A dark and damaged desk gets a second chance

Desks are nice, especially when they are free!

This one showed up a little damaged back in March, the left leg had detached but was sitting next to the rest of the desk when I found it.  Thank you mystery furniture disposer for keeping all the parts together!

Looking at the back of the desk, there should be a U-shaped leg at the top.

The clean lines and nice drawer feature made me think that the obvious repair would be worth the effort.  All I had to do was re-attach the L-shaped part of the leg to complete the total U-shape of the design. Easy, right?

 The leg was probably snapped off when attempting the move the desk. The top is rather heavy, especially with the drawer in place. The damage to the left leg connector is visible in the photo below.

 For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to superglue a piece of paper onto the exposed particle board, so it would stop shedding.  It worked, but wasn't required.

My plan was to add external pieces to join the piece that had snapped off back onto the rest of the desk, and the diagonal attachment points.  I purchased synthetic shims and 1-inch wood screws (maybe $6 total), thinking it would go quickly with my little drill.

Synthetic shims join the L-shaped piece back to the rest of the desk at two points.

 Turns out synthetic shims are harder to drill through than I thought. It was possible, but it took waaaaay longer than expected.  Maybe a stronger or faster drill would have helped. Superglue was used liberally throughout this project, it worked way faster than drilling those shims!

Luckily the repairs are on the side of the desk, not the front.  

In the photo below you can see the light brown shim attached at the top left side of the desk. Most people don't notice it until I point it out, and so far the desk seems stable.

 From the front, sleek and shiny!  

Ready and waiting to support all your deskly needs.

(ignore the craft supplies stacked on the sides)

 

Happy freestyling, and may the force of power tools be on your side.

A tall drink of freestyle (furniture)

(An old freestyle adventure from the sidewalks of Cambridge that was never posted, until now!)

While heading out to the store one night with a friend, I spotted a tall narrow shelf lying in a pool of streetlight on the far sidewalk.  Full stop! Immediate inspection required!  Groceries had to wait while we brought this shelf into the apartment and laid in on the floor in the living room.  Moving furniture at night always feels a leeeetle bit (scandalous, secretive, surreptitious, sketchy??), but also somehow more victorious.

I was initially excited at the prospect of using this shelf for shoes, going so far as to put it in the closet. I measured the space, but not my feet. Turns out, my shoes were too big to lay flat on the shelves, they fall out! Boo.  So the shelf had to come out of the closet. Then it had to wait around a while, twiddling its thumbs, while I considered how to use it.  A narrow shallow bookshelf? Display space for tchotchkes? I suspect in its former life this shelf displayed CDs, or movies.  

The tall shelf sat around our place, empty, for a while, until one night we were visiting friends and I spied the SAME SHELF but in a different finish.  Quelle coincidence!  It was also a freestyle find, perhaps no one in Cambridge needs to store CDs anymore.  They had arranged their shelf to charming effect with books, mementos, and a plant.

Looking good!

 I asked if they would be interested in a second, free, one to use as they saw fit.  (Thinking to myself, Please, take it off my hands, we don’t actually have the space) After some hemming and hawing, they agreed to accept the shelf when Friend offered to deliver it to their front door.  *Sigh of relief*  Adios to the tall shelf, may you serve a purpose for someone else.
Happy freestyling.

A subject fit for 5x7

After being away from the DPW for a week or two it is extra fun to go back and see what has turned over, and what new treasures await the patient peruser.  In early August, after being on just such a hiatus, I came across this flagrantly fake wooden frame:

At one point this was on special offer....

Not much going on back here.

Such a small frame inspired Creative Roommate to paint a picture of a small subject. The unappreciated, and probably widely unloved, fruit bat.

Oh....was this pepper for you?

Naturally a picture of a feeding animal made it on to the 'feeding wall' in the kitchen- in the picture below you will find Mr. Fruit Bat's new portrait in the lower left corner.

 Fruit-a-licious freestyle for all! Yum.