Black Oak

Class paddled over to the Schoolyard and set up by the Basket Ball Court...out in the Schoolyard is a terrific Black Oak set against Sentinel in the distance...added folk to the picnic bench beneath it...this is a 9x12 acrylic on board, as is the second one done in the second season class with the instructor who encouraged us to be 'bold with colors'...:)...sunny clear blue warm...did the laundry, and took along pencil and grid paper to sketch furniture ideas on...I've collected a lot of lore now on carpenter joinery!...but all the ideas kind of evaporate when I compare build prices with just going to Ikea and buying manufactured things...hmmmph...so, a compromise: down the road, I can make furniture, and for now, acquire some more plastic shelf racks like I have for furniture...already, I have the bunk mattress set on four of them, and they work fine...so I can make two more bunks for the back bedroom, and a daybed bunk for the living room...I can even make the table-by-the-sliding-door-window out of them...and stacked shelves in the corners thereabout...for the bookshelf, I can get three more of those black metal bookshelves that I have, and stack them on top, and that's enough for bookshelf...want to have room above them to hang pictures!...for that day bed, the twin mattress I can cover with a scotch guarded white canvas 8x10 cinched underneath with bungees...I do this now with a poly tarp on the bunk twin mattress--it stays clean, cheetos and spills easy to clean up...I don't bother with sheets or blankets anymore, having taken to my sleeping bag on cold nights, it's all I use now!...and the tarp and sleeping bag are a kinda hark back to camping out!...oh...the day bed will need big pillows for a back, and I've thought of using white canvas duffel/sea bags stuffed full of something--bean bag filler, foam squares...and too I'll need footstools, as shelves put the mattress up pretty high, and thought to use five gallon buckets with those attached bucket seat cushions...and I've eliminated the second sofa/day bed in the living room-not enough room...room is very awkward shape because of doorways, and walkway to get to bedrooms and bath...two lazy boys, set away from the wall for walkway, towards the room's middle, should work...the shelves are really handy things, and for about twenty bucks, one can get a 3'tall by 12"deep four shelf unit that can stack...using these, a platform for a twin mattress is like seventy dollars...I think I can get 6" thick twin mattresses for like one hundred dollars each, but need to see how they feel sitting on them for daybed...later, I can build from wood ends for the bunks, and daybeds, make them look like real beds, and sofa, and conceal the shelving supports...that was the breakthrough idea today...that I can set every thing on these plastic shelves, like cushions, mattresses, table tops, and then build with wood around them...I was having a hard time imagining how to connect bed steads, and bed rails, and sofa ends, but with this, 'wth, just set things on the shelving like you've already done once' idea, those connection problems are gone!...basically the idea is 'make a long box, and set two boxes at either end'...oh!!...three rows of six...eighteen five gallon buckets (12" diameter) for the daybed twin mattress platform...and that's the right height for a sofa, and to stretch long legs out on the five-gallon-bucket-with-cushion- seat footstools!...wth...use them for the bunks in the bedroom too...:)...have to weight them with sand...