Wednesday, August 29, 2007

It’s a small world

Happens all the time. I meet someone and as we talk we find some common connection. I mean something like, same hometown, mutual friends or something like that. I don’t mean something esoteric and to hell with Kevin Bacon and 6 degrees, this happens often and the divide is small.

So my next door neighbor rents his house. The folks who own the house lived there not to long ago and we are friends. Anyway, neighbor that rents is also a friend and he is always doing home improvement projects to the house. Just recently he bought a real nice motorcycle. He keeps the motorcycle and other thing in the basement of the house. The door to the basement was old and loose in the frame so he decided to replace it. The old door was homemade, put together with 1 x 6″ lumber and painted white. I told him I wanted that door when it came off. Next day old door is leaning against my workshop door, thank you very much.

The bottom of this door was rotting away just beautifully. Not to much but enough to add a nice rugged look to it. So I took off old hinges and broken hasp and sanded the table down to where it was smooth but still had some white paint left on it. I then built an apron and attached 4 legs made of 4 x4″ post, just 17″ long as needed for a coffee table. I put a clear coat on it for protection and clean up and priced it $300 and took it to the market I was working that weekend.

Well low and behold here comes the neighbors that own the house next door. Out for a Saturday morning farmers market. Hellos are exchanged and we’re chatting and I’m talking with other customers. Next thing I know the neighbors are asking about the door that is now a coffee table. I tell them I got it off a trash pile in the neighborhood and worked it into this. They are thinking about buying it, I start laughing and have to tell exactly where it came from. They think this is great, didn’t know their tennant was replacing the door and buy it from me. I gave them a $50 discount considering where the door came from.