brainstorming.

summer is here.

which means things are slowing down.

now it's onto figuring out just what we are supposed to do.

we've got some money saved (you're welcome darwin), but we would prefer not to bleed ourselves dry.

coming up with meaningful tasks each day is growing more difficult with each passing day.

yesterday i successfully organized the storage space. i fought with ikea shelving for a good two hours. but i got to use powertools. and i am little kid excited that you can now see the floor and everything has a home. mmm organization.

today i drove to the kiln. and then put the seat covers on keisha as best that i could. oh and keisha got a face lift. she got a new bumper. and by bumper i mean menacing grill. it's pretty awesome. i feel like it should be in dawn of the dead.

that said bumper was quite the headache though. the body shop accepted the bumper without inspecting it and it was damaged. darwin called me and told me to to diplomatically handle it because he was going to start yelling if he called. suicide mission began.....needless to say, darwin went to the body shop the next day and told them just exactly what he thought of them and got everyone's ducks in a row....wooohoooo new bumper

must go back to brainstorming...any ideas shoot them my way.

latest update...

many apologies. without further ado...

With the Georgia heat descending upon us with a quickness, Darwin and I opted to take a rainy Monday and get together an actual list of all of our inventory. It took the greater part of a day to chalk, number and picture all of it, but it was well worth it. There were a lot of pieces that Darwin and I had forgotten about and even more pieces that we knew about but didn't realize quite how many or how stunning they actually were.

I've finally managed to get all the pictures up. Both on our photobucket page - here - and our Facebook page - here. If you haven't had a chance to see the pictures, I highly recommend taking a peak. Not only are the pictures of our inventory, but they are also of our finished furniture projects.

The National Ornamental Metal Museum in Memphis, TN contacted us about doing a dining room table top for them. Darwin and I jumped at the opportunity to work with them. They have made some amazing pieces and we knew the base they were building wouldn't disappoint. We went back and forth on which slabs would be the best, and we finally settled on the last of the Sinker Cypress slabs we had. The first one turned out beautifully and we knew this one would hold it's own against whatever base the metal museum created. The slab finished out beautifully and Darwin and I are anxiously awaiting pictures of the completed product.

Speaking of furniture, we've got some new pieces in the works over at Urban Reclaimed. Now that we've got an inventory list, the ideas are blossoming quite rapidly. Two pieces we have recently finished are the Vintage Surfboard Coffee Table as well as a pair of Foldover Side Tables. The website has recently been revamped and the blog is getting an update with the stories behind some of our more unique slabs.

Moving away from inventory and furniture, we fall into Darwin's territory. Milling. Emory University has kindly sent us some more trees from their campus to get milled into lumber. The tree Darwin milled out of one of their trees that fell in front of one of, or the oldest, dorm on campus, has come to the final stages of drying and will soon be on it's way to be made into an amazing conference table to be placed in the dormitory for the students to use. The kiosks we made for them have been assembled on campus and are a big hit.

As always let us know if we can help with anything. Please check out both of our Facebook pages - Mississippi Wood Trader and Urban Reclaimed. If you tweet follow Urban Reclaimed. And look for our updates on the blogs. Yes, this means the rambling has ended...

Until next time,

Dot and Darwin

heart attack.

it's been a minute.

we are officially a floating company. we have no shop. which makes things interesting.

especially when darwin goes out of town and leaves you the dog, the truck, the business, the credit card and a project with a due date of monday.

yesterday i hit the trail running to get everything accomplished and i am fairly positive that i have gotten all my bases covered, but i am all about not jinxing things, so let's keep this between us.

things that will give you a heart attack: the bank putting a big fat check of yours in the wrong bank account. that will get your heart racing. holy pete that was not what i needed today.

luckily the bank put it in one of our accounts, but i can't access it, which makes things really fun...not

eek.

wish me luck with the project.

ciao.

sayonara...sucker!

gone. gone. gone. gone. gone. gone. gone. gone. GOOOOOOOOONE!

woohoo.

we are out of the redneck riviera. riviera is being generious. ruhl generous.

hilarious. pardon my frankness. 

but for the moment we are homeless.

we've got our lumber in storage at the kiln. our tools in storage in a unit. and our trucks and trailer are floating around.

so we are virtually homeless. it's kind of exciting to not be tied to any place. especially after this last place.

pardon my french, but what a shitbox.

that place was falling apart. structurally, financially, landlordly.

i told darwin that i felt like the three little pigs and that someone could literally huff and puff and blow our house down. or malotov cocktail it down. he agreed, adding that a first grader could break into that place.

but none of that matters anymore because we are OUT! woop! woop! no more!

i will miss the mexican restaurant and the guy that detailed our cars, but for now we are regrouping and figuring out the next best step.

stay tuned.

ciao.

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truck driving.

today marked a momentous day at work.

i drove the truck and trailer.

the trailer was loaded.

all.by.myself.

i didn't even break it, scratch it, dent it, or anything.

ALL.BY.MYSELF.

i should probably mention that it was to the kiln and back. twice. ALL.BY.MYSELF.

believe it.

believe you me it was the single scariest thing i have done in a very long time.

but it was awesome.

it gives you a whole new respect for driving.

im still not very good at reversing, but i am working on it.

i only almost died one time. and it was not my fault. some methed out gorker came around the turn at about 90 miles an hour on the wrong side of the road. i was approximately 1/4 mile from the shop...that would have been a fun phone call. although darwin would have more than likely heard the crash and me screaming more than his phone ringing.

ciao.

tomorrow is more of me driving the truck around.

i'll tell you all the story about the guy who owns the kiln tomorrow.

moving on up.

remember last august when we moved?

remember how we said we never wanted to move ever again?

want to know what we are currently in the process of doing? moving.

shoot me in the face.

it's not like we have a huge job going on right now or anything. it's not like it a bazillion degrees outside or anything.

silly.

memphisism.

i have no fun one liners from the rest of this week. it was a rather uneventful week.

well aside from a guy telling me he had bladder cancer - and then proceeding today to tell darwin the entire story of how he found out. thank you overly zealous life story telling man.

well a couple of weeks ago, darwin, his brother robinson and i were driving around north georgia scouting properties. ya know because of this whole long standing "our landlord sucks at life and is a lowlife scum eating turd face" debacle we are in.

things you see a lot of in north georgia:

-abandoned chicken farms
-abandoned homes
-sweet trailer get-ups
-above ground pools (apparently this is not just a south georgia phenomena)
-lots of winding roads
-very little cell service
-riding tractor/mowers

you know the standard.

speaking of above ground pools. well we saw one of them and i was sitting in the back seat with praia -- while ro was trying no to vomit in the front seat -- and i looked over at it and said, well that is greener than shit.

to which darwin promptly replied: wow you are from memphis.

similar to this, but greener and grosser.

i sometimes forget that there are things that people say in memphis that you just don't hear elsewhere. greener than shit being the front runner at the moment....

back to the search for land...with or without the greener than shit pool...i mean i wouldn't turn down a pool. who does that?

next week is a short week for me. i am leaving thursday for my very best friend's bachelorette party. we are going to the beach and I AM SOOOO EXCITED (see how many caps were in that? that's pure excitement gold right there). which means next week is going to be a shit show.

we only have the rest of a floor to deliver, a pay app to get in, and i am sure something will go terribly wrong. it's guaranteed to in fact. weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee work crises.  oh and dolly and 1 forklift are broken...good lousy.

i'll take the work crisis in exchange for the beach any day. mmmm salt water and air....that's the cure right there folks.

mmm ocean sunsets.

ciao.

p.s. i apologize for the number of "shits" (that was eloquently put, no?) in this post. i take that back. no i'm not....shit

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