that my rear wheel was showing the "wear lines" and suggested I replace the tread. ( outer wheel casing)

Even looks new from the side!

He said if you break more than three spokes,  there is probably a serious problem with the rim itself.   (I did not tell him that I had probably replaced almost a dozen spokes since I purchased the bike two years ago.)  We talked about other upgrades before he suggested I may want to consider a new bike altogether.   For the cost of the repairs,  I could understand why.

Close up of the new Tire Tread 

Old tire on the front was still good.

I decided against it...for now.   But the possibility for next year may still be there.   We shall see how the new tire fares against my "Heavy" abuse. There is a new 29 " tire with disk brakes that has captured my attention.  Very impressive.

New Bar Mitts protect from the elements.

With  the newly fixed bike in tow,  we ran in our usual place in Coralville.   A freshly repaired bike is a DREAM to ride upon.   I never realized just how much work I had been exerting to pedal that broken rear tire!  The new axial and rim is wonderful.   Similar to floating on a cloud.  I also purchased a pair of bar mitts for the colder days.   Sure, I have heavy mittens.  And I used them for an entire year before realizing that they kinda suck.  They hamper my dexterity and make my hands sweat...which eventually makes them cold.   So far, I'm impressed with the Bar mitts.  They are roomy and allow me to remove my hands and do things easily.   They are airy enough to allow my hands to breath and keep dry.   I'll have to report back on how they perform at keeping my hands warm....but they do keep them out of the wind...  one of the biggest factors while riding in the cold.

Our First Planned Run of 2017....Other than Boston. Running naked in the cold does not sound fun. 

So, Tomorrow we leave for the Fleet Feet New Year's Day Dash in Wisconsin.  It will be our first run of 2017.   Tomorrow will probably be spent traveling and trying to sum up the 2016 year.   There were lots of up and downs...  mostly downs to recount and hope for a better year coming up.  With Boston on the calendar,  there is much to look forward to.   I would hope that all of the trouble 2016 had to offer will pay dividends in the upcoming year.  We shall see.

Building an Ikea Sofa! With the Great Ethan Allen...

I know most of you are wondering how Cheryl and I got that cool sofa home when we do not have a truck....( that is..if you knew we did not have a truck and did not pay for shipping....) Well, the cool sofa looked sad all alone. So Cheryl had this Awesome Idea to get another one that matched it. So a quick trip to Ikea and here we are! Three boxes that easily strapped to the roof of the Subaru! So...to assemble: You first have to open the box and assemble the pieces. Then you cover the cushions and the arms with the colored fabric that is in the smallest box. ( they come in several colors that you can buy and interchange if you choose) then you assemble. It's easy! Only 4 bolts hold on each of the arms and the back for a total of 12 bolts! Even Cheryl can do it! So..in the end...with the "help" of the cats and Cheryl. We were able to put it together in our living room and recline on it in less than an hour. Pretty cool eh? And! It is pretty comfortable and durable ( I'd like to think I'm an expert at furniture quality after building several pieces of my own, and being a furniture mover for several years) Cheryl now has her eye on a leather one ( it's VERY nice and affordable) but that might have to hold off for a few more months.....the trip to Ikea was rather exhausting for me ( the driver!) Hope everyone had a great holiday season and are looking forward to 2011! 2010 was quite the roller coaster ride for us...and that is putting it lightly. Hopefully I'll get back to blogging at a routine pace again. I miss blogging on a regular basis. Have a great Monday!

More Info On Kindel Furniture

In addition to the wonderful carved wood furniture in various antique styles, Kindel also provides services such as furniture restoration! Basically they take old items that may have not aged well over the years and restore them to their former glory. What a wonderful service! I have had the opportunity to restore a chair from Brower furniture. ( 1956 solid maple, ) We found it in a Goodwill for $10. The previous owners snapped the back rung off it and had ( GASP!) nailed it back into place, Splitting the wood and making it uncomfortable to sit in. After bringing it home and taking it completely apart, ( not to difficult since most of the glue joints were old, dry and brittle) I sanded it down and reassembled it, fixing the crack, dilling out the old dowels and replacing them with new ones, then gluing it back up with a new Titebond blue. Cheryl has been in love with it ever since! It was very rewarding to take a solid piece of furniture and bringing it back to life! I must say, I originally bought it to carve in it, but Cheryl insisted that we leave it the original way. Great furniture has something about it that tells you it is great. For instance: This chair is comfortable to sit in! After hours of sitting in a solid wood chair, you body will get fatigued, sore and cramped. But the design of this chair is differant. It's like the designers still knew what chairs were meant for and made them accordingly. Unfortuneately, Brower Furniture Co. was bought out by Great Western Group Inc. in 1981. However, Kindel might still be able to make a reproduction of this chair to match the lone survivor that we have. Cheryl remains hopeful!

Painting and carving.

Carved up 4 seats tonight. We have not had any sales for the last couple of days, but I'm hoping that changes... Cheryl finished putting a second coat on the patio furniture tonight, so we should be able to sit outside and enjoy the night air tomorrow. Now all that is left is for Cheryl to sew up some cushions to go with them and the project will be complete. As for me. I will probably get a new log to start carving tomorrow. Hopefully it won't be as tough as the last one. I still have some left over lumber for some sawhorses. I'll also have to sharpen up my chisels before I can get started on a new carving outright. And Now BAccino! Have a look see at Uber Anime. You may have to watch it twice to figure out what is going on because it jumps back and forth through time. Enjoy!

Viking Funeral for Carvings!?!?!

So where do carvings go when they are damaged beyond repair? Three days ago, One of the cats, acting more like a monkey than a earth bound creature, climbed up on the storage cases and tipped over one of my "deer of the world" collection. The Axis deer. It fell from a eight feet and shattered it's antlers. ( incredibly, the legs withstood the blow without so much as a crack!) I took the damaged piece in my shop to repair it, But alas, the damage was too severe. One impact point was crushed with several small fibers missing. Well, the axis deer was not one of my favorites anyway. And the "Deer Of The World" collection is missing several other members for the complete set. So I decided to give it a proper retirement and send it to the burn pile. It's not the first carving I've burned, and I doubt it will be the last. Besides, it's the process, not the end product I'm passionate about. I might have tried harder If my prize winning "Bugling Elk" or my "Wading Moose" Or my prehistoric "Irish Elk" . But the axis deer was rather boring and I can always carve a better one if I feel the need. But on to happier tidings! I build Cheryl's two end tables tonight and she is thrilled with them! I'm quite pleased. They where fairly easy to make and now it is up to Cheryl to paint and finish them. She says I need to take a picture of the living room after I finish making the TV stand. I hadn't realized that I have made almost all of the furniture in the living room now. ( Grins proudly! )

Finally done!

Well Cheryl finally finished painting the room and we moved the bed in. It's HUGE! Or the room is really small. I think both...I had to stand out in the hall way to get a full picture. the walls of our room are still kinda wet so we have not really set up the rest of the furniture where it is suppose to go. We were going to make this moment even more memorable with new bedding! Goodness knows we need a new comforter with he cats tearing up the old one. ( not on purpose, they just jump on and off and sometimes the dig in) besides, the sheets and comforter are really old. Well it should give Cheryl some energy to find the perfect combination for the style of the bed. ( I wanted Koi blankets....if we ever could find them)

Bedroom makeover!

Well, It's finally finished! The carved bed I have been working on for several months ( on and off anyways) is finally finished enough to actually assemble and sleep on! This afternoon, instead of the usual bookstore visit for a relaxing cup of Joe, We came right home and started working on the final finishing steps of the bed. Cheryl wanted to repaint the bedroom while we had the old bed disassembled. As I'm writing this, she is still working on the third coat, and it is 1:49 AM! As soon as it dries, we have to disassemble the bed and move it from the garage to the bedroom. Hopefully I will snap a couple of pictures with the bedding on it after it is all done. I did not know just how crappy our camera is until I snapped these pics in the garage. We went to the store the other day and they are clearance cameras that blow ours away. 8 mega pixels! I don't know if that is good or bad at the current technology level, but our current camera only has 2.1 mega pixels and that does not sound as good. Not to mention ours is big, about the size of the old 35mm cameras, and broken( it was dropped and the battery cover falls off from time to time) ) The modern ones are the size of a credit card. I'll post more pictures when we are done.

Lazy Friday, But not quite!

Today Is our usual day of rest so I didn't carve up any seats. nor did we look for any. Instead, we bought some supplies at Joann Fabrics ( for Cheryl) While I entertained three kids ( actually 4 and one adult) with my wonderful origami skills! It was actually kinda fun. The kids were well behaved and the adult was convinced that origami was the new drug for hyper active kids! (she said they have never been this quiet this long) After Jo' We headed to the book store where Cheryl did more research on soap and other creative ideas. No coffee today, The line at Starbucks was kinda long and I was not really looking forward to the caffeine hit. Then onto home, We whipped up a batch of soap to try out my new mold (seems to work great!) and I finished the headboard and we both painted it. Since space was limited, we had to take it into the garage for painting. Looks like it will be at least a two perhaps three day project. On a brighter side, We sold two more seats tonight! YEAH! So tomorrow will most likely be spent tracking those down and carving them up ( total of 5 at the moment) Praying for more. as always. I also carved up a small stamp. it has our logo on it and Cheryl actually thinks it is really good. I think I could have done better myself. Next time I think I will carve it out of pure wood instead of linoleum.

Almost a no sale day.

Well I was almost going to say "no sale day" when we sold one tonight. Actually someone paid for one they had ended before. This makes for 3 ended but unpaid seats on the horizon. But along with good news comes bad. A customer from last Monday got their seat today and is complaining about a "crack" in the top of the lid. These cases always give us problems because we inspect each seat and have to make a determination on what is an "actual " crack and what is a "perceived" crack. You see, the lid is not all one piece. it is glued up from several pieces. Sometimes a seam where two pieces are glued up will look like they are a crack. I have to make the call whether the seam is structurally sound or if it is failing. ( if it is failing, it is obvious) Well, as most people know about wood, it is not perfect and comes with a lot of flaws which should add to the beauty. But I'm afraid people are spoiled on the plastic imitation wood or Formica. They person has already order one from us that was sent out today ( the horse) and we are wondering if he will like that one as well. He is starting what we call the "snowball" complaint. first it's a small crack, then it's the stain not matching perfectly, then the hinge is dented and the seat is falling apart, bubbles in the finish, paint not matching picture, drips on the underside, hinge is tarnished. etc etc. It gets sometimes so crazy that we have to wonder what the person saw in it to begin with! Ok sorry to vent on that. Hopefully we will handle this and he will not turn into a problem customer in the future.

Since it was late when the order came through, I worked on the headboard tonight. It currently looks like crap because it has all the mismatched stain and unfinished wood exposed. It is kind of disheartening when I consider that I am not cabinet maker and furniture and exact measurements are not really my cup of tea. I know there are other people that would have probably done this better with better tools and taken more time. But it has been in pieces for several months now and I probably have been putting it off because of the fear of assembly. Well, It's done now and all I have to do is add some finishing touched to the two post tops so they match up with the headboard posts. We'll have to see how it turns out after the glue up. as you can see from one of the pictures. the headboard almost totally fills my shop! and it's quite heavy, which is good in my opinion.

Not carving day.

Well, with the help of my wife, I decided that I would not carve today. I still only have one seat to carve and there is no use in getting all dusty and dirty for one seat. We are waiting for payment on an elephant seat. hopefully I will be able to carve two up tomorrow and they will both go out on Monday. For today, however, I will most likely continue to work on my flickr and etsy stores. It's SO easy to get sidetracked on other peoples blogs and forums. If I really get bored. I might work on fitting my headboard together. Here's an idea of what it may look like. This is the footboard I completed several months ago.

One sale! from Etsy!...

Just sold a seat on ETSY! an elephant! it came too late to carve it up tonight but I'm SO happy that the sale came from Etsy. I ultimately want to get more sales off our website and Etsy instead of Ebay. but that's a different post....
Anyway, I finished sanding and staining the Ship cupboard door. I used provincial as the stain to match the previous stain. I think the match is good since I was ultimately guessing. I still have to apply polyurethane over the stain to protect it and give it some shine.
I also had some time to complete the staining of my headboard of our bed.. I took a few pics to show how they will look with some shadow. I still have to poly and set the carving into the actual headboard. Will maybe do this weekend.