The End of an Era

It’s funny how attached you can become to certain objects– you know, those things that embody a particular time of your life or signify good times past. There’s nothing remarkably special about them to anybody except you, which makes them both hard to let go of and difficult to explain why they’re so hard to let go of.

This morning, I said goodbye to my car, Roxanne. She’s been featured on this blog before, and has been an invaluable part of transporting boxes and furniture and starting to shape this empty apartment into a home. But that’s just recent history. Roxanne and I go way back.

Back to the summer of 2008. Before moving to New York to do the whole college thing, I took a year off from school to work for a film company in Saskatchewan, Canada. I had no idea what I was getting into– what kind of work I’d be doing, who I’d meet, or even where Saskatchewan was. I don’t want to get too sappy (as if a post honoring my car isn’t absurdly sentimental anyway), but it was one of the best years of my life: my work experience was great, spending a year living on my own was incredibly self-affirming, and I made a couple of the best friends I’ll ever hope to have.

My parents and I found Roxanne in the newspaper, and she seemed like a good car to get me around in the hazardously snowy and icy winter months. She wasn’t no pussy car, she was a big honkin’ American-made ruskbucket and I loved her for it. I planned to sell her at the end of my year, but– long story short– the two of us actually ended up driving home to Virginia last August. It took us five days, just me and the car. And it was so much fun. For real. Something about that isolation and adventure is just magic.

I wasn’t under any enormous time pressures, so I decided to take a longer route that took me through long stretches of middle America and finally through West Virginia on the way back to my front door. I had bought a used Pentax ME Super the week before I left at the Salvation Army, so I snapped some old-school pictures along the way.

Somewhere between Regina, SK and the North Dakota border.

From the porch of an abandoned farmhouse in Illinois.

The bugs didn't fare so well.

Now she’s off to begin her new life in Florida, under the care of my cousin. He owns a business that supplies automotive parts and makes custom car grills. So she’ll probably get some fancy spinnin’ rims, a shiny new grill, a custom paint job, and who knows what else. I imagine that if ever we see each other again, she’ll be dolled up like some washed-up Vegas hussy, a full-glitz counterpart who goes by Roxy and turns her nose up at 87 octane gas.

So what does all this mean for the apartment? Well, hopefully not very much. But between Eva and I, this is the only car that can accommodate big furniture, and we’re both too young to rent Zipcars. So losing Roxanne does provide an added challenge since any large purchases will have to be delivered.

I’ll leave you with a picture I took somewhere in the mountains of West Virginia. It was supposed to be a funny photo displaying all the bugs that had perished over the course of the 4,000+ mile drive, but came out underexposed and angsty instead. I like it anyway.

So long Roxanne, you will be missed.

My Secret, Mysterious Past

For those of you who don’t know me– which I recognize consists of about 100% of nobody reading this blog– you might have been reading the last post and wondering, “a year up in Canada? Where did he live?”

That’s right people, I have a secret apartment past. It’s sordid. It’s dirty. There was some cheating.

I started off my year in a rental owned by my boss, which was furnished. By all counts it was nice enough. But I hated feeling like I was living in somebody else’s house for an extended period. So I did things to make it my own, like take down some art and rearrange the furniture (nothing I hate more than an angled sofa) and buy a dish set at the Salvation Army. It helped mildly. Then I found out that I was living on the edge of an unsafe park. On the ground floor, no less. In fact, that’s where my car, Roxanne, got her name: from the portly woman at the corner gas station who told me I was liable to get stabbed if I went out after dark. Welcome to the neighborhood. But for real, thanks Roxanne.

What sealed the deal for getting out on my own was that the rent I was paying turned out to be about triple market rate. It was a nice apartment. But trust, it wasn’t that nice.

I had seen my next apartment building while driving by and loved the 60s retro-ness of it. It was also orange, an enormous plus. I saw a unit, fell in love, and the next day went back and signed the lease. Crappy iPhone picture that doesn’t really help things at all:

I should just say, the vintage shopping in Regina, Saskatchewan would wipe its ass with New York City’s vintage shopping. I figured out pretty quickly that nobody within a 100 mile radius was interested in anything that might be prefaced with the words “retro” or “mid-century.” That’s right, the entire city’s mid-century discards were mine for the taking, and boy did I take. And cheaply. Those were the days.

There were two stores I frequented: The Salvation Army and the Value Village. Both were enormous and well-priced. I went every Tuesday after work. And sometimes on weekends. There was also another store, Retrovise, that sold mid-century furniture and housewares, mostly at prices about on par with these stupid bourgie Upper East Side thrift shops that never have anything fun to begin with.

Those stores, combined with a couple of used furniture dealers, stuff I found for free, and some estate sales furnished my entire apartment. And some weirdo couple on Craigslist who traded Erin’s old futon for a mattress for me. Did I mention that Erin and Adrian are the best friends in the world? They are.

Here’s what the ole place looked like.

Living Room

Dining Nook

I loved this strange little thing in the entry, so I painted it bright robin's egg blue. I used the color again on the inside of the display case in the dining area. Walls were repainted in BM Moonlight White (eggshell).

Bedroom- why did I ever leave those lamps behind? No, I did not paint this room. Unfortunately, I never got around to repainting it either.

If Roxanne were a bigger car, I would have kept more. But I basically got rid of everything. I saved most of my kitchen stuff and most of the needlepoints, but beyond that almost nothing else. But because most of it was so cheap to begin with, I just about broke even when I sold it all marked up like a crook on Craigslist.

Now, I’m not really lamenting the loss of that aesthetic, necessarily. Firstly, because I didn’t really have to live with it for too long, I kind of just went a little kitschy-nuts. Which was fun, but might be too much for the long term. That short time frame also made it easier to spend very little money because I wasn’t too concerned about investing in pieces that would last. For example, all the living room furniture was, literally, $100 combined (discounting the rug, art, and television). The place was also huge, comparatively, so I didn’t have to worry as much about how things would fit.

I was also uber-crafty. See those roman blinds in the living room? I made them. THREE of them. I bought a roll of the fabric at Value Village for like $7 and thought, “Hey, this is sort of awful, isn’t it? Perfect!” It was a weird year.

Now that I’m not facing any enormous purge in the foreseeable future, things are a little different. Like, I didn’t enlist Erin to help drag my $20 plaid couch out of the basement of the chain-smoking-cat-owning-woman-who-worked-in-the-thrift-store. I bought it from Ikea. And without sounding too ridiculous, I suppose I want things here to be a little more… refined? Ew, that word. Adult? I don’t know. But I do really, really miss that selection. There’s so little of it here that hasn’t been snatched up. And every time I see something I do want, it’s way too expensive. The prices in Manhattan (and Brooklyn) are just outrageous, I’ve found. I miss being un-trendy. But not enough to make me find a new un-trendy style. I can’t control the things I like, even if other people think they like them as much as me.

A Desk with a View

This project has been a long time coming, but it’s finally completed. So I’ll stop being such a tease and show you up front. I built a desk!

I made that.

Yeah, I’m handier than you. Deal with it.

If you don’t want to hear about the process or how I made it, stop reading here. I’ll hate you, but I’ll understand. This is going to go on for a bit. I’ll try to be short on words and long on pictures, but you know me.

So I wanted a desk. Admittedly, I’m not big on actually working at a desk, but in the interest of pulling my life together and becoming a responsible adult, this seemed like a logically symbolic place to start. Plus, my window has a nice view of our rich neighbors’ charmingly overgrown (hey, it’s green) backyard. And their windows (spying). But while my room is pretty big, it’s not big enough to accommodate that enormous PAX wardrobe, a full bed, and a desk. At least none that I could find. I’ll spare you a run-down of my research, but trust me, I’m well informed. They were all too deep. I wanted something long and narrow to make the most of this space on the window wall in my bedroom, but for the life of me couldn’t find anything. I’m not really sure why desks need to be so deep– in my mind, that’s just more room to clutter up– but apparently somebody decided they should be.

Looking around, I realized I already had the beginnings of a pretty simple DIY. Do you recognize the drawers on the left side of the desk? You’ve seen them before. No? Well, it started out as the stupid little nightstand I pulled off the street for my dorm room way back when.

Remember me?

In the dorm, this thing was fine. To review, I found it on the sidewalk, dragged it back, pulled off the remaining ugly hardware, stained it Minwax Jacobean 2750, and affixed new hardware purchased at the Home Depot. Quick n’ dirty.

In the apartment, however, I knew this little piece of shit wasn’t going to fit in. In the dorm it looked good because– let’s face it– all the other furniture was a gazillion times uglier and it’s pretty hard to develop some kind of style around that crap. But here, I wasn’t about to have its sad, boring lines drag down the apartment’s decor just because I was too stubborn to put it back out on the curb where I found it.

I actually liked one thing about it: the wood. I think the wood, in all its beat-up, “character”-ridden glory is kind of cool. Refer to the first picture and you might see what I mean. So I realized, without the traditional trim on the bottom, there was nothing holding it back from being more workable. And so the saga begins…

I started by lopping off the trim pieces with a hammer. It was sort of exciting and more than sort of messy.

While trim that matched this profile was glued and nailed all the way around, the underlying structure of the sides was also cut this way. Like a moron, I thought maybe I could just use a manual hacksaw to trim it all down to the right level. Boy was a wrong. Stupid, stupid, and wrong. After a while of sweat-inducing, frustrating sawing that yielded nothing but crooked cuts, the blade broke. I cursed the damn thing. I pouted. My plan wasn’t working.

Then I pulled myself together and brought in the big guns.

Awwwww yeah.

I rented this puppy for $25 from my favorite hardware store, which I’ll shamelessly plug now. New York Paint and Hardware. They’re awesome. And as their website plainly and randomly states, “WE LOVE AMERICA!!!” Always a plus when renting power tools.

This is what happens when you use a circular saw indoors. Sawdust EVERYWHERE. Is this really what people do when they don’t have balconies, driveways, or yards? I feel like it isn’t, but I couldn’t come up with anything better. Those big wood pieces are from the top, which I also beat at with a hammer until they flung loose.

Once I had that bitch of a frame sorted out, it was time to deal with the drawers. I’ve always quite liked the two-tone look– usually white laminate with wood. Like this desk George Nelson designed up, probably my favorite (or at least in the top ten) piece of furniture ever designed.

Nelson Swag Leg Desk, 1958. Only $1,850 from DWR.

Well, now my actual desk looks like crap. Pretend you didn’t see that.

I also wanted to change things up with knobs instead of handles. Mostly because I was dying to use these adorable, cheap SNODD knobs from IKEA that looked bad in the kitchen when I tried them on for size in there. Anna used them over at Door Sixteen in her kitchen and I got jealous. Wow, I’m a creepy shelter blog junkie.

So I gave all the drawers a good coat of wood filler. I used a spackle knife to skim over whole thing, including the old screw holes, so that any imperfections in the wood wouldn’t mar the painted finish. Then I sanded, primed, and painted.

I used this clever little trick revealed to me by Benita at Chez Larsson to make painting easier. Put little nails in the bottom and the paint won’t pool, puddle, or stick to the ground. Then just rip them out when you’re done. It made painting much easier! I used Benjamin Moore Simply White in semi-gloss, which I had leftover from the trim paint I used in the living room and bedroom (and, soon, everywhere else).

Since I destroyed the bottom of the cabinet, I needed to prop it up on something. I toyed with hairpin legs, but I realized I’d be better off with something that was designed to have a height adjustment since the cabinet is an irregular size and the desktop needed to be level. Fortunately, IKEA came to the rescue again with these CAPITA legs, adjustable within a half inch, made for kitchen cabinets.

Once the cabinet was on its way, I went to the Home Depot and got 3/4″ MDF cut for the top. The Home Depot employee might be a total dick about it, but it’s a free service that’s part of their job. So suck it.

This idea was also furnished by Chez Larsson. That’s it, I’m adding it to the blogroll. The top is 5′ x 17″, an inch deeper than the cabinet for some overhang and about a foot shorter than the space between the radiator and the corner, so my new desk would have some room to breath on either side and wouldn’t look too cramped. Ignore that trestle leg, I stupidly bought it from IKEA before I decided on the desktop dimensions and it was too wide– oh well, a $10 mistake. Since a 3/4″ thick desktop would look pretty lame and skimpy and would probably bow over time, I sandwiched two pieces together with a mess of wood glue and some cheap-o clamps.

Testing the limits of the phrase "you can never be too careful."

Husky, indeed.

I clamped in the middle of all four sides. I don’t have any idea if that’s the proper way to do this, but it seemed to work.

After letting the glue set overnight, I rented this sander for $15 from New York Paint and Hardware. A router would have been more awesome, but they didn’t have any for rent. I still love them.

Since the two pieces of wood didn’t join perfectly, I sanded the sides a lot until they were all smooth and even.

I used regular wall spackle to camouflage the small gap where the two pieces of MDF join. In retrospect, caulk might have been a better choice. I sanded, primed, and painted according to instructions from Young House Love, who have lots of really useful tutorials. The basic rundown is two coats of primer, three coats of Benjamin Moore Simply White in semi-gloss, and three coats of high-gloss water-based polyurethane. I wanted the desktop wipeable, water-resistant (since MDF absorbs water and swells up), and shiny.

I picked two VIKA INGE legs from IKEA to finish off the desk. I really considered real hairpin legs, but from a budget perspective, these were a better choice. They have a similar shape to hairpins, and I actually like that they’re a little bulkier to help visually balance things out a bit. Unfortunately the finish is really fugly– like a suggestion of chrome but much less classy– but it was nothing a can of matte black Rustoleum couldn’t handle.

Then I just put it all together and SHAZAM, desk!

Some glamor shots because I’m vain like that:

Eames Side Shell Chair, Vintage hole-puncher from McLean, Virginia's own Treasure Trove thrift store, and a vintage Swingline from my grandparents' house.

Vintage change bowl from today's trip to Good Will ($2.99) and a little retro green glass from the Regina, Saskatchewan Value Village. I love felt-tip pens.

Antique wood shelf I've had forever, originally purchased from a junky antique store in Michigan. Yes, I have stickers on my computer. Yes, I'm five years old.

Hey, you can wake up now. The post is finally over. Except the BUDGET BREAKDOWN. The juicy part. I’m too lazy to put together ALL the factors– every paint brush, piece of sandpaper, etc. I also don’t feel like that’s useful since most people have all that crap already. So here’s the materials breakdown. I already had all the paint, so don’t get your panties in a bunch.

1 4′x8′ sheet of MDF: $30

4 Ikea Snodd Knobs: $8

1 small can water-based poly: $9

2 Ikea Vika Inge legs: $24

1 Ikea four-pack of Capita legs: $12

TOTAL (sorta): $83

Of course, the whole project cost a little more than this for me since I had to buy things like wood glue ($2.72) and clamps ($19.08) and a decent paintbrush for the polyurethane– don’t skimp on this one ($13.97). And the tool rentals ($40). But if you’re cooler than me and have all that stuff on hand, more power to you and can I please move in. What? Nevermind.

Welcome to the Party!

Look what happened!

Yes, that’s a picture of my desk. ON DOOR SIXTEEN. The old nightstand it’s made out of said she’s never felt more like a beauty queen. And really, neither have I. But I didn’t need so much plastic surgery, so I win this feel-good contest.

So if you hopped on the old computer to drool over pictures of Anna’s beautiful home, saw one of our first little NYC apartment instead, and were still gracious enough to click the link, I like you. I hope you’ll stick around, there’s a lot of work to do.

Hot Diggity Blog!

Well, smell me.

When Anna Dorfman over at the exquisite Door Sixteen speaks, people listen up. And now it looks like our little dog n’ pony blog is making the internet rounds: here’s my DIY desk over at Apartment Therapy today! Jess Watson in San Francisco wrote up a nice little post about it . There was even controversy in the comments. Nothin’ makes me happier than stirrin’ the turd, as it were.

I have a TAG. Pretty sick.

And Ms. Watson nicknamed me and everything. We’re tight like that. I’ve been Dan and Daniel lots of times, but never Danny. But Jessie, if you want to keep writing about my goings-ons, you can call me whatever the hell you want.

So if you’re here because Apartment Therapy told you to, come on in! I love house guests and feel free to wash the dishes, I won’t stop you.