My boys have been coming up with some good projects lately, like usual. Mr. Intellectual has built this chair. It hasn’t been used yet, because he wants to treat it for wood borer before he finishes it.
Mr. Diligence was being a clown one day. His little sister had been given a sticker book for Christmas, and when she finished taking the stickers out, he took all the extra and made a hat for himself.
Simon made these hatchet handles while I was gone. The red one is rimu, the white one is willow, and the dark one is blue gum. He said that wood was so hard that it took twice as long to shape and sand as the others did. The rimu is a pretty hard wood, but brittle; it splintered when he was throwing the hatchets. In its defense, it was 80 years old; we tore it off the inside of the walls of Esther’s room last year. The blue gum is the strongest, and he likes it the best. He made the handle for the knife in the second photo from some redwood, when we lived at the last house.
Mr. Diligence built me this cupboard from some of those rimu boards. He spent several months on it, off and on, until he finally got the last coat of teak oil on it and the boys brought it into the house a few weeks ago. There are five shelves in it, and it is a perfect pantry for me. Now, the linen closet is much better organized, and the shelves are no longer in danger of collapsing from the weight of the cans stacked on them!
Mr. Diligence also got started on building the window seat we have been talking about ever since we bought this house. (Can you tell that he has to have a project to work on?) He built a bin into it for Little Miss’s toys. We’re planning to cover it with a cushion as soon as we get hold of a foam mattress to cut down to size. We bought the upholstery fabric for it—but our piece of leftover foam rubber wasn’t big enough. So, the seat is rather hard right now.
The little boys and Little Miss like to play in the sandbox. One day, they built this elaborate castle.
Simon occasionally spends some time working on his Austin. One day I found him polishing the chrome.
Another day he took it on a short test drive. Little Miss was getting ready to cry because I told her she couldn’t go along, so I asked if she wanted to take a picture. This is what she got as he was going out the street. Simon was excited that the car ran, but found out that he has to replace the gas lines. Also, he couldn’t get it started again after he got home.
