In the early 60s, my uncle was running a book circulating library in our locality. It was just a shed-like single room. It had a wooden board hung outside. The library was situated on Jayalakshmi Vilas Road. The library had to be closed down in the mid 1960s mainly due to his own poor health. He eventually died in 1967.
This board lay around here and there, on top of book almirahs, etc. and of no use. It was in the store room when I picked it up for my small wood projects which I had started to make in the late 80s.
The board is beautifully painted and is made of a single-plank of wood.
It had border beading which I removed. From waste pieces of wood I gave this board 4 legs. A short table was now ready. It is just about 15 inches high and is very convenient to sit and do certain small carpentry works. It was a perfect extension for a low cot which I was using for some years. The cot was a foot short in length which this new table made up. Whenever I needed it for work I was taking it out from there.
It serves as a very good 'Horse Table' as it is called. It became a "Vice Horse Table" after I fixed a vice to it and has become a very important thing in my 'workshop'.
Now the second part of this post.
The long and nice border beading pieces of that board came in useful for making a Baby Net Bed which I made in 1994.
Hanging Net Beds for babies were new at that time. I wanted one for our little one, but its price tag was a wee too much. Why not I make one at home? I knew the materials like tape, zipper and net were available in shops and I had the necessary cloth at home. I had mentally copied the design and bought the materials. The border beading was just perfect for this - see them protruding a little bit in the picture below - I did not want to cut it down. There was not much trouble in finding the two other shorter pieces to make the rectangle frame. What was in the market was of metal.
Left: Baby in the net; Right: Taken out now, for sharing it in this blog.
It was fun making it and it certainly costed me less while I used some available materials at home.
The little one enjoyed its time in it with no hassles of insects while it also served as a cradle.
There are several attractive varieties available in the market now.
That baby bed is waaaay cool! I'd never heard of such a thing. And of course the sign is lovely, and the resultant table is awesome, too. Great! What a talent you have, Dinu!
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