My albatross in pine
Four years ago, my parents brought us up a desk set from Texas. This desk has never really worked out for us. Too big, not big enough, et cetera. After trying to use it for school and then unsuccessfully trying to sell it as a set (desk, hutch, bookshelf and filing cabinet), I had the genius idea to use it as a craft/sewing desk. This is what it looked like when I first set it up:
There are no photos of what it looked like after that, because that would be embarrassing. It was a giant collector of dust and junk.
The idea had been to do something like this:
ReadyMade always has such good ideas, but I'm not so good with the follow through on them. Somehow, I completely forgot how pegboard worked. I used this crazy spray glue and glued it directly to the back of the hutch portion of the desk. Looked good, except...all the holes were blocked! Drilling didn't really work out. It was difficult to get through the back of the desk (the wood just splintered) and I didn't have the patience to drill through every hole. So the genius organizing idea never happened.
I should have known. The desk was trouble from day one.
As I mentioned, the desk came from Texas. I am not from Texas. My parents were driving through on their way to Canada from California and had stopped to visit friends in Dallas. This friend had purchased the desk when she lived in North Carolina and was going to get rid of it. My mom said, "No! Don't! It's a great desk!" And they rented a U-Haul and brought it to Canada for us, seeing as we didn't have much furniture at the time.
Things were shifted about the truck and U-Haul to accomodate the desk set. When my parents arrived in Canada and opened the back of the U-Haul, they discovered that because things were no longer packed as well as when they left California and had spilled out from containers and boxes.
The boxes of fresh dates had broken open and spilled everywhere. The worst was that somehow, the jostling of one container led to a bottle of clear nail polish breaking off at the neck of the bottle (WTF?), spilling all over the container. Which wouldn't be so bad except that a jewelery case with my mom's pearls also popped open. By the time this was discovered, the pearls were dried into a shellacked mess. We salvaged some, but the necklace was ruined and my mom was heartbroken (they had been a gift from a good friend).
This should have been a sign. An omen. A warning that this desk was trouble. Alas! We took it in and tried to use it. It has been moved around our apartment so many times that I've lost count. And now it is back in the living room, waiting for someone to come by and give me $25 for it. I'm keeping the bookshelf and hoping that he'll take the filing cabinet (with the drawers that would never stay shut because my floors are hopelessly slanted). I swear, if this guy doesn't show up this evening, I'm going to use the damn thing for firewood (it's really quite heavy and made of solid wood, not pressboard). Well, I would if I had a fireplace.
Posted byHello Pineapples! on Thursday, December 18, 2008
filed under: not a craft
3 comments:
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hilarious but so true! I have lost count of the no. of "bad desks" that I have got rid of. Working on one right now! Need a bigger one.
Your sewing machine photo makes me so envious. When can I come in to learn from you?
Parents always like to 'help' don't they :-) If he doesn't turn up I vote for the firewood route! Really funny tale ... poor unloved desk!
Parents do mean well...but then you end up with a behemoth of a desk for four years. Lucky day for the desk: it was picked up and not made into firewood. Although, at $20, I practically paid him to take the darn thing.