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.