Why I Do Things Wrong: 3 examples

My dad and mom are remarkably competent, multi-talented people who believe in the following principles: 1. Do It Yourself; and 2. Do It Fast.

When I apply those principles to repair or upcycle my finds, however, I tend to focus on #2. That means I usually skip reading directions and so…I Do It Wrong.

It drives my husband insane. He’s got “engineer mind.” There’s a right way in the mind of an engineer: you read up, you plan, you prepare all surfaces, you measure twice, you cut once….

 

Huh? What? Yeah, I’m still here. I just stopped paying attention at the word “measure.”
Trust me, I understand the importance of organization. But something intensely arrogant lives within me that refuses to follow the path of the Planner. As a result, I all too often find myself in a DIY hell of my own making.

Example 1
I brought home my first battered 1930s vanity table when I was 19. I paid $15 for it at a Sacramento yard sale. Abandoned paper wasp nests clung to the underside. An 8 inch long strip of English walnut veneer had been torn away from the bottom drawer. (This was the early 1990s, before we had photography, so don't complain about missing pics, ok?)

Inspired by my new find, my father took me to a wood supply warehouse. I sniffed a new kind of heaven there. Sadly, such fine walnut veneers were no longer available in the regular market, so I bought something I thought was reasonable: a red-toned mahogany. In retrospect, it was, at best, a cheap interloper next to the dignified walnut burl.

Later that day, I felt wildly confident as I explained my plan to my mom: “I’ll strip off the bottom drawer veneer, replace it with this piece, and paint it to match the others!”

Rather than review the handbook on furniture repair that my highly-skilled woodworking neighbor had loaned me, I jumped right in. With a sharpened chisel.

Half an hour of chipping away at the veneer weakened my arm muscles. To give tired muscles a break, I turned the chisel around, towards me. Two chips later and I jabbed the corner of the chisel directly into my left wrist. I still have a one centimeter keloid scar where the chisel balanced itself in my flesh for one nauseating moment.

I love showing off scars, don't you?
 

After weeks of real work, I did turn out a passable repair and renovation on that vanity table.

These days, however, I’m plain stumped by the most basic DIY tool: spray paint.

It’s intensely colorful and quick. But it just refuses to do what I ask.

Example 2
Drips everywhere! “Sand them,” an artist friend says. When I did that with this potentially cool mid-century desk chair that I found in Armonk, the following coat looked like…this.

Now what do I do?

Example 3
This lamp, a Sleepy Hollow Village curb find, was once stuffed with colorless dried flowers and grasses.

Cleaned out, scrubbed up, and quickly sketched on with a gold-colored Sharpie—ripping off a Pinterest idea my craftiest mama friend sent me—the base looked good.

And it’s working fine, thanks to my husband’s handiwork.

(The last time I tried to repair lamp wire, I sliced through the webbing between two fingers and raced to the ER for stitches: another moment of self-induced DIY hell.)

But then, I just had to tempt fate with the lamp shade. I saw a gold foil shade in Better Homes and Gardens, and decided it would be clever to experiment with gold spray paint that I picked up for $.10 at a local yard sale. For once, I used a light hand with the spray. No drips.

Looked fine by the light of day, but at night--!

 

 

Again, I ask: Now what?

Should I...ugh, Trash It?

Copyright 2013 Tanya Monier