Since moving into my one bedroom in January, I’d been using cardboard storage boxes, kitchen chairs and all manner of ad hoc surfaces in lieu of a coffee table. An elegant mid-century piece had been on my shopping list since signing the lease, but by May my furniture fund had been spent and I had run out of decorating steam.
While I’d built a snazzy tape cassette rack in 7th grade shop class and have hammered my fair share of flats (fake theatrical walls), I haven’t been near a circular saw since graduating from drama school in 2001. And though the mismatched shelves of my tape cassette rack did hold all my prepubescent music, I thought it would be fun constructing something more substantial and (hopefully) more functional. That, and I was getting tired of laying on my couch watching Hulu with my Mac perched upon my lap. I kept thinking, this searing heat cannot be good for my ovaries. Is my Mac frying my eggs?
A couple weeks ago I began researching carpentry plans for building a coffee table, and I’d come across surprisingly little. The closest I came was a beautiful Danish Modern table that actually turned out to be a miniature – for a doll house. While I am petite, I was hoping for something I could rest my feet on – not three jelly beans. I kept looking, but was inspired by nothing. I decided to take a break by figuring out where and how I would build my wonder of woodworking. Mike, one of my neighbors down the street, has a workshop and had offered to help me out when I first started this blog. However, I hadn’t seen him in over a month and don’t know him very well, and I felt weird asking him for such a big favor. Instead I looked up woodworking schools and classes in the area, and found nothing that would allow me to complete my project in a week at a reasonable price. I researched local professional craftsmen but then thought better of paying some sweaty stranger to babysit me while I constructed this coffee table in the confines of their private studio. I fervently Googled different options for renting carpentry equipment, figuring I could jerry-rig a temporary workshop in my living room. And then I thought of the noise. And the vibrations. And my neighbors. And that all of this vibrating noisiness would be happening weeknights from 7-10pm. Next!
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