building furniture
Not quite survival-related. Except maybe kinda-sorta, in an urban kind of way. Though...when someone asked "when does it stop being primitive", one answer defined 'primitive' as improvising with whatever is at hand. So there's my excuse for posting this here. And just because...it's fun (the below).
You see...I like making stuff. All kinds of stuff. Artistic and creative, but always integrating this drive into how I live in an improvisational way instead of only pursuing a specific medium like sculpture or painting for it's own sake. Well...I presently just finished another piece of a larger project, so it's on my mind right now and I wanna stick it in here. I've said before that taking pictures never fits into my schedule and is below me, but this may be a time when I'd need to in order to supplement the story...and to just plain show off my stuff.
Sorry, but it requires a back-story...
...was living in a small place without my own furniture, ancient old faithful truck breaks down and refuses to get fixed one last time, decide that I can't swing buying another vehicle and especially not out of desperation (just don't like/trust anything on the road these days anyway) but I can swing changing residence which I needed to do anyway, so I move to where I can use city bus to do this and that and I walk just a few blocks to and from work. So now I have a nice place but no furniture and no way to transport anything anyway that I'm willing to buy...
...my solution: At my job, which is now a few blocks of a walk away, we constantly throw away 2x4's and pallets. So hey, if I just build my own furniture I relatively won't spend anything, and I won't need to worry about transporting it if I build it on site - at home, after carrying hand-selected material home every day.
1 - No, what the pallets may have been treated with is not a concern or health issue. To keep post from becoming even longer, will withhold explanation.
2 - Still purchased a recliner and 2 other living-room chairs over time. But these items alone, since everything else is now not a concern, were no hassle at all.
3 - Um, what was number three?
Anyway...so I then had to decide on a methodology dictated by what I'm using and how to make it all cool-looking and practical. Studied how parts of a pallet could or could not be disassembled without getting torn up (planks from runners). Thought about the best way to construct the parts together, according to the source material and not wanting to invest much money like I was an actual experienced furniture craftsman with a full-fledged work-shop, and without it being very time and labor intensive yet still turning out really good. And how to make it all aesthetic. (Example - screws? nails? brackets? bolts? how things fit together? how to make very sturdy? etc)
Decided on two kinds/sizes of wood-screw for two different purposes. Turned a room into a little wood-shop. Covered the carpeting with large pieces of cardboard from work. Got a dustbuster and upright vacuum, which I'd need anyway. Inexpensive drill. Handsaw. Square. Sandpaper. A couple of bits for occasional pre-drilling. Some cheap brushes for the oil.
Went for a certain hand-made rustic look, so minor boo-boos would be invisible or charming, and because that's what it'd all be anyway. Didn't want to paint anything, didn't want to stain, didn't want to add a surface layer like lacquer, didn't want a shiny look but instead an original wood look, but still wanted to protect things from a spilled-drink stain. Research brought me to pure Tung Oil (it turns out that this stuff is amazing and beautiful). And...a hobby wood-burner.
Cut select pieces from pallets at work. Choose select 2x4's. Use skill-saw at work to sometimes rip 2x4's once to make square poles, or twice on edge to make 3 equally-thick length-wise slices. (I now can't look at a pallet without seeing the hidden gems, or a 2x4 without imagining it's appearance after processing. I've gathered a room-full of surprising wood-grains, textures, and color appearances.) At home...cut pieces, screw together, sandpaper outdoors, plug in the wood-burner and burn various abstract motifs, scroll-work, and vine-like designs on appropriate surfaces, then brush on Tung Oil. And man-oh-man, after the sanding and wood-burning, once that Tung Oil gets on it, it comes to life. That stuff is magic.
When I first mentioned this idea to my co-workers and boss, they didn't believe me and thought "oh, how cute. He thinks he's gonna build furniture out of our pallets". I've always encountered such attitudes, and just ignore it. Just like with me not ever using toilet paper. Hehe.
But I've since shown a couple of folks my results, who knew what it was all from, and have gotten serious requests to build something for a few hundred bucks. In my house, I now have 2 shelving units, what you would call a "coffee table" (but I don't), a flat-screen t.v. mount on rollers (instead of putting on wall and so I can arrange everything other than according to where a t.v. is) which also holds DVD player and speakers and even stores DVD's all in a compact little thingamajig, another...well..."table" table (creatively-shaped), various end-table nightstand thingys, and even a stand I threw together with plant-lights to keep some porch plants alive indoors during this coming winter (sun through a window is an issue here).
Now...to complete the real picture, you'd have to know other things about the total household theme I've evolved and how I've come up with décor and certain appliances towards this end (within days of moving, found a floor lamp in the dumpster at the new place which turned out to work and fit perfectly with the style that everything evolved into). Nonetheless, this is a good story about improvisation and possibly urban primitive...something-or-other. And this piece that I just finished today...ooh. That wood grain and color looks so good, I just wanna LICK it. The piece before that...the wood-burning that I did on it...I think that I'm now a pro.
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