My life is going in a new direction. So, it’s only natural that things be under construction. Before you can straighten up, things have to get messy, right? A phoenix rising from the ashes, and all that malarky.
So, after getting my letter last week, I (at least somewhat subconsciously) started making a big mess.
First order of business? A new blog design. I decided that if (they say) I can’t write, the least I can do is have a prettier blog, with all the bells and whistles. That’s right: rather than working on my writing, my instinct is to gussy it up a bit. Kind of like shopping for new clothes rather than trying to lose a little weight so the old ones look good on you again.
I recognize that I have issues — I do. But its all part of my process. At least, that’s what I’m telling myself.
So I have thrown myself into hosting my blog on a new server, so that I can make beautiful thematic changes. Apparently, even though WordPress.org calls it a “painless five-minute process,” I am completely incapable of handling it. I am now buttering up my computer engineer friends to get their help. Kevin? Braden? Kyle? Help a girl out? I’ll bake you cookies. Because that’s what trophy wives do.
My blog will either be really gorgeous really soon, with a little help from friends, or I will be left to my own devices and it will disappear entirely into the vortex of The Interweb. Stay tuned.
I have also decided that woodworking is hobby that absolutely must incorporate into my already haphazard, schizophrenic life. I mean, why not? Jack of all trades, master of none — that’s me.
A while back, Rob’s mom gave us her old desk. It is a beautiful, behemoth piece of high quality furniture, with heavy drawers that lock and pull out on gliders. Not a square inch of particle board on this bad boy. And it’s certainly nicer than anything we own or would buy for ourselves. I mean, Pottery Barn would be our splurge, and they just don’t make stuff like this at Pottery Barn.
The only thing is that this desk is starting to look a tad outdated. Not so outdated as to be a hip statement piece. More like 1980s outdated, as in the person sitting behind this desk should probably be wearing head-to-toe pastel and a French braid. Which, of course, Rob’s lovely mother did in the ’80s, when that outfit and hairdo and desk style were all in style. (I know; I’ve seen a home video of it. There’s something about seeing your husband as an eight-year old with a mullet wearing a wolf sweatshirt and carving a pumpkin on the floor next to the desk that at age 28-almost-29 you use to run your so-called multinational corporation from the second bedroom of the condo that you rent from his parents … that makes you want to refinish that desk. I don’t know, maybe its just me?)
And so, I had decided to give this great piece of furniture a facelift. New hardware would have done the trick. A good coat of black paint would have gone even further. But that kind of stuff is child’s play for this experienced handy girl. It is high time, my friends, that I learned how to strip.
Varnish from wood, that is.
After hours of research and no fewer than six trips to the hardware store in four days, I am well on my way to making a complete disaster out of a perfectly nice-looking piece of furniture that I probably should have just left alone.
Here’s the desk before I started:
After some environmentally friendly fairly non-functional 3M Safest Stripper Paint and Varnish Gel Remover:
After some less-gentle (sorry, Liz!) but non-toxic and minty green Zinsser Magic Strip:
and the purchase of a Black and Decker power sander with a cute name that (blessed be!) sucks up its own sawdust:
I have to say, I feel like Bob Vila, restoring something to make it beautiful. (Only with less facial hair, and no plaid. I mean, no facial hair and less plaid?) And when I got that power sander going, I’m not gonna lie: I almost grunted like Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor. And, yesterday, as I smoothed my hands in long strokes over the desktop that I had just worked on for the better part of an hour, I felt like Carrie Bradshaw’s furniture designer boyfriend Aidan admiring his handiwork on the chair he made for her out of materials from an old pullman car.
[Sidebar: I recognize that, with every Sex and the City reference I make, I draw ever closer to becoming the trophy wife I do not want to be. However, I take comfort in knowing that I am less like the women who enjoy the delusion of likening their own lives to SATC than I am their husbands, who are out in the garage playing with power tools.]
Assuming that, come next week, I have a desk and a blog that are at least functional and at best aesthetically unobjectionable, I am pretty proud of myself.
Even Molly is impressed.
Tags: 1980s outdated, Aidan, bake you cookies, behemoth desk, bells and whistles, Black and Decker, blog design, Bob Vila, Carrie Bradshaw, decision letter, desk, engineer, fat clothes, French braid, gussied up, high five, i have issues, jack of all trades, making a big mess, new direction, painless five-minute process, particle board, pastel, Pottery Barn crap, power sander, schizophrenic life, Sex and the City, This Old House, Tim Taylor, Trophy Wifedom, vortex of the interweb, woodworking, Wordpress.org
