Another DIY Furniture Project

It all started when I was cycling home and saw that one of my neighbours had chucked out a magnificent doll's house for garbage collection.

I have mentioned before, I think, that several times a year, the council organises extraordinary garbage collections for household stuff too big to fit into the normal wheelie bins.

This could include stuff like old fridges, washing machines, etc.  You just have to leave your stuff on the verge at the designated week.  Of course, scavengers come round, looking for stuff they can sell or spare parts they can salvage.

Back to the doll's house - it stands chest high and I took it home for granddaughter A.

Then, one day, grandma C went shopping and spotted these:

In her haste to furnish granddaughter's house, she failed to read the bottom "Unfinished Kits / More DIY More Fun".

Guess who ended up with the DIY?

More fun?  Definitely not!  Brought back bad memories of not very successfully trying to build model planes when a schoolboy.

After gluing them together, I realised I should have sandpapered the bits first.  Never mind, granddaughter A won't know the difference.

There was still the upholstery to be done, and I left that to grandma.

In the end granddaughter loved them all.

DIY Progress Report

I started on the chair weaving about 2 weeks ago.

After going on for a little while on the first chair, I realised I was going a little crooked and would end up with a hole in the middle.

So I had to undo the whole thing and start again.

The second time around seemed a little easier after the initial experience and took about seven hours to complete the chair (over two days).

 I then did the second chair in about six hours, also over two days.

Looks a little rough, but it'll do.  One of the first ozzie sayings I first learnt when I came over is: "Near enough is good enough".  And that will do for me.

You may remember the vegie seedlings that grandson R gave to me.

They have grown over the 5 or 6 weeks that I have planted them.

From top to bottom they are some kind of lettuce, chinese cabbage, and spinach.

Whilst I was planting these, I remembered that in the '80s, I used to plant snow peas in winter.

I got some seeds, rigged up a climbing frame and planted these as well.

Should get some snow peas to eat soon.

My DIY Project

We've had these kitchen chairs for donkey's years.

The seat is made of a woven rush material, which gives a little when you sit and is quite comfortable.  A close up look:

Though a little worn after about 20 years or so, three of the six, however, look like this.

They were not damaged through normal wear and tear - little fingers have been doing the dirty work.

The culprit:

How can I break the fingers of a cutie like that?

We spent some time shopping for new chairs, but found nothing that we liked.  Most are too grand for our kitchen or don't match the table which we don't want to change.

We also looked for chair weavers to repair the seats, but there were no takers.

Actually, I've a partiality for these chairs because they've always reminded me of one of my favourite paintings.

So I went to YouTube for chair weaving lessons; found one that seemed to do the trick and took the plunge and ordered the materials.

I couldn't find ozzie suppliers and had to get some sent from the US.

Here is one of 4 spools of rush I ordered.

They've just arrived and I'm about to start.

How hard can it be?  (Famous last words)