The Restory Retreat Centre

Hermitage   ` The Conversation Elements From The Conversation Music Gradually, our dream of a place of rest, nurture and comfort is taking shape. With our love. George & Matilda

  During the time I was struggling with tennis elbows, I haven’t done any woodworking.    It’s been a while now that I’ve been able to work again, but my focus has changed. Now I’m focusing  more on combining Matilda’s ceramics and my woodworking, my own art pieces and bespoke furniture. I’m not taking on new commissions or outside work. And on a practical level, most of my time after recovering from my injuries, has been spent working on the chapel.   Against that backdrop, restoring some furniture that have been brought to me at the onset of my elbow troubles, is a swan song of sorts. And I’m glad these pieces in particular are part of that song.   The 130 year old toddler bed especially, is quite interesting. It has served a grandfather, father and a number of brothers of the current generation during their early years.   It was made in the 1890’s by a cousin of the great grandmother, who was pregnant at the time.. This cousin was a  ...

  Behind The Scenes The conversations Elements from the conversation  All the beauty that's been lost before wants to find us again                                                                                      U2 (Ordinary Love) Music We try to leave something behind. No monuments or statues, but something that makes life a little bit more beautiful and warmer for people - those current and those that follow. To Leave Something Behind  (Sean Rowe) I cannot say that I know you well But you can't lie to me with all these books that you sell I'm not trying to follow you to the end of the world I'm just trying to leave something behind Words have come from men and mouse Oh, but I can't help thinking that I have heard the wrong crowd When all the water is go...

In previous posts I wrote about the table I was busy restoring. After finishing the project in August last year I never got around to taking pictures of the final result. Shame on me! And as some of you recently asked about the project, Matilda took some pictures of it last week.  To recap: On arrival in the workshop ( Beauty longing ) A work in progress ( Beauty longing - Part 2 ) And finally Its place is in a dining room and not a chicken abattoir, don’t you think?  George

Images source: Kintsugigifts.com Ring the bell that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack, a crack in everything That’s where the light comes in                                                                                Leonard Cohen I know nothing, except what everyone knows – If there when Grace dances, I should dance.                                                                             W. H. Auden And God showed me that sin will be no shame, but somehow honor for humanity….. God’s goodness...

OK, in order to get the bigger picture and compare the "before" and "after" you have to go back to the post Beauty longing . I was busy restoring the huge old dining room table. Oregon with teak legs was my guess at that stage. This is my first big woodworking commission since we have moved to Barrowfield. In order to complete it I had to do quite a lot of repairs on the machinery that would be needed in the process. The belt sander got damaged during the move. I welded the cast iron table where it broke at the base. Two weeks before our move down here, they broke into my workshop at Rietfontein and stole the electrical motor with its particular bracket off my table saw. It was no mean feat to replace it. In the process I got to know most of the electrical suppliers in Newcastle, drove to Alberton to get the bracket components, made adjustments to that and put in a bigger circuit breaker at the distribution box as the new motor kept tripping the previous one. ...

All the beauty that's been lost before wants to find us again.                                                                                                         U2, Ordinary Love  Our landlord Johan and his wife Debbie are destined to become our direct neighbours in a few months’ time. They are moving into the house of his late father close by which will make it easier for him to tend to the cattle side of their farming activities. At this stage the old house is being renovated.  By mere coincidence Debbie recently got an old table back that has been in the family for generations and was given to friends years ago. The size of the table (2.75 m x 1.14 m) provided an ideal surface to work on in the ch...

 Some critics are of the opinion that a movie with a number in the title (Die Hard 6, Terminator 8, Rocky 9) is not worth watching. I was pondering that bias, but decided to stick to my title. Hopefully this is the first in a series of articles on restoration. I love restoring things. Anything. However, my love for wood tends to often nudge me in the direction of furniture. Restoration differs from making something totally new, from scratch, in the sense that with restoration the product is already there. You do not come with a design or plan and apply the wood accordingly. The challenge in restoration is to work with the given. To bow to the wood and the previous craftsman and do the work in such a way that the end product says something of your respect for them. That is done through all the stages – the stripping, dismantling, making of new parts, mending what is broken, applying the finish. For me restoration has a deep spiritual quality to it. It is the a...