All posts in: DIY Tutorials

Tabletop Swap

Posted: May 28 · Comments: 45

I’d be willing to swear on your mother’s life that I’m at least passably sane and, in this moment, completely sober, but it seems a little impossible that it’s been TWO MONTHS since I posted about my dining table. Where did the time go? I’m blaming all the weird New York weather, which moved directly from winter into summer with nothing pleasant to speak of in the interim. We’ve been cheated.

To jog your memory, since you’re probably not as obsessed with me as I am, here’s what we were working with:

The demographic breakdown of my favorite local Upper East Side thrift store is as follows: 89% women, 97% of whom are over the age of 75. A staggering 100% of these lasses are Jewish. Naturally, it’s a crowd that I fit right into. My ladies and I can be found wandering around the store, evaluating the same pieces of furniture and bric-a-brac, glancing over at each other to knowingly shake our heads in disgust over the absurd prices. The allegiance between these broads and I has nothing to do with phony smiles or contrived pleasantries—it ain’t a country club, for Christ’s sake—but a presumed shared love of chopped liver and an unwavering commitment to the art of kvetching.

Shopping in these stores usually amounts to little more than a fool’s errand, so finally buying something becomes an event worth discussing while waiting in line. Because neither positivity nor gloating are valued in this subculture, I find it’s usually best to immediately diminish any impending purchase by bypassing the attractive aspects and really delving into what’s wrong with it. “Oh that’s a lovely piece of art,” Evelyn might tell you, with the full expectation that you’ll then discuss swapping out the damaged frame or changing the putrid color of the matte. Even her Pekingese sits in silent judgment. Of course, you oblige.

This is why I was thrown when one such thrifty lady—let’s call her Barbara, since, statistically, her name is probably Barbara—wouldn’t let me have my moment of shining negativity.

“What a nice table!” she exclaimed.
“Well, it will be after I clean up the filthy base, I think.”
“Oh please, the brass looks great—really, don’t worry about it. In such good shape”
“Yeah, I actually really love the base. I think I’ll change out the top though. It’s sort of a weird pairing.”
“Oh, I’d think twice about that,” Barbara warned. “They don’t make them like that anymore. With that…whatchamacallit edge. The kind that’s rounded.”
“Bullnose?”
“Something like that. Oh, is it ever a hip-saver. All these hard edges on stuff these days’ll really get you.”
“Well, maybe I’ll just refinish it then.”
“Oh, but the wood is so gorgeous! A solid wood tabletop like that is rare these days.”

I couldn’t win with this woman. Clearly, life hadn’t slapped her in the face with quite the same ferocity as it had her other elderly counterparts. Unfortunately, I wasn’t even just pandering to my audience that so reliably expected such critical commentary—I really did have my heart set on a nice round top for my shiny brassy tulip-y base. Marble, preferably.

I went to a marble shop. $300. Well, that’s not happening. I searched Craigslist for a few weeks for appropriately-sized and cheap marble slabs that could be relieved of their less-worthy existing bases. No luck. Windows upon windows of restaurant supply websites were opened on my computer screen, then closed. Finally I faced the music and my dreams of natural stone morphed into an ostensibly more attainable plastic laminate reality. If it could somehow resemble this, I’d be pleased:

George Nelson Pedestal Coffee Table. Ahhhhh

Only problem? My local custom cabinet store apparently couldn’t fabricate a simple table top. But they could recommend somebody who would! Had I heard of Gothic Cabinet Craft?

Now, if you live in New York and you’re anything like me, this store confuses the shit out of you. You don’t like their merchandise. You don’t understand how they’ve been able to stay in business, who is buying their wares, or how they’re also somehow able to open new fancy branches in the middle of a recession. Something smells fishy with this place, and I’m guessing it’s the stench of a city-wide chain of drug fronts or a heavy involvement in the sex-trade industry. Whatever it is, I’d like to get to the bottom of it.

Certainly, the tabletop pricing didn’t quell my suspicions about this joint. $250. For a 36″ round white p-lam tabletop. For fuck’s sake. This was harder than I realized it possibly could be.

After leaving Gothic Cocaine Craft, I was overtaken by an urge to maneuver my defeat into decisive, empowering action. Who needed fancy-cut marble or fancy-crafted laminate or Barbara’s stupid bullnose edging? Not me. Fuck the man! Know what I needed? A fucking jigsaw and a can of paint, that’s what. Straight to the hardware store I went, to rent and buy these things, respectively.

I looked up online how to cut a circle with a jigsaw, which involved drawing a circle (I’m not a meth addict, that part was just surprisingly difficult and I was in a hurry for no good reason unless you count impatience), then cutting a lot of straight lines at increasingly smaller angles. Something about jigsaws working better with straight lines than curves. This is not an approach I’d really recommend, since mine came out looking significantly less than stellar. So don’t ask me how to do this properly, I still don’t know.

And wouldn’t you know it. That tabletop was a particleboard piece of crap anyway. Up yours, Barbara.

I painted the newly round tabletop with some oil-based white paint, when added an iron-on melamine edging to really top off this DIY shitshow. The final results were less than spectacular. In fact, they were pretty damn janky. The tabletop was almost laughably tiny and the intended round shape was never fully realized by my idiotic cutting technique.  This, I decided, would be my stopgap measure until I came up with something better. I mean, at least it was white. And roundish. Better than vaguely wood-colored and vaguely rectangular, I still say.

Sometimes, I wonder if I’m actually the Make a Wish kid of scavenging, because no more than a week and a half later I was walking to the subway when I came upon a tabletop. It was white. It was round. It had a beveled edge. It was in the trash. I measured it with a dollar bill (fun fact! a dollar bill is exactly 6 inches long! put that in your pipe and smoke it.). It was the perfect size. I’m not a religious person, but it’s things like this that make me feel convinced of the existence of God. Or fairies. Maybe gnomes, but they seem slightly less plausible.

Here’s a crappy Instagram (see my feed here!) of it crammed into a cab because I was late and needed to hightail it home and then get right back to the subway. My life be busy, yo.

If you followed me on Twitter, you’d already be privy to exciting events like these.

Apparently it’s from CB2, and I’m guessing it came off of their Odyssey table. Fun facts!

Lil’ swaperoo:

And would ya look at that? Like it’s always been there. The finish is pretty scratched up and chipped along the edges and whatnot, but for free, I can handle that amount of “character.” I’ll probably end up repainting it at some point, but for now, I’m not going to jinx things with any more of my “handiwork” (see above).

Put a Sheepskin on It.

Posted: Apr 22 · Comments: 65

There’s a new desk chair in town and it looks like this:

Those of you with impeccable memories might recall the psychotic episode I experienced while I was in Portland back in January. The one in which I escaped my bondage, found myself a nasty thrift store, and purchased two grimy Eames shell chairs for about $25 a pop. This all seemed like a good idea at the time.

The restoration of that blue chair was enough to wipe that smug, disgusting smile off my face. Actually, the $100 it took to ship the things to New York had already taken the thrill away from my good deal, but the restoration—well, it nearly killed me. Those chairs could probably survive nuclear war, but my sanity is a much more fragile flower.

The fact is that these chairs had been sitting out in drizzly Portland weather for who knows how long and it showed. The blue chair’s naugahyde upholstery was torn, completely discolored (I tried cleaning it with several different products, but those stains were permanent), and separating from the frame in spots. If I were classy and had the money, I would have sent it off to get the proper reupholstery treatment (I’ve heard this place is great), but I’m cheap and a glutton for torture. Also, I live for the type of controversy I can only dream this post might spur.

So I tore that cover right off. Underneath was a layer of moldy foam—mostly removed in the photo above—and the entire fiberglass shell was covered in a layer of adhesive. Where water had been able to seep in under the upholstery around the bolts, that adhesive came up fairly easily, but it held on everywhere else with a determined iron grip.

I’m not really sure giving the chair a scalding, soapy bath did anything, but it made me feel a little better about handling it. After scraping off the remainder of the foam with the blunt edge of a razor blade, I was left with a lot of adhesive to detach. Like, a whole lot.

I’m sure there’s a clever chemist hiding in a laboratory in some corner of the world who’s discovered an adhesive remover powerful enough to make this easy, and I’d like to point out that he’s a bastard for keeping his secrets from me. The best thing I could find was Goo Gone, so essentially my process involved soaking sections with it, waiting about ten minutes, then going at it with a razor blade.

Yes, a fucking razor blade. I can happily report that all ten of my fingers survived the ordeal, but one of my imaginary friends was stabbed in a fit of frustration. Rest in peace, Urma.

Now, I’d really only recommend taking on this kind of thing if you can give yourself some time. Spread it out over a number of days. Months, even, as I did. Years if you have them. Better yet, don’t do it at all.

The problem with projects like this is two-fold: they take forever and they require little to no brain power. They give the mind too much liberty to roam, and in so doing lead to dangerous thinking. Imagine yourself planted on the floor, massaging your cramping hands and weighing the relative benefits of having a new desk chair against your increasingly good chances of early-onset arthritis. You reek of the spunky, citrus-esque aroma of Goo Gone. You are filthy scum—the small, tedious shavings of adhesive clinging to the bottom of your socks and buttocks. Unpresentable to the world and repulsive even to yourself, you might posit certain questions such as “what the hell is wrong with me?” or “when did I become such a monster?” or “might I need psychiatric help?” It’s a sticky spot to be in, in more ways than the obvious.

Three months into your project, after you’ve finished peeling your adhesive off the chair, look no further than Chairfag or The Brick House for all the restorative guidance you need to make your chair gleam like it just rolled out of the factory. This basically involves a good wet-sanding and a coat of Penetrol. I harvested shockmounts from the orange chair and attached them with some fast-drying epoxy made for bonding plastics and rubber and stuff. It’s super strong and frightening stuff.

The obvious downside of all of this is that you’re left with four unattractive holes in the seat of the chair since upholstered chairs are constructed differently than plain shells. Eventually I’d like to custom-make a little foam cushion for the seat (tulip chair-style), but in the meantime what’s a hipster to do? Put a sheepskin on it. Cute on the chair, cushy on your tushy.

Put my old ebay-purchased swivel base on that shell and BAM. Done. NEVER AGAIN.

P.S.- It’s the most wonderful time of the year over at Apartment Therapy these days because the Small/Cool Contest is happening and my apartment is in the running! As the name implies, there are a lot of small, cool spaces to check out, so I’d encourage you to head over and vote—even if it’s not for me! But really, you should probably vote for me. My “Patched & Painted” apartment just got posted today so we have some catching up to do.

Instant Entryway

Posted: Dec 26 · Comments: 37

Of all the things a home should be, it should probably be a reflection of the person who lives there. For instance, it’s in the best interest of little people to keep things low to the ground. A drug dealer’s door might sport a glimmering array of deadbolts and locks. Serial killers deserve an attractive place to display and maintain their weaponry. And so on. First off, these personal touches are good conversation starters. “My, what a dazzling collection of cleavers,” the observant guest might note, eliciting a bout of friendly chit-chat. “So sharp and so shiny!”

Beyond that, I like the idea that if a gypsy were to break into my house, they’d understand some things about me just by looking around. A detective could work up a fairly accurate profile of my personality. A famous person might think, “this person is dope,” and take a load off until I got home. But the thieving vagabond, the investigator, Martha Stewart—all these intruders might mistakenly assume that I’m humble and modest. Disfigured, perhaps, or just afraid or confused by reflective surfaces. This is because the only mirror in the whole apartment, until recently, was the front of the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. As a reflection of who I am—somebody who can occupy days in front of a mirror, subsisting solely off the nourishing power of my own beauty—my apartment was doing a pretty half-assed job.

Adding insult to injury was the sad vintage paper holder we discussed a few posts ago, awkwardly placed above the newly hacked kitchen shelf and next to the Hang-It-All. Refresh your memory, it’s been a minute:

To remedy the general lack of mirrors and this weirdness going on in my kitchen, I picked up this little vintage mirror at Meeker Avenue Flea Market for about 30 smackers, pleasingly rendered in the fleshy shade of a band-aid.

In a shockingly uncharacteristic move, I decided NOT to spray paint it, but instead used regular latex paint that I had leftover from the bathroom, Benjamin Moore’s Raccoon Fur. Partially because it’s an adorable name for a paint color, but mostly because hand-painting just seemed more in the homespun spirit of this filthy old mirror.

Take the paper holder down, put a mirror up… voila, an entryway.

It turns out it’s really nice to be able to check yourself out before your walk out the door, especially now that it’s cold as hell and all that layering gives you more opportunities to look a hot mess.

I also dragged this little $1.29 IKEA BORRIS doormat from outside the door into the kitchen. Particularly because it’s winter and the ground is all kinds of nasty, I’m trying to get back into the no-shoes-indoors habit and this seemed like a nice way to collect them.

Oh, and the coffee area got a little upgrade too, thanks to this substantial acrylic tray from my grandparents’ house. My grandmother loved nearly anything acrylic (the lucite nesting tables in my living room are also originally from her house), and her collection of 60s-mod acrylic servingware is supercool. Most of it’s too big to fit in my cabinets, but this tray finally found a perfect spot and function right here. By the way, anybody have a recommendation for a tiny, relatively inexpensive, and nice-lookng coffee maker? Because that little $10 Walgreens do-hickey has seen better days.

The kitchen. Getting sexier by the minute.

Minutia

Posted: Dec 13 · Comments: 21

Sometimes taking care of the little things can be such a drag. They’re just so, well, little. I tend to put tasks like this off indefinitely—that tiny nail hole in the wall that needs to be spackled, the chipped paint on the windowsill that could use a touch-up. They seem so inconsequential and undeserving of effort, so naturally they’re the most irritating. These tiny repairs aren’t just annoyances, they’re like living with a bunch of little demons. “Seriously dude, just spend the five minutes fixing me already and move on with your life,” they sneer as you walk by. They push and push until all of those little moments you’ve spent thinking “hm, I should really fix that already and move on with my life” compound into something quite wearing, which makes you question your very right to consider yourself a competent, able-bodied person who cares about their house.

At least that’s how it goes for me, I don’t know what your deal is.

One little thing that had been bugging me for months was the big threshold between the kitchen tiles and the living room hardwood.

It’s big and wide and ugly and spattered with paint. It wasn’t actually this bad since I had already started sanding when I thought to take a picture (see top right corner, obvs). But still. Next to that tile, it’s like a big shitstorm of ugly.

It took about 5 minutes to sand the thing down and another 5 to apply some leftover stain, the Minwax Jacobean 2750 that I used on my desk. The next day, it took another 5 minutes to put on a coat of tung oil. That’s 15 minutes, for those who can’t add.

And guess what? This little crap makes me stupidly happy. Is it perfect? Far from it. Is it as good as it’s likely to get? Probably. And while I wouldn’t consider any room (particularly the living room) in this apartment “done,” it’s nice to consider that little tasks like this are worthy of attention now that I’m more in the “pimp it out” phase than the “paint the walls” phase.

Now those tiny nail holes… I will destroy you. Someday. When I get around to it.

Kitchen Hackin’

Posted: Dec 10 · Comments: 33

You might remember (but you probably don’t) that back in the olden days of this past summer, I had two MOLGER benches from IKEA serving as temporary living room furniture—one as a coffee table and one as a TV stand—until I could find cheap, sexy, vintage, real furniture. I can’t give much praise to the way they handled these functions aesthetically, but they played their respective roles quite well. Purposefully, they were ugly enough that I wouldn’t allow myself to get used to them, but practical enough that they alleviated the pressure to furnish immediately with stuff I didn’t really love. Because when you’re relying on thrift stores for great, modestly-priced furniture in Manhattan, it’s best to prepare yourself for a wait.

Well, I showed you my coffee table already, so that takes care of one bench. Then I bought something to replace the other one, but you’ll have to wait to see it until I take some pictures. One bench, two bench (red bench, blue bench). I know, artful photography.

But I actually had an ulterior motive when I bought these in the first place. Since microwaves are kind of objectively ugly, I wanted it as out of sight as possible. They are also huge, and in a kitchen with less than 3.5 total feet of counter space, 1 foot of which needs to house a dish-drying rack 99% of the time, that thing just doesn’t fit anywhere. The only other wall in the kitchen doubles as the narrow path from the front door into the living room, so the storage solution to hold the microwave and other assorted things (and create another work surface on the top, besides), had to be way smaller than any of those nice IKEA kitchen carts. The MOLGER benches (find them in the bathroom section!) turned out to be the perfect width and depth for the space—and the microwave—but not nearly the right height. So this happened:

And now I’ll show you how.

Disassemble both benches. I started by deciding how tall it should be and settled on 31″—around console table height. I originally wanted it to be the height of the countertops (36.5″), but once I really looked at it, that just seemed really awkwardly tall and bulky and stupid. So I hacked 8 inches off the top of both frames from one of the benches. By the way, never buy a crappy plastic mitre box.

Then they need to be attached to each other in a secure and visually tidy way (read: no metal mending plates). Luckily, IKEA thoughtfully placed little rubber floor protectors at the bottom of the legs, which pop out easily. The holes are 5/16″ wide, which is a standard-sized drill bit. Since you’re pretty smart and you want the legs to match up as closely as possible, it’s easiest to use these lovingly mass-produced and therefore standardized-perfectly-to-center holes as drill guides, so you’re attaching the bottom of one set of legs to the bottom of the other set of legs (the top of which you just sawed off and discarded). In people, this would be something like the human centipede, or a really compelling sideshow act. Sorry, that was uncalled for and also why I don’t use the Twitter.

So, you need a 5/16″ drill bit, some 5/16″ x 1.5″ wood dowels, and some wood glue.

Drill down slightly into each hole on all four sets of bench frames to make it just a little bit deeper. Drop in a dollop of wood glue. Put in a dowel. Put one normal-sized frame on top of a midget frame. Press together vigorously. For me, this involved alternately balancing my entire weight on it and sitting on it until I was satisfied with its security, but you can decide how into it you want to get. Repeat. Let both pieces dry overnight. Sorry for the creepy-ish pictures, I only DIY in the dead of night as a general rule.

After both frames have dried, spackle over the seams and sand. Repeat, then repeat again. But not a fourth time because it’s near the floor and nobody cares anyway. While you’re at this, sand the entire frame so it’s ready to be painted. I also spackled over the original drill holes (except for the top ones), since the shelves needed to be 10.5″ apart in order to fit the microwave and the cute vintage breadbox, which is a wider spread than the original shelves.

I had an extra can of white spray paint so I used it to coat the legs. It takes a few coats. I don’t know why it looks so gloppy in the photo, I swear it’s smooth in real life. Regular latex would have worked just fine with a good primer, I just really love spray paint. Hearing it, feeling it, smelling that sweet aroma… what heaven.

After everything’s all painted up, it’s time to re-drill the screw holes in the sides to attach the shelves, keeping in mind the height of what you need to put on them and the thickness of the shelf. Also drill new holes in the bottoms of the legs for the little rubber floor protectors. Put it all back together and you’re done!

I’m including this side view, which shows the width of the path between the door and the living room. Nice and unobtrusive. I’m not sure I’m feeling the paper towel/parchment paper/tinfoil holder up there—I want so badly for it to fit—but I don’t think it’s working. Awkward placement. It might have to go (and by “go,” I mean back to my house-house, that place my parents live in).

Tada! Scarf props to my friend Eliza. I’m really loving having this storage and functionality in the kitchen. It got all the coffee stuff off the counter and nicely onto a little tray, comfortably holds the microwave and my cookbooks (don’t look too closely, lest you mistake me for somebody’s grandmother. But yes, my adorable sister did get me a first edition copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking on eBay for our birthday, she’s the greatest). The breadbox is too close to the floor to hold bread (I. fucking. hate. cockroaches.), so it holds all the tupperware instead.

Did I just write that paragraph? Jesus, I am an old lady.

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