Sunday, July 27, 2008

What have we been up to?

Last week I started building chairs for our new kitchen table. I have not built a chair and long ago I started researching standard sizes etc... Most chairs have a back that tilts at a 5 degree bend. I found that the best way to bend wood it by steaming it in a steam box. I went ahead and built a steam box to hold the wood and let the heat and moisture go through the wood which makes it more pliable. Well, after 6 unsuccessful attempts at bending the 5mm square pine wood, I decided to try a straight backed chair. The chair is strong and would work OK but with the straight back, it just is not comfortable. Now I am going to try bending the wood after just soaking it in water overnight, or in this case, over the weekend and see if I can bend it without it cracking. Wish me luck.

This last week I took off work to hang around at home, just a vacation at home. Wednesday the family went swimming and then we went and saw the awesome movie 'Kung Foo Panda'. If you have not yet seen this movie, I suggest you should. I also saw a few other movies. In fact, I saw a movie on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, I am proud of that. Should I be?

I have also been looking into the possibility of buying a used car. I decided to go to my bank and apply for a little cash so I can go shopping. After much discussion I found that the banks are all scared to loan to an American because of the current financial troubles the good ol' USA is going through. This really does not make sense to me because I work for a company registered here in the Netherlands and get paid by Euro not the weakening dollar. Oh well, it is better to pay cash anyway so it will wait a bit.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good luck with your chairs, Chris! Post pics when your done!

Love you!
Wendy

Anonymous said...

i hope you get the chairs worked out! and good luck with the car thing too. something has got to turn around here with the economy! lol :)

Cherry said...

Just thought I'd say, "Hi". I hope you all are doing well. Douglas and Zoe say "Hi" too.