A Journey of Re-creation: It's a Toss up: Heads or Tails, Rescue and Reuse

It's a Toss up: Heads or Tails,

Rescue and Reuse

I found a neglected windowseat/toy box at Deseret

Industries. It was in the ”as is” department. Someone had piled some other things in it. It looked quite forlorn and forgotten. It had a price tag on it, only $3.00 . The lid was missing and stickers someone had stuck all over it. I suspect it came out of a kid's room. Something was scrawled across the front in possibly crayon . Notwithstanding all it's flaws, it had good wood and was sturdy and the lid hinge was intact . I had a sold tag put on it, and then went and looked for something to make a seat cushion. I found the perfect piece of foam and stuck that in the cart. I bought all my treasures and took them home. I planned on going to the hardware store and buying a board for the top, but I thought maybe I should go back to Deseret Industries and look again for a suitable board for the top. Then if I didn't find one cheaper we could go to the the hardware store. We needed to go there anyway for the paint. Off we went and found just right thing for it-- a board that had come off of a computer desk had been taken apart and stacked with some doors and other things. We pulled it out and measured it and it was perfect. So that was taken care of. I also wanted to replace a cart that was broken. I found a large chest of drawers with a white finish that was in good shape, it just had some goofy handles. We could change those.

We had that marked sold. Before all that, Brad had picked out a recliner. His was worn out. With holes in the arms and a bit broken. It hurt my back when I sat in it. Brad said it hurt his too, so we did great. I also found a nice wooden corner-shelf, and a strange wire shelf. We are trying to organize a bit and get rid of the clutter. We paid for the items and went off to the hardware store, for the paint. I took some samples. from the fabric I used to recover my chair. I talked about that in an earlier post. Also some striped cloth I bought at the same time as the cloth for the chair. We wanted to find paint we liked that would match one of the colors in the samples of cloth. Technology has advanced since I last bought paint. They have this nifty piece of equipment that you stick a swatch of the cloth into it and the computer makes a formula to make the paint to match. We settled on a color that was in one of the stripes of the cloth we planned to use to make the cover for the cushion that will go on the seat. We also picked up screws for the hinge and some tack like things to put on the bottom. Brad picked up some frog tape that we had seen advertised. It wouldn’t let the paint bleed under, so we could tape the hinge to keep it free of paint. Off we went, ready for our overhaul of the window seat. We planned to paint it on Saturday. I had a meeting to go to on Saturday morning. While I was there Brad cut the board for the seat. It fit great. In the late afternoon we went out to the parking lot to paint it. Brad sanded it a bit, then he started to paint it. It looked great.

Now the for meat of the story. I had been in quite a lot of pain for a few days . My hip was out. I woke up in the morning a few days before and could hardly walk. My body has a strange thing that happens sometimes;My joints slip out of their the sockets. It is quite painful, so I used my walker to go out to the parking lot and sat and watched Brad paint. I thought maybe we could eat out there while were waiting for the paint to dry. I went upstairs to get dinner and bring it down on my trusty walker, while Brad finished up. I got everything together and took it down on the seat. We dished up the salad and I took the tray and went to sit down. I made the mistake of not holding onto the walker, and it went out from under me and I went down. It raced backward across the parking lot. I had enough foresight to tuck my head forward to avoid hitting the pavement with my head, while trying to not upset the tray. It all happened so fast, as falls sometimes do. I guess I jerked the tray on the way down and catapulted the salad dressing bottle into my chin. My salad bowl flew over my head and landed bottom down and just tossed a bit of salad out. It was a stoneware bowl it did not break. The salad dressing bottle went rolling across the parking lot after doing the damage to my chin. It also did not break. After I landed, I remember feeling a sigh of relief and gently laid my head back and took a quick inventory of my condition. My chin hurt and I lost hearing in the ear on the same side as were I took the hit to the chin. So Brad helped me up . This is the most wonderful part. My hip was back in place and I could walk without pain. Yahoo! That was the toss up, heads or tails. I had just traded injuries, from my tail to my head. The head was a lot less painful. Looking back things would have been a lot worse if the bottle or bowl had broken. it could have hit in a worse place on my face, but it gave us a good laugh, after a long hot job. We sat down and ate our dinner and went inside. Brad thinks an angel kicked the walker! I think I was helped to land softly and for the most part be safe and feel a lot better. What are the chances of that happening? It would have been nice to have a video of the whole fall so we could play it back to see how it all worked out.

It is strange to have a fall be advantageous, buy don't try this at home.

That Monday I made a cushion for the seat and covered a bolster like pillow to match. Then I took the two end pieces from the seat and glued them together and took the legs from the chest of drawers, and made a nice foot stool also adding a piece of foam left over from making the cushion. Brad tacked the cloth over the stool and I made a sort of skirt like thing, to cover the legs, which are metal and kind of ugly. It's nice that now we can relax and enjoy the fruit of our labors.

I also finished the bag I talked about in my last post. I did a trim on the bottom and it sent me off on another adventure when I discovered it was a form of lace called Punchetto.

I will tell you about that next time.