dual personalities

A couple of weeks ago my cousin Stephen sent me a marquetry plaque that once hung in my grandfather Cameron’s office.

Here’s a detail:

We can’t be absolutely sure that Bunker made the plaque, but given his penchant for woodworking, it’s a logical conclusion. I did a little digging around and discovered that marquetry kits were quite popular in the 1950s and ’60s, which, coincidentally, is exactly when our grandfather got serious about his carpentry. A typical kit included the backing board, directions and pieces of all the different woods involved.

You’ll notice that all the wood needed cutting, piecing together, gluing down and finishing — not an easy process by any means. On the back of my grandgather’s plaque is a list of all the exotic woods used and their origins, a fact that further supports the kit idea.

I am delighted to have the plaque, whatever its origin, and I have put it up in my newly renovated back hall.

Notice the new stair-rail

It looks a little lost there on the wall at the moment, but I haven’t put the mudroom back together yet. The key holder is a pre-renovation leftover that they guys apparently painted around. Now I dare not move it for fear of wrecking the wallboard and paint work. A small cupboard, which awaits re-painting, goes in that corner by the door and I left room for more pictures. But you get the idea.

My grandfather was a tireless, painstaking craftsman. Alas, I have always tended toward being impatient and slap-dash, but I’m trying to improve. As I work I think of him and of my mother, who was also a perfectionist. The sideboard is almost ready to go into the kitchen.

I have one door to put on and new shelf-paper to put in and then we can move it. I let it sit all week so the paint could cure — does that count as patience? It turned out to be difficult to find the right brass handles, because they are single-post (one attaching screw, rather than the usual two), but I finally found something suitable online at Hardware of the Past, an online restorers supply. I wanted something simple and fairly plain, but that proved a challenge. I could not find the single post Hepplewhite style ones that had been on the cupboard. But I think these look pretty.

As for the kitchen, well, we languish in limbo like a ship stuck in the doldrums. In other words, we have heard nothing and no progress has been made, unless you count the marble-look contact paper that I applied to the plywood so that we could wipe it off more easily.

Someday, when we finally get real counters, they should look somewhat similar. We live in hope…

Have a jolly weekend!

*Johannes Brahms