jayneandmarty.com

Expect more of this.

Jayne’s been working hard on our new (pre-loved) ironbark outdoor setting. Although it’s not finished it’s definitely worth showing these before and after photos as it’s really coming up a treat.

We had to take the legs off to get it out of the trailer (too heavy for me and Dad to lift) but they had to come off anyway as the bolts were a bit wobbly. We’ll replace them and tighten everything up.

Here’s the tabletop, minus legs, pre-sanding.

Another angle.

It had a weird lacquer on it (that’s the red colour that you can see), so Jayne sanded that off and then gave it a coat of decking oil.

That photo doesn’t do it justice. The wood is a beautiful red colour with occasional lighter, more orange-y sections and a nice grain. When we’ve put it back together and tightened everything up there’s no doubt it will last for years, so we’re very happy with it. Much better value than the mid-range one we were going to buy from Narvey Horman.

Paul reckoned the whole lot (2.2m table, 2 x 2.2m benches, 2 x 1.2m benches) weighs well over 1,000kg, so we’ll make sure we place it on the stumps when we carry it up to the deck!

Thanks Paul for helping me get it from the Mt Martha end and Dad for helping at the Wandana Heights end.

P.S. There’s a strong chance we were close to the Suby’s towing capacity, but it coped very well. I even overtook a few things on the Princes Freeway. And no, they weren’t bikes.

We have a formal lounge/dining room that is unused at the moment save for a swiss ball, a stepper and a couple of yoga mats. Every now and again we exercise in there. We’re ashamed to say that our dog Max takes himself in there more often than us. Take a look at what he does …..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OTy1E_MWI8

We very nearly bought an outdoor setting from Narvey Horman at the weekend, but despite having it in their catalogue and on special they had none in stock. Maybe that’s why there were none in stock, but I hate it when big stores like that can’t be bothered ordering enough stock so we walked out and forgot about it.

This morning eBay sent me a reminder that something I was watching was ending soon - this ironbark outdoor setting.

It suits our slightly rustic look that we’ve got going in the garden, it’s nice and big (2.2m long), we can leave off the end benches until we’ve extended the deck, and it looks as solid as a rock.

The price with six hours to go was $505, considerably less than the $1,000 we were going to spend at Narvey’s so we decided to bid for it. We were willing to go to $700. I waited patiently until there was two minutes to go then made my move, bidding at $605 but expecting the actual bid to stay at around $550. I was the high bidder for about 10 seconds, then was outbid by $10. I tried again with one minute to go, upping my bid to $670, expecting to win with that one. Again I was the high bidder for 10 seconds, then was outbid by $10.

I don’t know how those automatic bidding programs work but I suspected I was up against one. My only hope was to make one last bid as close to the end time as possible, so I held off as long as I could and pressed the button with a bid of $702.

I held my breath … and up flashed the screen saying I’d won. C’MMMOOOOOONNNNNNNNNN!

My final bid was made with one second to go. Ohhhhh yeahhhhhhhhh … the sweet smell of victory. In your face, losing bidder-dude.

Now I have to work out how to pick the thing up from Mt Martha. Oh, and Jayne noted that I went over budget.