all it took was the proper motivation

A mere two months and twenty-six days after my first "I'm going to finish all my furniture and blog about it" post I can proudly tell you "I finished all my furniture!". I lost a little momentum after I dyed my fingers "hobo brown" and the whole thing didn't seem quite as romantic when the electric sander turned on me and took a chunk out of the table. The negative thoughts came pouring in after the second coat of polyurethane got a little tacky. And at my lowest point all I could think was "I will never be a master wood worker, why am I bothering?" I finished the table a week after posting and decided the rest of the furniture would function better as a fire hazard than additional seating. And then the call came. THE call. The one from my mother. "I'm coming to LA!" she says. and internally I went "oh shit, she's going to think I'm living in hole and I can't take care of myself and she's not going to love me anymore because mothers only love daughters with quality furniture and a decent sense of decoration!" She tends to bring out my rational side.

I hung up, unpackaged the bed and said "you're from IKEA, do you really need TWO coats of stain? Is that really necessary? Think about it." and the bed thought and thought and finally said "no". Then I said "SANDING BETWEEN COATS? Seriously?" And the bed said "You're right, your time is better spent wadding up tinfoil for the cat, or perhaps watching television." So with the bed's permission, I cut some corners and finished in about a day and a half. I was on a roll, time to tackle the chairs. I slapped on the coat of stain and returned fifteen minutes later to find the chair was still its original color. Same style, color, brand as the table, but it didn't want to turn brown. To this I said "Fuck It" and drove to the hardware store where I purchased the prettiest purple paint I could find. The chairs must have talked it over and decided they liked this color better because it took beautifully.


Then came the assembly. I highly recommend putting together IKEA furniture with TWO people, but if you're a hermit like me you can use a stack of books, four screwdrivers, a butter knife, packaging tape, a dime and a bottle or two of wine to achieve the same result.

So that's the story of my IKEA furniture. My mother arrived and said "Oh, how cute!" promptly followed by "You're going to need a rug..."

I refuse to purchase one at this time, but if I happen to find a "Do It Yourself Rug Kit" I'll be sure to post about it in a timely fashion.