In a few short weeks, I will be off like a kite to NYC. I there is an IKEA store on Long Island, pretty where I will be for the week. However, this is in a place called Hicksville at the Long Island Mall, and when I mentioned it to Chris’ grandma, she did that thing she always does, only with different pronouns:
[insert high-pitched NYC accent, at a loud volume] “she’s not doing that!!! It’s a dump!!!” (in reference to Chris’ great aunt, who we will be visiting)
(she usually just keeps it short, and says: “I’m not doing that!!!”)
How sad is it that I am so IKEA fanatic that it is the number one thing I want to do when there??? Well, that isn’t the whole truth…but I REALLY REALLY there, in a priority sort of way.
In other (yet related) news, I have discovered that I have a talent for this sort of thing:
http://flickr.com/photos/libraryman/441406862/in/photostream/
http://ikeahacker.blogspot.com/2007_05_01_archive.html
yes, that’s right: prefab kit furniture hacking. I would IKEA there’s here, damn it.
So I decided: I can make money doing this. Making ultra-mod furniture out of found and free pieces, out of my own art, and out of furniture kits I reassemble into other things.
I estimate that my z-shaped end table cost me about 8 dollars to make, and if it were in better condition (it’s in pretty bad condition because I made it out of something that was already irreparably broken) I could easily sell it for 20 or 30 dollars.
Seeing as this is the case, I think I am going to start making hacked furniture pieces to sell, one piece at a time, until I figure out whether I am making money, or just wasting valuable time.
Hacks I have recently done:
*painted dada designs on my long glass table, which sold for 40 dollars to the first person who responded to the ad. Cost: $3.99 for the paints. Table was inherited.
*took that awful white desk and an awful white 3-shelf storage shelf, and set them on top of one another, moved it into the dressing room. Covered the entire thing with black lace. Got a free 4-ft wide gold rimmed Louis XIV mirror and put it above the desk, on the wall, and voila! it is a vanity. Cost: 30 dollar desk, 10 dollar storage unit, 5 dollars in fabric (fabric which I had acquired for no reason, which I just had laying around), free mirror, free shelf from baker’s rack with little drawers, so all in all: 45 bucks, but to me, it’s free because I had all that junk anyway, and I was going to free-list it on CL.
*painted a love-peace-unity emblem on a longbar glass fixture in the bathroom, accented by two sacred heart emblems and two interlocking ring emblems. cost: $4.00 for the dry-erase milk gel markers and a sharpie.
I make those kids on HGTV’s design remix and design on a dime (and whatever other “for free” decorating shows) look like serious amateurs. I have the interior decorating wah.
in other more depressing and forlorn news, school starts Aug. 27th.
School makes me want to jump off a cliff.
I got my prescription refilled, for those of you who were concerned, speaking of jumping off of cliffs.
So now, I have another little glass table to sell, and I am taking whatever I make on it, and investing in a furniture hack. My only concern is it will be too cool, and I won’t want to sell it because it is full of win and awesome.
If you wonder why I don’t sleep, this is why, and I have finally discovered it. well, maybe I just discovered the symptom. Because whenever my mind isn’t completely occupied and overwhelmed, and I am attempting to rest, my mind is thinking:
*you could be making money instead here.
*you could be looking for free things to get instead here.
*you should go groom the plants.
*you should go relace your leather lamp.
*if you were to take some scrap plexiglass, like 4 pieces, and cut slots in them with a dremmel, you could fit them together into an interlocking base. Then, you could put a tabletop on it, and it would sell for a bunch of money.
(then I can’t stop thinking, and my mind comes up with more design plans.)
*you could be playing dr. mario on the Vnes.
*you could be hacking your broken lamp, making it into a swag.
*you could be doing something, rather here.
“but,” my mind says, “whatever you do, DON’T HERE.”
the “you could”s used to go on for a while before I’d give in, get up, and start puttering about, looking for projects, working, repotting plants, watering plants, drawing on all the glass fixtures in the house, etc, etc.
I’ve come to the point in which I do not mind anymore. I don’t deliberate. I don’t take pills or try to drink myself to sleep or any of that. I just get up and do things, and stay awake for however long it takes to get tired. The “you could”s probably are a symptom, not a cause, but oh, how easy it is to look at a symptom and think you’ve discovered the root of the problem.
Alright, I suppose I should do something besides this now…
~A
When I have bouts of insomnia, sleeprite works great for me. You can get a free sample here.