Projects, Projects, Projects: What Larry's Been Up To

I thought today I'd show you what Larry is up to during this cold, cold weather. Temperatures don't slow him down at all--in fact, he just gets busier. He starts the day with feeding the animals, getting in wood for the fireplace, and generally battening the hatches. With this cold weather, he also started both vehicles and let them run a while just to keep them in the habit!

Once all of the morning routine is finished, he gets to his favorite place--the new log room. It's not finished but it has become his workroom and we're rethinking the original idea to make it a guest room because we realized we desperately need a place to work on our furniture repair/refinishing projects. We will still make it use-able as a place where overnight guests can sleep when it's finished, but we are thinking about how to make it a work area that can be quickly changed over to guest quarters.

Right now, he's got a lot of irons in the fire:

We found this oak washstand Saturday and Larry couldn't wait to get to work on it. It had been varnished and later painted black; he's stripping it back to its original golden oak color, and generally tightening it up.

 We've had this primitive table around here for years. The other day the high winds tumbled it across the yard and tore some boards loose. That prompted Larry to give it some TLC. Now it's ready to go to one of our booths.

 This little oak table is in pretty good shape, but it's missing it's drawer. I got fooled on this one--the drawer side was to the wall and I didn't look close enough! So, what to do? Build a drawer, or find an oak board that matches and put it in place of the drawer opening? While we think about it, Larry is tightening it up, regluing, re-setting screws, etc.

 This dresser looked fine when I bought it last summer, but after a few months in the booth (and out of its former home in a barn) the back started to come apart. We brought it home yesterday, and Larry is working his magic on it. We decided to sand and refinish this one.

Someone thought it would b brilliant to put some kind of white fake-porcelain look on the top of this beautiful Victorian table. Larry is in the process of stripping it; then we'll refinish the top (and we may end up stripping the base and finishing it too). I bought some replacement wheels for it on eBay. I think it will look beautiful when we're finished with it.

The washstand, topsy turvy.

 Another dresser, but no photos here of this one. It also needed tightening up, regluing, etc. We decided to paint this one since it's not made of oak or other fine wood, and some of the veneer is not in good condition. I'm thinking black, with white antiqued drawer pulls. Any suggestions?

So now you know what keeps the gardener busy in winter! He has lots to do, that's for sure--and I didn't even show you the Hoosier cabinet waiting for his attention or the other two cabinets he's been working on since last summer. While he does this work, I'm busy researching glass, cleaning, washing linens, and pricing.
Who said winter is a drag? We never seem to have enough hours in our days.

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