Furniture?

Ethan - ready for TOFUrky!

Well, it is the eve of Thanksgiving and I got out of work early! I am waiting to pick up Callahan and go shred the ramp. For the first time I think I am getting some "me" time - chillin' drinking coffee and updating my blog!! This is as relaxing as it gets for me. Ha! My school is undergoing a gestapo like Internet sanction limiting our usage to school email and online classes.

So for fear of being found out as a degenerate skateboarder, I have opted to update my blog off campus. Not that it matters, I am not slamming faculty member (although I would like to) or breaking the law or whatever.



Anyway - Furniture - I had a ghost post a few weeks back with no photos and such regarding my insane surge of furniture building. I must say that I nearly killed myself this semester dealing with school stuff, building the ramp, dealing with departmental BS and moving. Plus - the election. UGH!

I even got my cat back!

So as the ramp neared completion, I decided to move. Smart right? I moved an hour away from the ramp - dumb? Well the way I see it, my sanity depended on moving back to Chicago, continuing with my art career and not slowly dying creatively. I want to make art and exhibit again and getting in that urban environment (and having a studio) will help. So, I moved back to Pilsen although not in PODland. They charge way too much for their spaces. They are really cool spaces but it is getting very yuppie around there and will soon become the trend-zone if it is not already. I do wish I still had the gallery though - I really loved doing that.

I actually had big plans for this year with better connections and all. But I figured that I would go bankrupt sometime this year and did what i did to get the credit card demons off my back.

Anyway - back to the now - I build a bunch of furniture and stuff for the place:




I have been wanting to build a couch for years now. But my last two places really were not up to having a couch. But since my new place is a real apt - couch works!



I had the design in my head so the process was really not that difficult. I actually made a few tables in this same way a few years back so I knew what to do! It is a 2 x 6" frame with sanded poplar 1 x 3"s and 2's wrapped around the frame. this gives it that floating effect that International style sky scrapers had - you can not see the feet of the couch.

I like to think of these couches and tables as architecture anyway.





Dacia gave me some cushions last year from an old couch that she had. So I cleaned and dyed the covers gray. So the whole thing cost about $80. Maybe an Ikea couch is almost as cheap but I had a lot of fun building the thing.






I got a cool table from Calabro at his aunt's estate sale. I decided to refinish it. It was a very rapid refin but it works. Thanks Calab!






My place is super small - it has two bedrooms but they are really the size of a closet. So, for my area to sleep - I had to go back to the old twin bed. I made this frame out of the old erector set metal shelving stuff ? I found a bunch of it on the back 5 where my dad dumped it 20 years ago. It is rusty and nasty - I should just sell it to the yuppies up north for big-K



I also needed a kitchen table. So I decided to use the inner waste from the transitions I cut for the ramp. Scotty Karate always said that he wished he could figure out what the heck to do with them. Well you could build a table top or a skim board. Or, you could build a table top in the shape of a skim board!! thats what I did.



I took three pieces of 3/4" plywood and glued them together. I think that I should have glued them first, then cut out the shapes. Sanding them was a pain in the ass. I still didn't get the ply's perfectly flush but it is good enough. I also made an additional one for some skimin' next year!