Tuesday, April 27, 2010

My very own craft space

What crafter doesn't dream of having a craft room devoted solely to creating? I'm years away from having that blissful paradise, but in the meanwhile, my industrious boyfriend built me a craft table/shelving unit so I could stop taking over the kitchen with my jewelry supplies.

His original plan was to build it with PVC piping because it's cheap and strong. But none of the hardware stores we scoured carried the right connectors for the project. So he decided to just built it out of wood, which was not as cheap but at least didn't require special parts. (He estimated the project would cost $50 using PVC, but because he used all wood it came out to well over $100. Budgeting is a tricky skill that requires a lot of leeway.)

It's six feet tall, four feet wide, and three feet deep. It's mammoth. It's on steel rollers and has five shelves. The middle one has two feet of space between it and the shelf above it, so it can act as a work space. All the wood doesn't fit perfectly together, but that's because the dude who cut the wood at the hardware store was sloppy and didn't cut everything in straight lines. At least it's close enough. (If I were a guy, I'd take the wood back and demand that they cut me some new wood in straight lines. Since I'm not a guy, I'm not going to go around loading and unloading wood.)

After building and sanding it, we set out to find wood stain/polyurethane to seal it and prevent splinters. He chose a very dark color, but hilariously enough there wasn't enough in the can to cover the whole unit. So he stained the most obvious parts, and a few areas unfinished unfinished. The end result is a little funny looking; an obvious amateur's first attempt. But it's functional. Or will be.

Now the last obstacle: we can't get it into the house. It's too big. He's going to have to disassemble it, bring it in in pieces, and reassemble it in our room. This project started weeks ago, and I don't know when I'll ever get to use my new craft table. It's sojourning in the garage until he gets around to breaking it down and rebuilding the monster inside. Then it'll all be worth it, right?

I don't know if he'd want me to post pictures of it, since it looks funny. But I might, since a visual will really help this story.

There really is no substitute for trying things for the first time!

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