First of all, we found some awesome consignment stores. Armadillo was closed, but I could see all kinds of mid-century awesomeness from the window. I'm very excited to go back. And when we went to Mosaic, FIRST they had a labrador that likes to follow you around the store. 10 points to Gryffindor. And as we were pulling up I could see the most gorgeous cabinet just sitting on the concrete being offloaded from a van.
me-I want that one.
Ty-But it's in pieces.
me-but I bet it is beautiful when it's not in pieces anymore.
Wrong. Reality prevailed. We walked away. But at this point, the dream of getting all our piles of clothes off the floor was so close we could practically taste it. So we drove over to Goodwill. We've found good things here before. In an episode a few months ago that I still feel bad about, I wanted to think about a cabinet Ty wanted to buy and when we went back for it the next day it was gone... But we learned that good things disappear quickly. So that was a good lesson.
This time we found a kind-of awesome probably TV cabinet. And it was only $35. Thirty-five. That's like practically free. But it was a gorgeous red-stained solid wood cabinet with some subtle Japanese influence in the details. The idea was we would get a rod and bolt it inside the main compartment to hold hangers, and put all my sweaters in the drawers. There was even a moment of excitement when I realized that I might could put hooks inside the doors to hold all my necklaces and belts.
This is very exciting people. No more necklaces hanging on the knobs of my dresser. And all the doors of the house. And laying horizontally on every empty surface. And living inside the individual compartments of a pill case (on second thought, those will probably stay there. It is so convenient to take on trips!) We were getting excited. When we realized why it was $35.
Clearly this was a "custom" cabinet. They had drilled sections out of the shelf to put vents. Actual louvered vents you would normally see in your carpet. And they had jerry-rigged fans to run behind the vents. And then they lined every seam in the cabinet with foam weather-stripping. Everything was secured by hot glue, duct tape, finishing nails, AND adhesive. Because one method just isn't enough.
I have no clue what they were insulating against. The vents and fans would imply some sort of server system that overheated easily. The insulation implies the opposite. And I have no clue what the giant hole through the top means. In retrospect it's not unlikely that this wardrobe was involved in something illegal.
But we just wanted to buy something and move forward. So we did.
ADVENTURE TIME!!
Because when we left our house at 5 that afternoon, neither one of us was actually prepared to purchase anything. Certainly nothing that would require manual labor and tie downs.
However both of those things were needed. Because after realizing that the cabinet was way too huge to fit inside my mariner, Ty and I took a trip to Fred Meyer to buy some winches and a rope.
Now, you have to understand. My father gave me unrealistic expectations about my ability to use a winch. I have seen my Dad tie down anythings so many times that I assumed it was one of those things we could do with out training or instruction. No You-tube videos required. Like some sort of instinct or urban-survival-of-the-fittest technique. This was Darwin. We would open the package and thread the straps through and winch that wardrobe up that a champ! And all the people dropping off and picking up at Goodwill would be awed by our prowess at tying things down. They could only hope to be as awesome and handy at tying things down as we were.
Turns out. Although I have figured out how my Dad ties knots in ropes... winches are only simple if you know how to thread the strap through the mechanism.
Ty and I do not know how to thread the strap.
So after it took three grown men to lift the upper portion of the cabinet to the top of my car, we started trying to tie it down. The rope worked great. The winches... were more decorative than anything else. I plan to have my father give us remedial winch training at his earliest convenience.
By the time we got it home, we realized that there was Ty... and me. And together we count strength at maybe 1 1/2 grown men. And that's only because Ty counts for 1 1/4.
Ty did demo, and I removed insulation adhesive like a bandit. Then we just bolted a good solid rod to the interior, and some hooks on the door.
Et, voila. Precisely what we needed. A tv/weirdo storage cabinet that had been designed to look like a wardrobe... that we re-purposed as a wardrobe. So back to its roots really.
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