Wooden DIY Privacy Screens

I've really got a large stash of wooden bed slats! You will recall I've mentioned that there's a furniture shop near my place that often throws out stuff like this:

 (Whyyyyyy?)

So I decided I'd make some privacy screens, to be placed on our porch, between my neighbour's house and ours.  Don't ask why because it involves dead plants, aquariums and fish ponds with fishless murky, green water, glass chips, 672 cigarette butts (no, I didn't count), a dead rat, dog poop... 

My husband, bless-his-heart, helped me with making these.

First, we had to pull out all the slats as the gaps between them were too big. That's like 672 nails to be yanked out (no, I didn't count).

Next, we re-arranged them closer together with unevenly-spaced gaps, and nailed them down.

 The base was also made with wooden slats.  Each base had four castors (I'm in love with castors - the first time I used them was on a trolley here:

 http://tree-shades.blogspot.com/2012/05/tongue-twisting-teal-tea-trolley.html)

 I wanted to be able to roll the screens around because I had exciting ideas of the many ways the screens could be used.

See the base turned over, with the four castors, up there? :)

Gee, all you need to do is attach a large basket on that and you could wheel grandkids around and no-I-am-not-hinting-for-any-sigh.

 We then made props at the back to hold up the screens.

We made four of these screens.

Loved them!  At this point I should have left them in their au naturel glory, but no... ol' Itchy Hands here had to go and paint them.

I painted them a very pale grey as I was afraid white would be blinding in the sun.

 

I sanded them to give them a worn, rustic look, a look I'm realising I love more and more.  Kinda like finding the genre of music you want to produce and finally settling on one (does one need to?) but that's another story.

A coat of polyurethane to protect them, and we were done.  I love them!  Now comes the time I play around with them.....I could add plants on the base -

I

I could poke plants through the gaps, just for decoration...

I could hang pop bottles filled with this crazy thorny plant growing in the wild (I loved the look of the berries) - which are probably poisonous, seeing how it loudly declares come-near-me-or-else.

I could think of so many ways to decorate the screens!

...and then...
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I get a message from church asking if I could help with some decoration for Father's Day.  So with the help of my friend LSY, we came up with this (thanks JDP, for the photo):
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I knew those screens would come in handy... :)

Straight from my Heart

My Dad passed away two weeks ago. He was 91.

(I had written a blog post about my Dad on May 29th this year - "My Dad makes me wanna jump off roofs". Another related one was on Feb 13th - "Maybe that's why I'm like this"

You can read back if you're interested. No, you really should read back. I can be quite funny sometimes)

My Dad was friend-to-all-enemy-to-none. Our present Chief Minister (Dato' Khalid Ibrahim) used to live next door to my parents many, many years ago. His now-grown up daughters visited Dad when he was hospitalized in the latter weeks of his life. His wife came to the house during the wake. The doctor at the clinic nearby, many neighbours and even the barber down the road from where Dad lived (who had made a few house calls to give Dad a haircut) sent condolences. One of the staff who worked under him (bear in mind Dad had been retired for almost THIRTY FIVE years!) also turned up. This staff was 77! Dad had outlived most of his other colleagues.

My Dad in his office (Survey Department)


My Dad married my Mum in an arranged-marriage. He was about 30 and Mum, 16. That's 14 years difference!

There was frequent banter between them.

Dad: All the girls in church are looking at me. That's cos I look like Gregory Peck!
Mum: More like Gregory's Back lah.

At other times:

Dad: Such a handsome man like me - like Shashi Kapoor *
Mum: Hah! more like "chenambe kapur" (Tamil word for whitewash)

*a famous Hindustani actor

But dad really was handsome.





Way back in those days, the father is the bread-winner, the mother full-time housewife. Which meant raising the children was very much left to mum (and there are six of us).

Dad and Mum with their six children. That's me right in front, on the right!

Mum was often the disciplinarian, so rebuking was usually by her. I remember one morning I was unwilling to put the laundry out to dry, choosing instead to dilly-dally and then grumble that I had to, after Mum had ticked me off. That came with a warning that Dad was gonna hear about it. And that evening he did hear of it. And I got it good. With a broom handle.



Yah, that one.

On my bum-bum.

Boy, because Dad rarely ever spanked any of us, that was painful, and I'm not talking physically only. It went straight to the heart. It only took one word from my Mum, and Dad would be behind her to reinforce. And the impression it left on me was how united my parents were. It only served to make me feel even more secure.

My Dad was always the life of our family parties.


He loved singing ridiculous songs and his younger brothers would back him up...until one by one each was singing fill-in-the-forgotten lines as the years went by. I don't know which was funnier. The silly songs or the muffled-words-to-replace-forgotten-parts songs! And sometimes it got worse when an uncle decided to do some dance steps, too! G-o-o-d h-e-a-v-e-n-s.

He often played Christmas songs any time of the year. At his wake, someone had played really slowwww hymns and an aunt (his sister) remarked, "your dad would have said, Change the CD!"
Which was true. He loved Boney M's "By the Rivers of Babylon"!!

The other day, my Mum wore a really outdated (it looked a good 50 years old) saree to a family gathering. That took me by surprise as, over the years she has been giving away many of her sarees and you'd have thought this one would have been, too. When I queried about it, my eldest sister said "sentimental value! - Dad gave her that saree..."

How sweet is that?

I did not feel there was anything to grieve over at his funeral, or even now. There really is only rejoicing cos I know he is not having to suffer anymore. And he has lived a full life. And he was loved and respected by many. And I know where he is.

My Dad was always punctual. And I think that's why I am, too. In fact, he was often very early for any function. If he had come to pick me up from school, I could see him from my classroom, sometimes a whole period before school ended! It always made me feel assured and protected that I could count on my Dad being there if I was going to meet him.

Yesterday I was anxious about going to a gig my son's band was playing at. And I was hurrying my husband who shrugged it off, as he felt they were bound to start later than expected. And we arrived in time.for.their.LAST.song. We had missed all 5 of their earlier songs and their awesome 'opening' act. I was so mad with my husband!

Thinking back now, I think I was so mad because:

- I want to attend our children's performances.

- I hate hate hate being late because I was never raised that way.

- I hate it more when someone else has made me late.




And I think I was so mad because



I miss my Dad.



And I'm crying buckets writing this post.










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A Before-Father's-Day Post (otherwise titled: My Dad makes me wanna jump off roofs)

My dad is 90 years old.

He spends all day watching cooking shows and CNN on Astro, and sometimes napping on the couch. He can still hobble around, speaks when he wants to, and eats little. I am trying to recall my best memories of dad when he was healthier, stronger, and when he could still do things with and for us.

He worked as a Division One officer at a government office. So it was pretty routine for him to come home at a fairly regular time. Which strangely enough, was the highpoint of my day. I say strangely because dad has never been the kind that is lovey-dovey, showing any kind of physical acts of love...no hugs, no kisses, no words of endearment. Yet how is it I never felt like I lacked in any way?

One day I was up on the roof (yes, on the roof) at the back of our very large government bungalow, with my brothers and a neighbour-boy. Our age-range might have been maybe 7 -11 years old. The guys were coaxing me to jump off the ledge, on a lower part of the roof. It's a guy thing (so what was I doing there). All of them had already jumped before me, and were standing on the grass below me. "It's ok...jump! Nothing, wan! Can, wan!"

I was afraid to.

Until I heard my dad's car rounding the corner in front. Dad was home!! I was so excited, I immediately jumped. (And found I didn't die after all.) Yep, my dad makes me wanna jump off roofs.

Dad coming home was the highpoint of my day. Sometimes, he would buy me (the youngest daughter, there are 3 boys and 3 girls in our family) little things. I clearly remember an itsy bitsy, rectangular red coin purse with a golden twist knob at the top, that he probably bought from a pedlar who might have come round his office. He probably bought stuff for my brothers and sisters, too but it's hard enough trying to recall my memories here, y'know?

And almost every Sunday after church, he'd let us 3 girls persuade him to take us to what we called the "Soak Shop" to buy all those pickled fruit that were sold in humongous, glass
jars...mango and papaya slices, and bright-red preserved fruit that would stain our lips and tongue. It's a girl thing. And dad understood.







I'll always cherish that he made time for us to take the whole family, almost every year, to Port Dickson. As a high-ranking officer, he could rent a government bungalow by the beach, and together with a whole bunch of cousins and their parents, we'd have the most wonderful 3 or 4 days, chasing after a zillion look!-over-there! here-got-more-here-got-more hermit crabs, floating in it's-my-turn-no, it's-my turn! rubber inner-tubes of tyres, browning ourselves in the morning-afternoon-evening sun (who'd ever heard of skin cancer back then in Jurassic Park times?), stretching our swimsuit straps aside to compare and oooh-and-aaah about who got the most sunburnt, and rubbing Hazeline Snow on ouch-yikes-oooh peeling noses and shoulders and backs and getting "TOLD you to come out of the water earlier on, right? serves-you-right" from our mothers. Honestly, mothers can be collectively sympathetic at times.

My dad in his younger days was always the life of the party. There'd always be loud, singing um.."performances" when dad was at family gatherings. If you're thinking "Somewhere over the rainbow"...forget it. Some of the songs bordered on needing censorship but a number were just plain nonsense

(to the tune of Auld Lang Syne)

We're here because, we're here because, we're here, because WE'RE HERE!
We're here because, we're here because, we're here, because we're HERE....

which was repeated til forever and ever. Amen.


These days you read of dads who kick and stomp their toddler to death. Dads who rape their teenager, repeatedly for several years. Dads who imprison their children in a dungeon of sorts to use, as and how they please. Dads high on drugs, who cut off the head of their child's kitten and stuff it into their mouth to shut them up.

Yep, there are some really evil dads out there.

So with all that, can I look at my dad's flaws, mistakes, weaknesses and bad decisions and hold them against him? Wouldn't that be tunnel vision of some sort?

What do you give a dad who is ninety years old for Father's Day? He's in his pyjamas all day and nearly never goes out so it can't be an item of clothing. He only eats porridge so it can't be a treat to a restaurant nor food of any kind cos nothing appeals to him. Not a book cos he stopped reading a long time ago. Not cash cos what would he do with it? Certainly not lovey-dovey hugs or kisses.

I think the least I can do on Father's Day is tell him I'm counting my blessings. Maybe tell him I wouldn't have any other dad if I could choose. Heck, maybe read him this blog page.

And pray with him. (I've yet to meet anyone who did not benefit from prayer)

And then I'd sing him some nonsense songs.

We're here because, we're here because, we're here, because WE'RE HERE!
We're here because, we're here because, we're here, because we're HERE....



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