After a family e-reminisce about the Old Bear stories, I got a small request about the possibility of extending the life of Old Table, who had served the Gray/Scott side of the family in London and Bristol, in different houses, through many family and friends gatherings and finally out in the garden when a young pretender entered the dining room.
Restoring and renewing are deeply ingrained in my brain, alongside creating from scratch, so a trip down country was arranged. Below gives an idea of what I found. The legs were also rotten at the bottom and different lengths.
There was obviously no instant fix here, so I had the adventure of trying to take it apart, doing as little extra damage as possible.
Back in Wakefield, I set about the business of staring at the pile, abandoning bits and slowly repairing, replacing and reassembling. The idea was to leave it as a flat-pack that I could fit in the car and reassemble the whole back in Bristol. When I completed the drawer surround front, I sent a picture. I proposed leaving the colour different so old and new were obvious. Rob mentioned Kintsugi and I realised I had used that idea before on split pieces of wood I was proposing to make into chairs. Building on conversations I’d heard at several of the those family/friends gatherings, I decided to incorporate a Bling Strip, though Rob has decided it is a go faster stripe. The result, ready for more good times.
Thank you Jo for keeping me occupied with another opportunity to make people smile.