We live on through our projects

Editor’s note: This column is being reprinted from June 4, 2008. Jack occasionally had projects that became an adventure. This particular one seems to have been more of a pleasure, an opportunity for him to relax and feel at one with some of those who were close to him.

At this rate, it may never get done.

But that's OK, because it's all about the doing.

I think it's been a year now that I've been puttering around with a project in the garage, though it may only be 10 or 11 months. Keeping track, like finishing the job, has never been a high priority.

It started last year when I finally began putting together a room at home as my own study or office. For years, my desk at home has been an old door atop a pair of filing cabinets.

The goal was to have a room that I could retire to, a place where I could pound away on the computer or read a book, but which could also double as a guest room. And we've pretty much accomplished that.

The garage project started when I remembered an old piece of furniture, sort of a bookcase or stand, at the newspaper.

Though it was painted a blue that matches the original color of the newspaper's press and was pretty banged up, my recollection was that it was a Mission kind of piece. And the desk that replaced the old door and filing cabinets is Mission style. So are some bookcases in the same room.

When I dug the piece out at the office, sure enough it was oak and could be called Mission style. It also looked like it was built by a local handyman; it may have been a high school shop project.

With visions of restoring it to a degree of grandeur, I hauled it back to our garage.

And there it still stands. Every few months, if the weather's nice and there's no ballgame on TV on a Sunday afternoon, the piece will beckon to me. I'll don rubber gloves and apply stripper. I'll scrape. I'll sand.

I don't do the work well, but it's fun and it puts me in touch with a long line of furniture re-finishers I've known over the years.

Today's misguided antique shoppers seem to think that vintage plastic from the 1960s has value, but 20 or 30 years ago folks knew that the real bargains and the real beauties were late 19th century and early 20th century wood pieces, many of them handcrafted furniture from Indiana and Ohio farmhouses.

The real masters during that era could take a rough piece and transform it into a thing of beauty.

For young couples settling down, antiques and refinished pieces were the most affordable way to furnish a home. They brought character, and they brought you in touch with the characters who had rescued them.

Today, it means something to know we have a couple pieces restored by J.K. and Helen Wehrly.

It matters to me that we have a walnut secretary with a base that came from an auction at Martha Tikala's house and a top that was constructed from old walnut by master restorer Alton Hartley. And I'm glad to know that Sally's apartment in Bloomington has a table and four chairs refinished by my mother.

In my office at work, my computer desk is an old piece that was headed for the landfill before it was restored, refinished, and re-built by Quentin Imel.

The Wehrlys, Alton, Quent, and my mother are all gone now. But a part of them lives on in those pieces of furniture.

As I sand and scrape, I know they all could have done the job better. They certainly would have gotten it done faster.

But I'm savoring the experience. This time it's about the doing, not about getting the job done.