New year letdown
By franl155
30 comments
At the garden at DITO, we used two metal catering tables from the kitchen for potting tables (my idea: the kitchen wasn’t used except as storage, and the tables were just sitting there. I thought they’d be good for outdoors, being stainless steel, and would be high enough and big enough for gardening use. I was right on all counts!)
DITO is now in the process of moving to a new location, so a couple of weeks before Christmas I asked if I could have the tables for home. Sure, he said; phone on the 3rd to arrange a time to pick up.
So I checked various “man with a van” companies on Yell.com as I’d need two people to do the moving, contacted three to get quotes,.
I spent Christmas moving the worktable out of the way (having first cleared all the stuff round and under it, then moved it a bit at a time, then reassembled it under the windows out of the way, then put all the stuff back under it again), cleared all round the now-empty space, cleared the kitchen floor to give manœuvring room, and even moved a display unit to the other end of the lounge to give clearer access to the kitchen door. I was planning to move one of the sofa units as well, but that could wait till the day before.
Phoned DITO this morning as agreed to check on when the tables could be picked up – sorry, he said, they’ve already gone. Damn and double damn. I probably could have had them months ago if I’d asked then; they weren’t being used even for gardening purposes by that time. That’s what I get for leaving it to the last minute.
So now I’ve got to put all the stuff back where it was before, which will take as much time and effort as it took to move in the first place.
But the worktable will still need replacing (of course I should have “weatherproofed” it at the beginning, but that never occurred to me). Checking on eBay, the cheapest second-hand catering tables are £99.00 – and that’s just the starting bid. And they’d has to be picked up, which means man with van and ££££.
I could always get another table similar to the ones I use for plants, but they’re probably too low for prolonged working at, given my vision and my back injury. Still, only one way to find out.
No doubt I’ll find an answer, even if it’s only get some scrap wood and build my own (proofing it first this time!), but, sigh, I could have had two stainless steel catering tables for nothing – or nothing apart from the transport cost …
3 Jan, 2012
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Comments
That's a shame - what a letdown. They might have saved them for you after you'd said you were interested. Hope you find something else suitable soon.
3 Jan, 2012
You need to look a Stevie the Terrible's latest blog and rejoyce! Always a silver lining.
3 Jan, 2012
That`s such a shame Fran, even more so after all your hard work getting ready for them..
3 Jan, 2012
Oh Fran how annoying yes I agree with Pimpernel (always want to shorten that name..but) definitely read the chutney play off:)
3 Jan, 2012
I did feel a bit aggrieved: after all, I'd asked about them and been told I could have them. But maybe someone else did the moving while he wasn't around to say No, they're spoken for - and this is a council building, so I guess they'd not have any more going spare - there were some more in the kitchen, but if they've got as far as clearing the gardens then I assume the interiors will have been well cleared..
I looked on Freecycle, couldn't find anything on search: I've found one on eBay that's currently bidding at £25, how much that might go up is anyone's guess, but it's still got be got home. I'll have to see how much man+van would cost going across London and back; fair bit, I should imagine.
ah well, TANSTAAFL - you rarely get something for nothing. I'll chack out Stevie's site
I just hope they found homes for the plants - I did start digging them out of the beds and potting them months before Christmas, so that anyone who could give one a home could have them, but i got told off a bit by someone who thought they had authority, "There's months to go yet!" I'll probably never know.
3 Jan, 2012
Fran..Look at Stevie's 2011 Review blog How to make beautiful potting benches for next to nothing. And chutney if you want to.
3 Jan, 2012
Sorry to hear of your plight Fran, if you were nearby I would be happy to make you a custom potting bench for free. Maybe a kind charity shop would deliver you a suitable table, good luck
3 Jan, 2012
thanks, Stevie, I've added your blog to my favourites; pallets should be easier to get! - lol, could you furnish step by step instructions?
3 Jan, 2012
I love when it all comes together on GoY...Brilliant
3 Jan, 2012
I wonder if you saw this blog Fran;
http://www.growsonyou.com/stevietheterrible/blog/16391-how-to-make-a-potting-bench-for-1
3 Jan, 2012
I hadn't, Sevie, but I have now! thank you! got it on my faves and will refer to it often. I've got most of the tools(been looking for a small cordless drill that I can use outdoors) but I know a man who can!
Networking in action, Pimpernel! it's brilliant and I thank you all, most sincerely.
4 Jan, 2012
What a shame you didn't get the tables sooner. Like my Grampa used to say ... "Never leave till tomorrow what you can do today" ...
I hope you can come up with another solution.
4 Jan, 2012
smiles, it felt like a big ask to me, so I kept putting it off: I'd already looked online and knew how much those tables would have cost me to buy.
But eventually I thought, it'd be a shame to lose them just for the lack of asking for them, so I did, really expecting to be turned down, and was surprised and delighted not to be.
Just goes to show what one may get simply by having the nerve to ask, and what one can lose out on simply by lack of nerve. Hope this teaches me a lesson!
I'll manage: I did before, after all. And thi smight make me get off my - um, chair and do something about it,
4 Jan, 2012
It's good when we learn a lesson, even though it might be the hard way :o)
4 Jan, 2012
*s* Churchill said that he was always ready to learn, though he often did not enjoy the lesson.
4 Jan, 2012
I think we remember the hardest learnt lessens best of all. They seem to stick in my mind lol
4 Jan, 2012
so true, Hywel! And it's often not till much later that one realises that there was a lesson there at all. *s* this one ws a bit more in-me-face. I could have ranted about "not fair" and such, but it really was sort of my fault for not asking earlier.
Sigh, I saw a couple of days ago that someone had dumped a dismnatled wardrobe bu the bins. If I'd have thought, I could have recycled some of that wood: okay, only mdf, but I could have doubled it for uprights, there was enough of it. But that was before I was directed to Stevie's excellent DIY creations and last time I looked, the dustmen had been.
Ah well, there'll be other opportunites, now I'm awake to them, or at least lightly dozing
Come to that, it only occurred to me very recently that the bookcase I'm using is MDF; what's to stop me taking it apart and rassembling it more strongly? it's oly got Ikea-bookcase corner fastengings and those little pins for shelves (which keep falling out cos the unit leans too much for the pins to fit properly), and what's making it tilt so much is that the board back got wet and fell out and so that part has no support other than those corner fixings.
All I need is a hammer and some 3" nails ... although the length I'm using as the worktop is bowing rather alarmigly from the weight on it; i'll have to see if I can turn it over and get it to bow back again
hmm, birth of a future project!
5 Jan, 2012
I've got another one coming for for you Fran ; ) will put blog on soon, just recovering from fighting DIY in the gales
5 Jan, 2012
bless you, dear! lol is that ninja-diy??
5 Jan, 2012
lol if its not, it should be!!
5 Jan, 2012
now there's a great idea for tv series: "you've seen guerilla gardening, now try ninja diy"!
5 Jan, 2012
He attacks at night, and leaves a potting bench!!
5 Jan, 2012
rofl "who was that masked man?"!!
5 Jan, 2012
Goggled man.... Surely. I have had to pull Stevie before on Elf an Safety
5 Jan, 2012
wince!
5 Jan, 2012
The Goggled crusader, doesn't have much of a ring to it!!
5 Jan, 2012
lol offers on a postcard, please!
5 Jan, 2012
I have seen all metal decorators tables half that price.possible Range, can't quite remember.
22 Jan, 2012
I've found plenty of "greenhouse staging" on Amazon, but none of hem have really good reviews; they all say that item strength is a prob - shelves too flimsy etc.
*s* at least this makes me put on my thinking cap and work out a solution for myself, rather than just going out and getting one ready-made.
23 Jan, 2012
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oh how disappointing for you and after all that work and preparation, are there any freecycle sites in your area maybe you could get something like that instead, save paying all that money, or effort of making. Do the council have any sites, just a thought.
3 Jan, 2012