Okay, people, I am bored, and I am broke.
I'm bored because I'm a Ph.D. student, and I've reached the phase in my program where you stop going to class and just sit around cranking out what are supposed to be brilliant bits of writing, but you don't actually accomplish a whole lot in a given day, when you really get down to it. And I'm broke because I'm a Ph.D. student, and I haven't made anything above a poverty-level wage in over five years.
This one day last summer, I was wandering around my neighborhood and I got a hankering to go poking around in a dumpster, where I found this:
In case you can't tell, it was an ugly, crappy set of drawers that was SO ugly and crappy that I don't even think it came from IKEA. It was probably like $15 at K-Mart or something. And I needed a project. So I took it apart, removed all the contact paper (yes, contact paper) covering the crappy particle board (yes, particle board) pieces, nailed it back together, painted it, decorated it, added some new drawer pulls, and threw on some legs, and voilà, it became this:
So, that was cool. I won't lie, I was pretty stoked. I think I bragged about it to every single person who entered my house for about a month.
And then, for an encore, I turned this...
...into this:
Though that wasn't nearly as impressive, so I didn't brag as much about it.
Anyway, I had a really good time working on these projects, but I haven't felt like doing much else since, until yesterday when I was walking to the library and came across this really awesome chair on the curb. I was thinking I'd pick it up on my way home, only to find that it was already gone. :( But in the meantime, I'd gotten really excited about all of the amazing things I could do with this chair (no, not those things), so I said to myself, "Self, you need a friggin' project."
And so I started this blog, because what better way to firmly state your intention, in front of the entire internet-using world, to actually follow through on a project? And maybe even additional projects of the same sort after that one? Nevermind that I am a frequent blog-starter but notoriously bad blog-follow-througher. I mean business this time.
But that said, at the end of the day, I do want any project(s) I do to be fun, low on stress, and, most importantly, CHEAP. So naturally, I've established some Ground Rules, Guidelines, and General Overall Guiding Principles for my project(s). They are as follows:
1. Cheap trumps fabulous
When I say I'm broke, I mean flat-on-my-ass broke. Hence, the dumpsterrific-ness of this blog (as opposed to the Home Depot-rific-ness of Ana White). I'd love to be able to spend some money to really class up my dumpster DIYs, but I can't (and frankly, if I had the money, I'd probably spend it on beer instead). So my projects will be executed ACAP (as cheaply as possible), and each project will have a $20 maximum expenditure cap (but ideally I'll spend much less).
I am allowed to buy: paint, fabric, fancy paper for lining drawers and such, special hardware if needed
I am NOT allowed to buy: wood or any other main components (this is what's supposed to come out of the dumpster), stencils for dressing things up (even though there are some REALLY gorgeous ones out there - these, for example - because they are also REALLY expensive*), tools
*I am not, however, above printing my own stencils.
2. Wood is good
And I mean real wood, not laminated particle board. I did a brief ride-through of my neighborhood alleyways on my bike last night, and determined that there is way, way, way more than enough nice, solid wood furniture being discarded out there. And wood lends itself nicely to the kind of funky, shabby-chic character that I think one just needs to embrace if one is attempting to make nice-ish things out of somebody else's rejects, so to keep things straightforward, I will only work with wood or mostly wood pieces.
But I will NOT refinish anything. No siree, Bob. I remember when my mom refinished our dining room table, and it was pretty much the worst thing that happened to our family that decade. This is supposed to be fun, not more horrifying than the deepest level of hell. Thus, I have cheerfully adopted the motto, "When in doubt, paint."
3.Reject Embrace the "distressed" look
In general, I find the idea of "distressed" furniture to be kitschy and kind of dumb. I've seen some distressed pieces that I've LOVED, but overall, it seems like the kind of look that will be rapidly relegated to the "outdated" pile to hang out with the shag carpets and metallic wallpaper. However, I decided today, upon closer examination of a stool I picked up from someone's trash last night, that some dumpsterrific finds are probably just too, well, distressed already to ever aspire to be anything more. (The stool in question, for example, is pine, with a bunch of dents and dings and general scuffed-up-ness, and was never thoroughly sanded in some places, which I have no desire to rectify. It was pretty much born to be distressed.)
So in light of this, I will annotate my motto to read, "When in doubt, paint. And when REALLY in doubt, make it look like it's spent the last 500 years in someone's attic, and you'll probably be good to go."
4. NO SEWING
If I had to identify a time in my childhood during which household tensions were running almost as high as they were in the the Dark Days of the Dining Room Table-Refinishing, it would have to be during the Great Easter Bunny Costume-Sewing Disaster of 1992 (which was basically successful, but at great cost). And I seem to have inherited every last bit of DNA dictating my mom's complete inability to sew, right down to the tragic determination to keep trying because eventually, eventually one gets the hang of it, right? Given everything else I've got on my plate right now with grad school and such, if any of these projects end up forcing me to sew (to make, say, a chair cushion), I will almost certainly end up in therapy. Therefore, no sewing, no exceptions.
5. No perfectionism
I can get really anal about things, which pretty much sucks all the fun out of life. So, if at any point this starts to get un-fun due to my perfectionistic tendencies, I will take a break to refocus on the purpose of this whole endeavor, which is to be fun and stress-relieving. No sense in making life more stressful than it already is, eh?
6. Follow through
I love the feeling that I get when I actually accomplish something (even something as simple as making a cool table out of an ugly table), and since I get so little of that from grad school these days, I could really use a nice, solid dose of it every now and then. Therefore, stress-inducing projects aside, I will try my very best to follow through on at least some projects, rather than merely accumulating piles and piles of other people's trash in my basement (fabulous as that sounds). My roommates will definitely appreciate this, if nothing else.
So, that's the plan, and those are the rules. Which just leaves one question: Will I ever actually post in this blog again?
I'm bored because I'm a Ph.D. student, and I've reached the phase in my program where you stop going to class and just sit around cranking out what are supposed to be brilliant bits of writing, but you don't actually accomplish a whole lot in a given day, when you really get down to it. And I'm broke because I'm a Ph.D. student, and I haven't made anything above a poverty-level wage in over five years.
This one day last summer, I was wandering around my neighborhood and I got a hankering to go poking around in a dumpster, where I found this:
(apologies for asstastic picture quality)
In case you can't tell, it was an ugly, crappy set of drawers that was SO ugly and crappy that I don't even think it came from IKEA. It was probably like $15 at K-Mart or something. And I needed a project. So I took it apart, removed all the contact paper (yes, contact paper) covering the crappy particle board (yes, particle board) pieces, nailed it back together, painted it, decorated it, added some new drawer pulls, and threw on some legs, and voilà, it became this:
So, that was cool. I won't lie, I was pretty stoked. I think I bragged about it to every single person who entered my house for about a month.
And then, for an encore, I turned this...
...into this:
Though that wasn't nearly as impressive, so I didn't brag as much about it.
Anyway, I had a really good time working on these projects, but I haven't felt like doing much else since, until yesterday when I was walking to the library and came across this really awesome chair on the curb. I was thinking I'd pick it up on my way home, only to find that it was already gone. :( But in the meantime, I'd gotten really excited about all of the amazing things I could do with this chair (no, not those things), so I said to myself, "Self, you need a friggin' project."
And so I started this blog, because what better way to firmly state your intention, in front of the entire internet-using world, to actually follow through on a project? And maybe even additional projects of the same sort after that one? Nevermind that I am a frequent blog-starter but notoriously bad blog-follow-througher. I mean business this time.
But that said, at the end of the day, I do want any project(s) I do to be fun, low on stress, and, most importantly, CHEAP. So naturally, I've established some Ground Rules, Guidelines, and General Overall Guiding Principles for my project(s). They are as follows:
1. Cheap trumps fabulous
When I say I'm broke, I mean flat-on-my-ass broke. Hence, the dumpsterrific-ness of this blog (as opposed to the Home Depot-rific-ness of Ana White). I'd love to be able to spend some money to really class up my dumpster DIYs, but I can't (and frankly, if I had the money, I'd probably spend it on beer instead). So my projects will be executed ACAP (as cheaply as possible), and each project will have a $20 maximum expenditure cap (but ideally I'll spend much less).
I am allowed to buy: paint, fabric, fancy paper for lining drawers and such, special hardware if needed
I am NOT allowed to buy: wood or any other main components (this is what's supposed to come out of the dumpster), stencils for dressing things up (even though there are some REALLY gorgeous ones out there - these, for example - because they are also REALLY expensive*), tools
*I am not, however, above printing my own stencils.
2. Wood is good
And I mean real wood, not laminated particle board. I did a brief ride-through of my neighborhood alleyways on my bike last night, and determined that there is way, way, way more than enough nice, solid wood furniture being discarded out there. And wood lends itself nicely to the kind of funky, shabby-chic character that I think one just needs to embrace if one is attempting to make nice-ish things out of somebody else's rejects, so to keep things straightforward, I will only work with wood or mostly wood pieces.
But I will NOT refinish anything. No siree, Bob. I remember when my mom refinished our dining room table, and it was pretty much the worst thing that happened to our family that decade. This is supposed to be fun, not more horrifying than the deepest level of hell. Thus, I have cheerfully adopted the motto, "When in doubt, paint."
3.
In general, I find the idea of "distressed" furniture to be kitschy and kind of dumb. I've seen some distressed pieces that I've LOVED, but overall, it seems like the kind of look that will be rapidly relegated to the "outdated" pile to hang out with the shag carpets and metallic wallpaper. However, I decided today, upon closer examination of a stool I picked up from someone's trash last night, that some dumpsterrific finds are probably just too, well, distressed already to ever aspire to be anything more. (The stool in question, for example, is pine, with a bunch of dents and dings and general scuffed-up-ness, and was never thoroughly sanded in some places, which I have no desire to rectify. It was pretty much born to be distressed.)
So in light of this, I will annotate my motto to read, "When in doubt, paint. And when REALLY in doubt, make it look like it's spent the last 500 years in someone's attic, and you'll probably be good to go."
4. NO SEWING
If I had to identify a time in my childhood during which household tensions were running almost as high as they were in the the Dark Days of the Dining Room Table-Refinishing, it would have to be during the Great Easter Bunny Costume-Sewing Disaster of 1992 (which was basically successful, but at great cost). And I seem to have inherited every last bit of DNA dictating my mom's complete inability to sew, right down to the tragic determination to keep trying because eventually, eventually one gets the hang of it, right? Given everything else I've got on my plate right now with grad school and such, if any of these projects end up forcing me to sew (to make, say, a chair cushion), I will almost certainly end up in therapy. Therefore, no sewing, no exceptions.
5. No perfectionism
I can get really anal about things, which pretty much sucks all the fun out of life. So, if at any point this starts to get un-fun due to my perfectionistic tendencies, I will take a break to refocus on the purpose of this whole endeavor, which is to be fun and stress-relieving. No sense in making life more stressful than it already is, eh?
6. Follow through
I love the feeling that I get when I actually accomplish something (even something as simple as making a cool table out of an ugly table), and since I get so little of that from grad school these days, I could really use a nice, solid dose of it every now and then. Therefore, stress-inducing projects aside, I will try my very best to follow through on at least some projects, rather than merely accumulating piles and piles of other people's trash in my basement (fabulous as that sounds). My roommates will definitely appreciate this, if nothing else.
So, that's the plan, and those are the rules. Which just leaves one question: Will I ever actually post in this blog again?
