Sabbatical project: rustic step stool

For a long time, we had a plastic step stool in the bathroom for the children to use. But its upper surface was a sort of corrugated, impossible-to-clean plastic, and one day I gave up on it and threw it out.

For a replacement that was easier to maintain and more in line with the aesthetics of our home, I used some scraps of planks that we had, and built a new step stool.

The planks were originally part of a waterbed frame, which we picked up for free (for the lumber) early in our marriage.  Most of it I built into a child's loft a few years later, but the two longest planks I had to shorten, and it was one of these leftover pieces that I used for the stool, along with two other pieces of scrap wood.

I wanted curved, organic shapes for both the top and the legs.  Easy enough to draw and lay out on the wood, but not quite so easy to cut. I read the manual for our scroll saw, and found that the two-inch (actual, not nominal) thickness of the waterbed wood was right at the limit of what the saw could cut, and would require buying a different blade.

So instead I did all the sawing by hand, by making a number of straight cuts to approximate the curved shape. Then I did the rest of the shaping over time by hand with rasps and files.  This took a fair amount of time, but I was spending a fair amount of time outdoors watching the youngest children, and it was a good carry-along project.

After a lot of hand sanding, I was ready for the joinery. Somewhere along the way, I was browsing in one of our woodworking books, and I learned about a joint that was rather like a biscuit joint, but that used a rectangle of plywood, rather than a thin wood "biscuit", to slot into both of the pieces and connect them. Much stronger than a doweled joint, and I had plenty of thickness in my wood pieces for the slots needed.

To make the slots, I drilled holes to the right depth (you can put a piece of tape around a drill bit to tell you where to stop), and then I used a sharp chisel to remove the rest of the wood. When I was mostly there, I started test-fitting my pieces of plywood, to make sure that I took out just enough wood in the right places. When I was finished, I found that there was a little too much play in the joints. The stool was quite solid when I wedged a short piece of wood between the two leg pieces, so I made that part of it as well.

I glued everything together with carpenter's glue, let it dry, gave it a quick final sanding and wipedown, and then finished it with two coats of polyurethane.

With a power saw, drill, and sander, this would be a very quick project.

Account review

It is a good time of year to get financial matters straightened out. I just noticed (since I read or at least skim through every statement we get) that one of our less-used accounts started charging a $5 per month inactive account fee...no, thanks!

We've also been dealing with rounds of colds, along with a heavy snowfall last week that took some work to clear. 

I did manage to get some sewing done for the couch cushion cover. I am using the polyester fabrics to make a sort of strip quilt for it, but without batting. I am nearly done with the top now, but need to reinforce the seams in a few places where my stitching strayed too close to the edge of the fabric.

I've also been working on getting rid of my children's play clothes that are made of gray fabric...gray looks drab, yet it fails to hide the dirt (which is a warm brown color in these parts).

The couch cover has a lot of gray, but I tried to warm the colors slightly by giving it a bath in tea-based dye (cheap tea bags in hot water; remove bags before dyeing). This was only partially successful, probably because there was too much detergent residue in the utility sink that I was using. My test swatches, dyed in a pan, took up more of the brown tea color.

I have been doing a lot of reading:  books that we have and love, books that we have but that I've never read, books that my husband checked out of the library for himself, my own library books, and even a few books that I purchased with Christmas money.

Apron

I wanted to get back into the habit of wearing an apron for housework and cooking. Not having one, I sewed a simple apron, based on measurements of myself and a quick sketch that I made of an apron shape. For fabric I used a thrift-store cotton tablecloth. I finished the apron with a pocket and some handed-down rickrack for trim.

Then, as I was trying it out, I remembered why I had given up on wearing aprons...because I am constantly going back and forth between preparing food and changing diapers, along with cleaning up the occasional Terrible Mess. Either I would have to be as careful about keeping the apron clean as I am about my clothes, or I would have to take it off and put it back on all the time, or I would have to ignore all the nasty germs that I might be carrying around on it.

So I've decided to reserve it mainly for when I am baking, for now--I am a bit messy with the flour, and I usually end up wearing some of it. In a few years I'll likely be baking more frequently and for much longer at a time.

Read the manual...again

At the beginning of the new year, I was reading my sewing machine's manual and reviewing all the fancy stitches and features that I never use. I noticed in the basic instructions, that I had been making a small but consistent error in threading the machine, by not pulling the thread fully into one of the thread guides. I've had the machine for six or seven years, and I've been making that error the entire time. Sometimes it caused problems with sewing, although usually not.

There was another one, a few months ago. We received a steamer/rice cooker as a wedding gift. I memorized the amounts of water and rice needed, after a few uses, and used it for years. Then my husband came along and read the instructions, and pointed out that I had been using the recipe for a different kind of rice than I was actually cooking. The correct recipe yields a somewhat larger of amount of rice, and works out better for our now-larger family.

Cleaning the oven with baking soda

A lot of The Work is dealing with things as they come up. I made it through most of my before-baby task list, but I didn't get around to cleaning the oven. Then recently there were some spills in it that made it set off the smoke alarm when I tried to use it.

But I didn't want to use oven cleaner on it, because it is the middle of winter, and none of us, least of all the baby, needs to be breathing oven cleaner fumes. So I used baking soda instead.

The advice that I've read from cleaning professionals is that if you are going to use cleaning chemicals, don't skimp on the quantity, and give them plenty of time to work. So I used a good amount of baking soda, mixed in a little water to make a paste, and applied it to the oven. And also to the racks, separately.

I left it for a few hours, and then rinsed and scrubbed the baking soda off. It didn't get everything, but with a lot of elbow grease it got the worst of it off.

The racks came out somewhat better, as I was able to scrub them with very hot water in the utility sink. They're not perfect, but are shiny enough to "read" as clean now when I open the oven.

Just doing the work this year

I'm going to have to make a tag on this blog for George MacDonald, I think, if I'm going to keep quoting from him.  Anyway, one of the things that he was adamant about was the importance of being obedient in the smaller tasks that God sets before us, throughout each day.  That is where faith and love are (or are not) made manifest in action.

Elisabeth Elliot, also, taught "Do the next thing." (And then the next, and the next....)

Sometimes it is hard to think of what to do, while at other times it is hard to decide what to do first. In either case, one can ask God for direction and wisdom.

Once you get moving in the little things, bigger things mysteriously start to happen. There are testimonies of this all over the place, from MacDonald to The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.  I had an example or two of it in my sabbatical book, even. A family member, who felt creatively stuck, recently started sorting through old boxes of stuff, and found in them enough of what he needed to get going again.  "Shop at home", Myquillyn Smith says; you may already have everything you need.

A secular book, The Lemming Conspiracy, said there were basically four methods by which one could succeed:  manage the details of your work well, manage the big picture well, be good at brainstorming new solutions, or copy someone else's successful work.  MacDonald said that if you do your daily work (the details), God will take care of the grand plans (the big picture), and provide solutions to the problems that arise.

My work at the moment, besides the usual routine, is to work with a box of fabric that I received for Christmas. It's from some old lady's fabric stash, and contains mostly polyester fabrics, in one- or two-yard pieces. It's a challenge, because usually I strongly prefer natural fibers. But some of it would work well for recovering the couch cushion--the old quilt that I have been using as a cover has worn right through in the middle. I've been doing some sketches and studies of how to put a pattern on the fabric, since it is plain woven. I am also trying to not hurry, but to take the time needed to do it well. (Not perfectly, just well.)

-------------------------------------------

Edited to add:  Sometimes the Next Thing is to rest...!!!