The Home Stretch

With only 3 more classes before Curb collective graduate and show off their debut collection at Finders Keepers, there was no messing around this week!

Pete got stuck into a second coat of choc-walnut stain on the dining suite. Mark elected to start a brand new project, taking on the challenge of the 'mummy chairs' it took 4 hours for Mark, Sam and Sam to strip just one of these uglies back to basics. They won't be recogniseable when the group are finished with them though!

Jeanette and Jane chose a lovely red jaquard for an occasional chair - all Jeanette's research on upholstery is obviously paying off!

Fiona got a lesson in measuring and mitring timber from Cathy, using a length of old skirting board that provided just the right channel for her latest project - a perspex topped coffee table.

 Speaking of tables, This table was donated to The Bower with the top raw and unfinished. We took it to Curb Collective to see what they could do.

In between classes, Lesley tightened the legs and applied widths of walnut laminate to the top, she added a few coats of diluted timber stain to make the top match the legs and now it's ready for resale!

Finished with the table, Lesley joined Min and our newest collectee Tanh; applying the patchwork of fabric swatches to the plantation chair. The group learned how to cut templates on the fly, to fold, roll, niggle and tweak until the edges can be tidily tacked into place.

Next week we'll put the back on and our two big upholstery projects will be complete!

Miki and Claire were determined to finish their duck egg blue timber arm chair - but not at the expense of perfection! The pair worked very hard to match their stripes and make their final stitches invisible.

We stayed back for 20 minutes in the end, so determined were we to finish the chair!And voila!

 You can't appreciate the delicate blue/lemon stripe on the back of this chair from a photo - you'll have to come and see us at finders keepers. Here's a peek at other things you'll see if you stop by the Curb Collective stall on the 2nd or 3rd of December;

 

All proceeds from the sale of restored items will restock our shelves with paint, glue, laquer, needles and thread so we can keep flying the reuse flag in the city of Sydney.

Finders Keepers, winners grinners

This week we found out our application to Uber-cool design/hand made market Finders Keepers has been accepted. These guys have a great reputation, a great crowd of followers and a great set up.

Carriageworks at Everleigh is a dream space for furniture display, being urban industrial and hugely spacious. We're ecstatic just thinking about the hustle & bustle.

Fiona, Claire and I have been busy working on promotional posters and a brochure about the benefits of Reuse & Repair to spread the word before and during the event.

 
All of this has the crew thinking hard about the future - we all want to keep going, but as what? A course? A business? A social Enterprise or a People's Shed? And more importantly, what shall they call themselves?

Devastated to find "Bowerhaus" is already taken...


- Maaike

sanding 101

TAFE Week 7 : A lot of woodwork!

This week was Phil's last time with us, so we decided to learn as much as we could from him before his leaving.

We got done to the job of salvaging a set of six chairs whose upholstery had been done last term. Some of them were broken: would we buy new parts to fix the ones being unusable, or would we take the good parts from other chairs and mix them up to have a smaller set? After a lot of talks, we decided that we preferred to stick to the “reuse and repair” ethos and to have 4 or 5 beautiful chairs, rather than buying new parts to have a correct set of 6.

Once this important decision was made, it was time to set to work! We dismantled the chairs, took the good parts from the bad ones to replace the bad parts of the good ones. It happened to be tricky for some bits as they were glued together, so Phil showed us how to do so with pieces of wood and a mallet.

And then you have... A lot of wood parts!

After that, now that we had the parts we wanted to use, we had to sand all the chairs/parts of chairs... which wasn't to everyone's liking: look at Miki's horrified face!

We formed pairs and triplets to quickly sand the set, and we happily realised that sanding those chairs was far easier than sanding the other ones we had done some weeks ago. 

Thanks a lot for all you taught us, Phil! Everything we learnt from you was very interesting and instructive!

- Fiona & Claire

October e-news

Those of you who watch our blog regularly score lots more info and photos of weekly life at The Bower, but sometimes things sneak into the e-news sheet that haven't made it to the blog yet - like this year's AGM!
The date has been set, and active members should keep an eye out in their inboxes and post boxes for their invitation and full details.

Not an active member? Get in before the 15th of this month if you want to join us for a night of nibbles, drinks and discussion.