Tuesday, July 02, 2013

How to Half Ass Something.

I have the gift of craft. I do, but in my world that means a lot of starting but not finishing. Right now I am going to tell you how to get something done when you don't really want to finish it.

First you gotta get all gung-ho about it. My mom did this really cute metal table and chair make-over that inspired me to do a similar project and I was on the prowl. First time out I find these these three chairs out on a curb. FREE. They were even sanded so I totes stoked, less work for me. I didn't do before pictures so suck it. I painted the first day I had them. Plum, Green and Orange. I was all about the project, Man! Then I took two weeks off.

After my break, I set my mind on devoting all of my thrifting to finding a piece of crap table and chair. Pickings were slim out here in Yuppyville, PNW. There were a lot of tables for 50 bucks and chairs for 10. I gave them all dirty looks and flipped them off as I left their charity shops. After searching for a few weeks and turning up nothing, I decided I'd go check out the local "you might get lucky and find a gem... but probably not" spot called H20. Have you seen these? Filled with Junk, but I digress. After waiting 20 minutes for someone, anyone to give me a price on this table I found in a back corner holding up 5 mattresses. A very confident and sure of himself dude that I was lucky enough to flag down said "How about 25?" I smirk and reply  " No, I'll pay 20. That's it." He didn't like that, so he then informs me that he wouldn't even start the forklift for that price ( They use a forklift to get things down from the second floor and take it to people's cars.) and I immediately see him telling this story to the mangy crew out back. "So I says to her, I wouldn't even start the forklift...."

 I'm like really dude? We aren't talking about some handcrafted piece of fine furniture here. It's a wood table from the 70's, maybe even 80's which we all know was the worse twenty years of home design and décor, so REALLY DUDE?  I tell him fine, my children and I will carry it down to our car. There is a tense stand off and Mr. Had a Bad Day, Again decides he'll tell someone else to get the forklift. I roll my eyes, he walks away and the skinny guy he likes to order around writes me a ticket for 20 bucks and tells me he'll leave it in front of my car. I have my table.
In the middle of all this, I have a wonderful week-end with friends and I find a chair that is perf. I haggled the lady working the register down from 5 dollars to 3.
After taking numerous pictures and sending them to Amber. Telling the full plan and going over colors. I start to sand this table. Lord help us all I started to sand the table. I sand for one day and it starts to rain. If only the God could have seen my face for the next two days as the rain fell. It was unamused. As soon as I got the next oppurotunity I was gonna sand the crap out of that table and finish this mother of a project. Two days after the rain ended, I started again.

By this point, I am no longer Gung-Ho. I am annoyed and just want to finish so nothing else will be sanded from here on out. Like I said, How to Half Ass a Project. Don't judge me, you knew what this shit was about when you started reading it. Or did you half ass reading the title? But I digress....

I am tired of writing so I will just say I finished it up pretty quickly since I didn't have to sand anything else and while I don't like the vibrant blue color I chose for the last chair, the whole thing came out beautifully... ya know, for being half-assed and all. Also I am going to add two more chairs to complete the look. Feel free and check back for that riveting update.

In no particular order, here are pictures:




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