4 Pillars of John

4 pillars unpainted

Well now comes the time to talk about the 4 pillars. My intitial thought with the pillars was to create a backdrop to take pictures of furniture as well as have it double as a background for any displays in the front window of our London location. See the assemble pillars to the right.

My wife also gave her two cents and made a few suggestions. She has a mantra that she uses around me when she wants to get me to agreee with her ideas by saying that I need to get into my feminine side. The reason for her saying this will be made clear later in the blog. Enough to say that she and Ann have great fun with this one at my expense and knowing what I know I try and roll with the punches but not as well as I should all the time. And of course I do get some back some myself but need to be very careful on how I do that as after all it is the two of them against me. However, it is all in fun and that is that.

Bobbie prepping the pillars

Anyway, Bobbie, my wife and her sister Ann thought that the pillars would be a great idea. So off to the lumber yard to purchase the pillars. My wife Bobbie thought we could get away with 3 but not knowing the actual concept I had I explained and told her we needed 4. There was also a requirement for other lumber and hardware so I purchased those as well. We then took the pillars to the London store where I put them together and Bobbie painted them. See the pillars to the left here. The stand 8 ' high and have a 6x6 post inside for stability. Bobbie painted them our Stan Portleys ' Dragon Gray" and gave them a coat of the clear table top finish to boot. To the right had side you can see Bobbie prepping them for the paint by filling in the screw and nail holes. You can see this in the picture to the right the cap with the bolt through it which will provide the stability to the whole thing.


Pillars with levelling base installed

I then set the pillars up by the front window but found out a couple of things. One the floor wasn't level and two that I would need to add some stability to the bottom of the pillars as well. You will see from the pictures to the right and below the general configuration of the base is in a u-shape. Also what you cannot see is that there are over 24 levelers on the underside of the platform so that the whole apparatus can be levelled. The platform also extends past the front pillars and this is to also provide some stability especially for when they get moved. Again the concept always was so that the whole thing could be easily moved and also taken down. The pillars at the bottom fit into a well built into the base so to reduce the chance of the pillars slipping out at the bottom. Both top and bottom of the pillars are also trimmed in a fancy moulding.

Pillars with base installed, side view.

All that is left to do is tie the top up so that it would be stable. This was done with pieces of 1X10 which were cut to fit the angles at the top. Holes were drilled in the boards and then they were bolted down. Now we get to the feminine side. I had thought of various materials that could be hung in spaces between the pillars. Carved wooden panels, or even fabric covered ones. Bobbie and Ann became involved and it came down to "we" decided that panels of sheer curtains would be ultimately appropriate to hang between the columns. Being ever ready to appease the ladies, I devised a way to hang the sheer curtains between the pillars. Open style brackets were made, angular ones for the side panels and doweling was purchased and cut to accept the curtains. Bobbie finished painting the top and bottom of the display and everything was now complete. One other thing was that Bobbie did not like the fact that I had bolts showing up through the tops of the boards on top of the pillars so a request was made to install something over the top so I purchased some finials and installed them over the bolts after having modified them.

Completed pillars with sheers and top installed.

One other thing is that we are in the Lifestyle at the end of the week so "we" will be taking this down and moving it to the Western Fair District and putting it up for the backdrop of our display for the show. It will definitely be an excellent display and till then I bid you adue. This is John Robinson - Master Craftsman and Proprietor for Stan Portleys - We are Timeless and Unique.

Bobbie's Coveralls

My wife Bobbie has always been one to dress well and look good no matter what she wears. A good example of this is she is one of those people who can put on almost any hat and look good in it.



Front of Coveralls

When Bobbie is at home and when she is most relaxed she is usually in coveralls. In fact, she even has some which are like shorts for the summer. Her favourite brand has always been Ikeda brand and when they stopped making them a number of years ago she searched all the thrift shops in the area and bought up all she could find. (Probably why I have less room in the closet these days, though I am told by most that for the male in the family I should count myself privilaged that I have something in the Master Bedroom closet at all.)  Anyway, Bobbie still combs through the shops to see if there are more that have come in or she has missed.

At our recent workshop, our first one, Bobbie wore her white Tommy Hilfinger coveralls which she has saved to use as her, to quote an old adage, 'Her Sunday go meeting coveralls'. She had decided that a good way to commemorate her first workshop was to have each person who attended put a vGCP (van Gogh Chalk Paint) Collection paint covered handprint on her coveralls and then sign it.

Back of Coveralls

For those who are not aware there is a significance to the paint covered handprint and its association with vGCP Collection paint in the various logos you see on the paint cans and promotional material. I think you usually pictures of Kathy van Gogh herself with paint covered hands most of the time. Makes it kind of a fun part of the whole empowering experience of using VGCP Collection products and in taking the workshops.

Anyway if you look at the picture above you will see the front of her coveralls and some of the hand prints she received from the day. Tuxedo our tuxedo cat is checking them out too! Quite the inquisitive cat. The picture to the right is the back of the coveralls and the one to the left and below is a closeup of the hand print of yours truly. It certainly shows how small Bobbie is. Either that or my hand is really big which I have been told by some is true.

My Hand Print

Bobbie plans on over the next year to add other handprints to the coveralls as we do workshops to signify various firsts in our journey with the van Gogh Chalk Paint collection. Our next first. Our first London workshop which is scheduled for Saturday February 9, 2013. Hope to see some of you there. If you not signed up yet, email us at info@stanportleys.com. You can also call us at 519.601.3666 at our London store. If it is outside store hours please leave a message.

Stay tuned for the next blog about the 'Pillars of John'. Bobbie calls it getting in touch with my feminine side.

Well bye for now. This is John Robinson - Master Craftsman for Stan Portleys - we are Timeless and Unique.

Our 1st Workshop

Well we finally have come to our first workshop. All the prep is done and it is just time to let you know a little of what has transpired since the last blog. I had posted on facebook a couple of items that Bobbie was working on and we are now ready to reveal them. Soon. Just teasing.

Margaret with Chair

Barry with plate rack

Now this past Saturday we start out our first workshop. We have two Margarets, a Barry, an Ann (my sister-in-law) and a Penny. As well as Bobbie and myself. We have the back of the Port Stanley store all set up and I added some pics to show how things went on. Here are a couple of pics of the participants with their unfinished project pieces.

Margie with table

Margaret has a chair, Barry has a small plate rack, and the second Margaret decided she should be Margie for the day so we were not confused between the two has a small table. Penny who will be working in the Port Stanley store was there for some more indoctrination as she will eventually do some of the workshops. She is quite artistic and has a thing for the unusual. Barry was in training as we may have him painting furniture especially as we seem to be getting some inquires on doing painting for others.


Bobbie explaining about brushes

We started off with a brief discussion on chalk paint and its history and about vGCP (van Gogh Chalk Paint) Collection specifically. Told them about cave art, Tom Sawyer and frescos. I think they were all inspired as they all took to the training quite readily and with enthusiasm.

Margaret with her first coat of paint.

We completed most of the sample boards before lunch before we retired to the Kettle Creek Inn which was just down the street. Here we enjoyed meals of chicken pot pie, fresh lake erie perch or wild mushroom ravioli for our meal along with copiuous amounts of tea, and coffee. We came back to start on the projects and soon everyone was working furiously.

Margarets finished chair

Some of the projects took on a greater depth than originally anticipated but having started at 10:30 am and finishing just after 4:00 pm we did quite well. Margarets chair had an undercoat of van Gogh with a top coat of Cashmere with some wet distressing to accentuate the piece. This was finished with a coat of natural beeswax to seal the paint. Interesting enough this piece of Margarets had been partially stripped by her a few years ago and she never finished it because of the time it consumed for her to do it.

Margies finished table

Margies finished table was in Dragons Gray. She had done some distressing but it had been somewhat heavy in a few places, due to some hard spots on one of the cloths she had used to wipe down while distressing. This was a great opportunity to show the versatility of the van Gogh Chalk Paint Collection and the areas affected were recoated and then dryed with a hairdryer. The distressing was finished and a light dry brushing of Cashmere and  a little more light distressing was done, and then Margie waxed the base and put a light coat of table top finish on the top to complete the project.

Barry had done his piece with a coat of Muse. He did some light wet distressing and then proceeded to wax the project. Barry also chose to highlight some strategic areas with the dark wax to finish his project.

The finished projects above were amazing and all took great pride in their accomplishments. One note I will make is that if you notice that Bobbie has some coveralls on with some distinctive marks. This will be for another blog on another day. Till then this is:

John Robinson - Master Craftsman for Stan Portleys - We are timeless and unique.

Our Speciality Colours.

In determining our speciallity colours we had so much to choose from. Initially we wanted an offwhite that was similar to the 'Billowing Sails' we have used in our painted furniture up to now. Bobbie had also wanted one that was close to a robins egg blue so we choose one that was like that and we named it Bobbies Blue. I thought we needed a real true gray and real dark black and we named them Dragons Gray and Morgan's Kitty.

Tuxedo

But first some of the reasoning for the black was that we take old frames that have no pictures in them and put in hardboard and paint the hardboard with 'chalkboard' paint. That is up to now. Now we have our own signature colour, Morgan's Kitty which is solid black. So with this I need to deal with how we came about with the names for these two colours. Morgan's Kitty comes from two things, one that a character named Henry Morgan was an ancestor of mine and also if he had a kitty the kitty would be black. Our own cat Tuxedo is the inspiration for the black of Stan Portley's speciality colour 'Morgan's Kitty'. In fact you can see from the picture at the right he is a rather well dressed cat and even has a white shirt, white gloves and boots and evven a little bow tie on his chin.

Dragon

His brother Dragon is also a tuxedo cat, not because he is black, because he is gray but he has the same distinctive whiter shirt, white gloves and boots that his brother has. And if you haven't guessed his is the inspiration for the Stan Portleys speciality colour 'Dragons Gray'. See Dragon to the left.

 But I digress, getting back to chalkboards. we have a new addition in the store. One of the projects Bobbie had been working on is a mirror which was in too bad shape to use as a mirror but we have found that the mirrors take the paint quite well and make fine solid chalkboards. See the picture below:

Mirror transformed to Chalkboard

This item is actually quite heavy as mirror was a good quality mirror in its time. Other frames that we have done and can be seen posted on our website www.stanportleys.com

So till later this is John Robinson - Master Craftsman for Stan Portleys - We are timeless and unique.

Keeping Bobbie Organized

Bobbie has sort of taken over the garage at the farm for her home studio. For one it is heated and as the garage is attached to the house it makes it convienient for her for other things. Although for the most part she is pretty organized she doesn't think in the same lines as I do when it comes to getting her work area so she can work efficiently. Probably never will but it still behooves me to try and help where I can.


Bobbie working in her home studio

To start I put up a bunch of pegboard and gave her  some pegboard hooks to use and she also purchased some herself. With this she has most of her hand tools, and other things which she requires on a regular basis. I then set up some shelving which again she has put all her 'stuff' and organized it, at least it must be according to her thought processes anyway.

We had a set of drawers which were on wheels and an old decrepit kitchen cart she scrounged from her sister Ann. We set up some towel bars and paper towel holders. All this has lead to her being more organized if you will. I have also set up some of my surplus saw horses so she could save her back by putting her projects up so she can work on them more ergonomically. I picked up at a garage sale a little three wheeled automotive type seat which she can sit on while she is zipping around the studio and working on the lower parts of the projects she is working on. I also built a special shelf for her to keep at least one can of each colour of vGCP Collection paint on, of course I set it up in alphabetical order for her.

Bobbie's new cart and repainted wheeled seat.

Now for Christmas I happened to be looking at the local TSC Flyer (TSC is a farm supply store) and they had red four wheeled equipment carts on for a really good price. I looked and at them and said, "Self, this is just what Bobbie needs to complete her organizing of her studio", "She can put all the paint, wax, brushes and accessories that she needs on the cart and she can move it around the studio the area she needs it to be it." So I did one more thing. As 'red' is not really Bobbie's colour I thought that if I were to paint it a different colour, one she liked. See picture to the left. I also repainted the wheeled seat to match. She has plans on outfitting it with all kinds of organizational extras. Baskets was one thing she mentioned. She has liked this idea so much that we went out and bought two more so we would have  one at one of the stores as well. Well all in all Bobbie has told me she quite likes it. Will she ever be organized like her engineer hubby. Probably not but I still say mission accomplished.

John Robinson - Master Craftsmans & Proprietor - Stan Portleys - Timeless and Unique.