We finally had another open fire day in the valley.  We burned many branches that were not suitable for burning in the shop wood stove, about twice as many as you can see in the fireplace.  Sadly, we did not have any marshmallows.  The coals were still hot two days later.  May try for one more burn before the season ends at the end of March, weather permitting. 

After 11 years in storage, we were finally able to bring out our Ohima-sama.  It has been a traditional gift to the first-born girl, and is displayed for a few weeks in the home around the time of Girl’s Day, March 3.  This display was given to Mizuho’s mother about 80 years ago, and has incredible detail.  The top level has the prince/princess, the 2nd – servants , the 3rd – musicians, the 4th – bodyguards, and the 5th – more servants.  There are also representations of food, lanterns, palanquins and carts, and more.  Mizuho remembers playing with these dolls with her sister, and is pretty sure they may have mislaid a few pieces. 

Finally got back to making drawers for the kitchen (Mizuho has been very patient) – 4 on the right of the stove and 8 beside the pantry.  They are all Baltic birch with cherry edging, and have 100lb full extension soft closing slides.  I was going to make solid cherry drawer fronts but am now concerned that it may be a bit too dark.  So, with the cork floor and maple hardwood in the dining room, I am now thinking about maple fronts edged with cherry, which is what we did in our kitchen in Ottawa about 12 years ago.  The drawers store and organize a lot of stuff and make the house feel that much more finished.  Another 15 or so drawers to make for the kitchen.

Also finally got around to doing the trim on the garden door. This door, and one window in the basement, were out of plumb which required a lot of fiddling, and a bit of DAP gap filler. Mizuho is doing the final touch-up filling/sanding/painting this week.  The snow in the background is now gone.

All work and no play makes Dave a dull boy. So, we spent an music evening at the neighbour’s playing songs at least one of us knew. We had 3 guitars, a banjo and banjolina, a washboard and other percussion devices.  They wouldn’t let me very close to the mike (due to concerns about my singing voice?). Sadly, the only record we have of the evening is this short clip.

Finally got around to building more drawers – two sets of four for the master bath.  These are made of maple veneered plywood sides, Baltic birch plywood bottoms, and cedar edging.  The cedar is oiled and the sides of the drawers have 3 coats of satin polyurethane.  The faces of the drawers will be cedar, and will be inset.  As a consequence of having inset drawers, the slides need to be exactly level and the faces of the drawers need to be exactly flush.  This involved a bit of fiddling.  The slides are full extension and soft-closing.  I hope to start building the faces in the next few days – cedar veneer plywood with cedar edging.

Also started on the weekend to build a dozen drawers for the kitchen.  In the foreground are the cherry hardwood pieces that will be used for the edging; behind them are the sides and bottoms for 3 drawers; on the left is a drawer with the edging being glued on; behind it are drawers with edging ready for scraping, sanding and finishing; and on the right are 4 drawers ready for edging.  Its a lot of fun building these, and I am getting better (more accurate and faster) at it, but it takes a bit of time and I need to keep the shop warm for the glue to cure correctly.

Am also trying to get better organized. I built this box last week to store saw-related stuff so it is out of the way but easily accessible.  There is room for two cross-cut sleds, a jointer guide, two miter fences, a tall fence, a taper jig, two wrenches and saw blades.

We had some more snow the past few days – it looks beautiful, but ca suffit.