Ellery's Big Girl Bed pt 3

On Tuesday Kuya Veevoi came over and we began sanding by hand, but quickly concluded that it was going to take forever. All the 2x4s had deep ridges in them running the length of the pieces and it was incredibly slow-going. One of the other students here had a power sander we could borrow but he wouldn’t be home for a few hours. In the meanwhile, we cut all the pieces to the right size. The end pieces were a bit tricky as we worked out how to cut them in a manner that would hide those pesky blue ink splotches. In the end, we managed to get everything cut and ready to be sanded.

On Thursday Kuya Veevoi came over to work on sanding while we were doing class with our other language helper. We doubled our class hours that day so we ‘enjoyed’ the constant (and loud) hum of the sander in the background for 8 hours. By the end of the day, there were only 4 pieces done with just the rough sanding step! Even with the power sander, it was extremely slow-going.

The next day we decided that sanding like this was not going to work so we sent out to see if we could find someone with a planer to take the grooves out for us. The first wood shop we stopped at didn’t have a planer. The second shop had a planer, but it was broken. Kuya Veevoi had another idea. He knew that just up the road there was a guy who did wood working so we went to see him. He had a working planer but he told us it would not be good to use since it would take off too much wood. He said he could use his grinder to sand the pieces down.  We decided to try it and were led to his shop. We went through their store front, dining room, bedroom, and kitchen to a door at the back of their house. We walked across the roof, down a short ladder, and down a few more stairs to the open-air basement where wood chips and sawdust covered the floor. He grabbed his grinder, put a piece of sandpaper on it and went to work. Within 5-10 minutes he was done with the first piece (aka what took the sander about 2 hours to do). We brought him the rest of the wood and a few hours later I went back to collect it all.

The next Monday we spent some time sanding the grinder marks out and following up with the fine paper to. I had about another hour of sanding to do after our Monday night language meeting. The sanding was finally complete after about 15 hours of work between everyone involved! When we started out, I thought we could have it completely assembled in a week, but now at the end of week 2 we were ready to start assembling Ellery’s bed.

Ellery's Big Girl Bed pt. 2

The next Monday we set out to get the wood that we would need. This should be a simple task since one of the biggest lumber yards that I have seen here is only a few kilometers down the road. We were led to the lumber stacks to find some 8-foot 2x4’s. They didn’t have any 8 footers, but they had some 10-footers. I figured they’d work fine so we started pulling them out. That’s when I noticed they looked kind of funny. It turns out they weren’t 10-foot pieces…but two 5-foot pieces joined together. We finally found a pile of 2x4’s that would work. Over ¾ of them had some kind of defect; cracks, rotted parts, holes from knots, warped pieces, large ink blotches, or they weren’t actually a 2x4 (but a little bit smaller). We got through the pile and still hadn’t found the 9 pieces we needed so they went to cut some for us.

Then we went to find some 2x2’s and some 1x4’s. They were much easier to find. By the time we had those pieces pulled out, they came back with a few fresh cut 2x4’s for us. They all looked pretty good except for the big blue ink splotches. We asked if they had any pieces of wood without these ink blotches, but they didn't. It wasn’t ideal as we were only planning on varnishing the bed, but I figured out how we'd be able to hide some of the ink blotches against a wall or under the bed.

The final count was:

(9) 2x4x10ft

(5) 1x4x10ft

(2) 2x2x8ft

for a total of $61. 

We loaded the car with our expensive lumber and headed home.

To be continued

Ellery's Big Girl Bed

Ellery has been growing up. How dare she?! While she still fits in her faithful old pack n play we were facing 2 problems. First, she discovered that she can climb out of it. Second, Holly has been getting in the pack n play with her at night to do bedtime stories, singing, praying, and snuggles. It’s a tight fit, and frankly, it might break. We started talking about transitioning to a big girl bed and Holly found some free plans online for an easy frame. We figured that making a bed would be an effective way to ensure quality and would also be a great culture and language learning experience as most of the process would be done with one of our language helpers, Kuya Veevoi.

We set out one Friday afternoon with high hopes to buy everything we would need. Our first stop was the supermarket to get Ellery’s mattress. It was 20% off which was a pleasant surprise since things are rarely on sale here. Then, we went to a home goods type store where we found some sand paper and some 2-inch screws, but they had no 2 ½ in screws. Next, we went to my favorite hardware in town and found some clear varnish and brushes, but no 2 ½ in screws. From there we walked to another hardware/home goods store in the market area and once again there were no 2 ½ in screws so we decided to drive out of town a bit and find another store.  We quickly found out they don’t have any either and we went to leave. Only to discover the van wouldn’t start…not even a sound. We asked around and were led to a guy who was 10 times more covered in grease than I have ever been. He grabbed a battery and headed to jump our car. We got it started right away and then had to figure out a plan.

At this point we were about an hour away from our mechanic and half an hour from home.  I was afraid if we shut the car off it wouldn’t start again. We decided to drive home and unload the car without turning it off, and then head straight to the mechanic. When we got to the mechanic he quickly figured out it was the starter, and I added a few other maintenance things to the list for him. From the mechanic, we walked to the nearby mall and headed to yet another hardware store where we found 2 ½ wood screws! Although they were close to $18 for 55, I was just glad we found them.

From there we hopped on a Jeepney to the bus terminal to catch a bus home. Things took longer than I thought, but I was just glad we got everything but the wood we would need for the bed. I was also glad that the car seemed to be a simple fix.

To be continued