A few weeks back I wrote a post about second hand and recycled furniture. At the time I said that DH was working on a project -a baltic pine/wrought iron bed frame which we bought at the tip shop for $40. Here it is in all its glory, after about 40 hours of his work -he sanded the wood back before applying a couple of coats of jarrah stain and then a couple of coats of Danish Oil. He did a lovely job -even painting the heads of the coach bolts a copper colour so they were less visible against the wood.
I can't tell you how lovely this is with the furniture we picked up second hand recently, although I hope you can see for yourselves! I guess we always 'made do' with the furniture in our bedroom -there were always other priorities- and this has really pleased us both to see it come together.
DH is not done yet though! I suggested a blanket box for the end of the bed -and he has taken up the challenge to make it to fit with everything else but to use entirely scrap wood left over from our old bed and other bits and pieces of wood in the shed! Watch this space!
Thank you all for your comments about last week's post about being prepared for the pandemic. I do hope you are all well and in good heart, without panicking! I am astonished that the Aussie news feeds have been full of people who thought a bulk supply of toilet paper was essential to their preparedness. Now I know that I did mention toilet paper in last week's post, but only in the sense that it is good to have a few spare rolls! We buy our TP from Who Gives a Crap -which sends us a box of 48 about every 8-10 weeks. In the ordinary course of events this would be plenty -and even a month of isolation would not use them all up.
I think that it is always a good thing to have a back up plan -should anything happen which is untoward in our lives. Take TP for example -I know that I have several ways to manage without it should it be necessary. A spray bottle of water is a good idea, and used in many countries. I have successfully used squares of old flannel sheets as 'wee wipes" -and washed them with the towels etc afterwards.
This sense of having a back up plan is what we mean by resilience, and it is highly valued in simple living and permaculture households.
For example, like most Aussie households we have a barbecue for outdoor cooking. The one we have uses bottled gas -and we normally keep a big bottle and a little bottle. If one runs out in the middle of a party, we have a spare right here! The BBQ is of course a back up for cooking -especially as we are now cooking with electricity-so that if a power failure happened we can still have an alternative and keep ourselves going. I have made bread in this barbecue though it takes a bit of watching and fiddling -no thermostat means that you need to watch and adjust the temperature and flames.
We also have our water tanks -and if necessary I can boil the water in them and use in the house, although I cannot imagine at the moment why our water supply would be affected by a pandemic. The water tanks are used here for extra water for the garden, and are quite full after a couple of storms recently.
It can be useful to have a few skills or ideas on how to do other things -maybe you usually buy pasta, but I assure you it is really easy to make in a pinch, and you don't need any strange equipment. YouTube channels have fabulous tutorials about these things. I love Pasta Grannies, for example. I would cheat and use my food processor though!
Maybe you don't make bread and feel a bit daunted -but soda bread is made like scones - or flat bread is not too complex and takes just a few ingredients.
We have a couple of 'go to' recipes for an easy meal, and if we were a bit unwell we could still make a meal out of the cupboard and garden. Check out the Doctor's Kitchen on Instagram or the wonderful Jack Munroe for ideas. For myself I reckon a good pot of soup is an easy thing to prepare and cheers everyone up. I would put in a lot of ginger and turmeric and garlic and other aromatics if we were struggling with illness-or just pull some ready made from the freezer.
My own page of recipes from my kitchen is also a modest contribution to easy cooking for resilience.
In other news, our family arrives from the Eastern States this month, and we are all excited! It is going to be so good to be only half an hour away from each other.
6 comments:
DH did a fantastic job with the bed, it looks fabulous! Cant wait to see the blanket box.
Thank you for the helpful advise and links, I will enjoy looking over them, there is always something to learn.
xTania
Wonderful how well your new-to-you bed has come up. We did similar with a timber bed we found on Gumtree last year, a little light sanding and and some elbow grease to polish and it came up beautifully too. It's amazing how things like this can be 'rescued' and kept from the waste stream.
The bed is lovely! Your husband is very talented.
I’m also searching for a blanket box. I saw a couple at thrift stores, but they were either too big or too expensive. Making one is a great idea.
That bed looks just gorgeous!
Your bed looks amazing, your husband has done a great job.
We did our weekly food shop yesterday and there was no toilet paper in any of the shops we visited, I really don't understand why people were buying so much. We don't use it anyway, I stopped buying it when I realised how much it was costing us and now we use cloths. I buy a lot of food in bulk and we have our veg and fruit delivered so most of my shopping is done that way, I buy a little each week most of which I am sure we could do without for a bit if we had too. Those of us that cook from scratch will fare better I feel if we were advised not to go out.
Absolutely beautiful! I tried to comment on Saturday, but your blog came up as an unsafe site at the library.
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