Friday, October 9, 2009

weekend warrior

I remember the first time Dan mentioned that he wanted to build something. With wood, and power tools. Himself. I laughed.....on the inside of course, and I quickly dismissed the idea. Every time he brought it up I imagined him cutting off a limb and setting fire to our townhouse. The need came first, (doesn't it always?) we needed a TV stand that could fit into a pseudo corner......not many of those on the market, and we had zero money. Dan sat down with a pad of paper and a pencil and drew out the plans for our soon to be TV stand. He went to Home Depot, bought wood, and some new tools and completed his first ever piece of hand built furniture. It was a pretty nice looking TV stand.....too bad when we put the TV on it, the whole thing fell forward causing Dan to have to catch the TV before it hit the ground. Slight design flaw. But that TV stand was the first step, and often times do-it-yourself projects are trial by error....that's how you learn to do it better next time! :) Since that first project Dan has tackled countless home improvement and wood working tasks.....pretty much anything I come up with (and I come up with a LOT of crazy ideas) he attempts, and I'd say that 98% of the time he knocks it out of the park. I think that his engineering brain makes him a natural at it, but even when things don't come naturally to Dan he works until he is successful....it's one (of a million) things that I love about him! I used to laugh at his ideas to make things himself, but now I know with total confidence that he can tackle anything he tries......and I'm going to continue to do my part and come up with more projects to put on his honey do list!

Dan's most recent project; refinishing a 1960's desk that we bought off craigslist. I'm not gonna talk about what a deal I got, because it wasn't a deal, but I fell in love with this desk and knew it had a ton of potential!

I wish I had a better before picture, but I always seem to forget to take pictures before we start working on things. Dan sanded down the old cream colored, chipped paint and sprayed new whitest white paint (with a new paint sprayer he bought) and he made a new desk top. It used to be this weird vinyl on top of metal that was supposed to look like leather desk top, but he made a brand spaking new top out of hard wood. He pieced the top all together, cut and attached the trim and stained it. Because he made a completely new top, we were able to customize the size and made the desk top work surface close to 20 inches wider. All of the drawer pulls and leg caps are original and we left them completely alone. I could not be happier with our "new" desk. I love that it's almost 50 years old and has a history, and I love that Dan could make a beautiful new desk top that complimented it so well. I am a smitten kitten.....with my desk and my husband! :) It's a shame that we're going to cover that lovely desk top with office/computer stuff. Wouldn't it be nice if it could stay empty and beautiful? HA!



1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Man, that is seriously a hot desk. Anyone with that level of restorative talent deserves a low-fat/low-carb ice cream bar (with peanuts fo sho

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