Off topic - Back to Bali

Many of you know I took a fantastic vacation to Southeast Asia last summer.  It is so hard to imagine wearing such skimpy clothing just now, since it is currently 6 degrees fahrenheit (-14 celsius) outside my house!

I wrote several blogs about my adventures there.  You can find them all on my list of Travel blogs at the bottom of the page this link will take you to, many about textiles.

But, I was waiting to tell you all about this very special souvenir I JUST got a week ago.
Well ... actually two souvenirs.

In the photo above I am standing next to a slice of a Suar tree. 

This is a Suar tree.

Actually, I wish I could just have this tree.  Isn't it so pretty?

And go to this article to read about the wood.  I am told it is harder than Mahogany.

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I was traveling with a good friend who had had two wooden doors carved and sent to her from Bali several years ago. I always thought how beautiful they are and just what a neat thing that was to do.

Since I was about ready to freshen up my living room and a new coffee table was in my plans, I had this great idea to buy one in Bali! So, the day before we left Bali our guide took us to a furniture workshop that make natural wood style furniture. The Balinese are known for their elaborate carvings, but I just wanted something simple. ha ha

Here is a view of the open air workshop with huge slabs of Suar wood lying about.  My husband and I looked all over the shop several times to find a small piece we liked.

Once we found it, we had to bargain, which I never like doing.  We, finally came to a price that everyone was happy with that included shipping.  But then, look at the photo on top again.  What should we do with the upper part of the board? The coffee table we were getting was going to be the size of the chalk marks.  Well, they said they could make a second, smaller table out of that for no extra money! What a deal.

Here I am, the happy customer with the artisan and my bill of sale.

It was supposed to take about four weeks to make and about four weeks to get here. HA!

I heard from my furniture maker about two months later.  He sent a photo of the tables.  They looked great but I realized I wanted the legs shortened on the smaller table, so that took a few weeks more.  

Mid-November (I had ordered the tables in mid-August) I got a message from a shipper in Bali that three boxes were being sent to me and I had to have some special government form filled out and submitted BEFORE my boxes left on the boat or I would be charged something like $10,000 ... not kidding.

This was the beginning of hiring shipping agents and dock brokers, and lots of official and complicated papers being delivered to my house and emailed back and forth, etc.,etc.  Basically, if you want to have just one thing shipped to the US that is too large for UPS or FedEx, they treat you like you are a giant corporation importing goods to fill a store. But, what's the alternative?? Not getting my tables?

But, now after all the extra fees and anxiety is over, I am so glad I did this.  Might never do it again, but glad I did it this time.  

I did have a few more anxieties that the boxes wouldn't fit into my little Prius. I didn't want to spend any more money on a rental van!  I knew the tables were being shipped IKEA style with their legs off.  So, I figured we (my son mostly) could open the boxes (crates really) and fit the table parts in my car that way.

But, you can see they did fit ... barely.

It's a good thing we didn't have to take apart the crates at the warehouse, because they were so hard to pull apart.  The wood was really soft and the nails were really strong and rusted. 
THANK YOU STRONG SON!!

Every piece was wrapped in corrugated cardboard, then this woven plastic stuff. And, each piece was slightly damp when I opened it. Bali is unbelievably hot and so, so humid.  All I can think is that moisture traveled all the way from there.

I had to wash each piece with wood oil soap and was unable to remove all the mold from a couple of the table legs.  I'm so grateful the bit of mold on the table tops came off completely.

Here is a close up of the coffee table top. Knot holes are a desired feature.

This is the bonus table that is perfect for my husband to keep his many, many book he is aways reading.

And this is the main event!  


From, Andrea ... the very happy customer.