Grandma Ruthie: Blaming it on my DNA

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Blaming it on my DNA

I don’t know why I do some of the things I do. Currently I am blaming my behavior on my genetic makeup….specifically, the DNA passed on by my grandfathers. On one side of the family, my grandfather worked for a furniture company, where he mixed his own stains and finished wooden furniture. My other grandfather’s name was Baumeister, which is German and comes from Baum meaning tree or wood, and Meister meaning master. As it happened, his hobby was making wooden toys and doll furniture. Whether this in any way explains my current bizarre behavior, I don’t know.

The old Victorian home, from which we recently moved, had a marvelous built-in buffet and china cabinet with leaded doors in the dining room. I, therefore, did not need a free standing china cabinet or hutch. Our more recently built new home does not have such amenities. When we purchased the old Victorian, I discovered that there was an old wreck of a bookcase in the carriage house which had been abandoned by some previous occupant. I always had it in the back of my mind that one day, I might try resurrecting it and put it to use. I decided that since I needed something in which to put dishes in the new dining room, the time had arrived. It had only been sitting in the barn 40 years or more. Why didn’t I just go out and buy a china cabinet? I don’t know!

Months ago, prior to the move, I had my husband pull the bookcase away from the wall where it had been stored with the three large glass doors against the wall to prevent them being broken. The piece was quite the worse for the wear. The finish was lifted up and crusty in spots with dark stains. Some of the quarter-round which held the glass in place was missing from one of the doors. The back of the bookcase was broken and warped and really unusable. Considering embarking on this project was where the insanity began. Why didn’t I just go out and buy a china cabinet? I don’t know!

First, I removed the backing which was lightweight wood and discarded it. I took off the doors and set them aside planning to tackle them last. Each of the three compartments has three removable shelves. I began with the shelves, because they were flat and easy to work on. I thought if I wasn’t successful with the shelves, I couldn’t possible think I would be successful with the cabinet. Over the past months, I stripped and scraped and sanded and started all over again, when I wasn’t happy with the outcome. Why didn’t I just go out and buy a china cabinet? I don’t know!

I questioned my sanity at several point in this process, but eventually, I had the old varnish removed from both the shelves and cabinet portions. I decided to use some red oak stain in an attempt to even out the color tones. I had a handyman cut some pieces of lightweight wood for the back of the cabinet. I had to stain them twice to get them dark enough to match the rest of the piece. Finally I coated it with polyurethane.

By this time, we had already moved and I was anxious to unpack the boxes stacked in the dining room. So, even though the doors were not finished, we moved the bookcase to the new house. I washed all of the good dishes and fancy glassware and happily put it on the shelves. I figured I could do the doors later.

Time has a way of slipping past. Thanksgiving is approaching. Many young grandchildren will soon be arriving. Some of these grandchildren are little girls who love tea parties. The temptation might be enormous. I really needed to get the doors on that cabinet. I have been working on them over the past two weeks. Yesterday morning I got up intending to hang the doors. I figured it might take me a couple of hours to clean up the glass, put the hinges back on and get the doors in place. Why didn’t I just go out and buy a china cabinet? I don’t know!

I worked ALL DAY yesterday on this project. The left door went on fairly well…a bit of a tight fit, but tolerable. However, the center and right doors were another matter. They did not want to fit into the opening from which they had come. Did I somehow mix them up? NO, they didn’t fit the other way either. I was putting the screws in the hinge plates back into the same holes. Shouldn’t that have lined things up correctly? Why didn’t I just go out and buy a china cabinet? I don’t know!

I finally decided that the only solution was to remove a bit of the bottom on those two doors at the point where they seemed to be binding. I sanded and sanded. No luck. I used a steel rasp. No luck. I went out and bought a very small plane. No luck. I was doing all this with the doors hung, so I was standing on my head and laying on the floor. I really did not want to take the doors off again, because that required removing the hinge pins, and they are very old. I had already broken the little knobs off the ends of two of them taking the doors off to begin with.

I went to bed thinking….Why didn’t I just go out and buy a china cabinet? I don’t know!

I began fresh this morning, but in total exasperation reached the conclusion that I had to remove the doors. I took them to the basement and used a saw to trim off a bit of the bottom edge. It was almost enough, so additional planing and sanding eventually allowed me to get the doors closed. Of course, in the process of all of this, I had done some damage. With a Q-tip and stain, I touched up a few spots.