Table 2.0
Tuesday, August 8th, 2006Many of you remember last summer’s experiment with home improvement. I certainly do. Sometimes I dream that I’ve been sitting for a long period of time at that slightly-too-tall table and I wake up in a cold sweat, arms asleep from the shoulders down. That Mags gritted her teeth and worked at that table all summer is a testament to her can-do attitude and OSHA’s inability to arrest me.
Anyway, after agonizing over how such a well-planned intentioned project could have turned out so lackluster, I realized the fatal flaw. The solution was so obvious!
We needed shelves this summer for all those books that we read two chapters of in college and just keep around now to impress friends. Armed with my own righteous sense of direction, we headed again to Home Depot, purchased the requisite lumber—no pressboard this time, thanks to a 3rd place finish at CHI—and found hardware more suitable for joining wood than last year’s shelf brackets. We returned home and consulted the drawings one last time.
After an in-depth examintion of user needs—taking special care to understand the environmental factors and cultural contexts into which the shelf would be born and from which it could not possibly hope to disentangle—it was time to put my new plan into action. I grabbed the drill, a bracket, and a few screws. I handed these things to Mags.
"You probably should start on that end."
"Mm-hmm."
And with that, our new bookshelf practically built itself.
August 8th, 2006 at 8:23 pm
Are those door hinges that I see joining the wood? If so, Bob Villa and Norm Abraham will be crying after they see these pictures.
August 8th, 2006 at 8:25 pm
are you planning on laying any colorful tiles in a haphazard manner on the bookshelf’s top?
August 9th, 2006 at 2:02 am
I’m glad to see that a lot of beer drinking was involved in the process.
August 9th, 2006 at 8:25 am
Mags looks totally smokin’ in that picture - as does your new book shelf.
August 9th, 2006 at 9:16 am
“We returned home and consulted the drawings one last time.”
I wish to see the blueprints. Is maggie and/or the beer included in said documents?
August 9th, 2006 at 6:24 pm
show me all the blueprints. show me all the blueprints. show me all the blueprints. show me all the blueprints. show me all the blueprints. show me all the blueprints. show me all the blueprints. show me all the blueprints. show me all the blueprints. show me all the blueprints. show me all the blueprints. show me all the blueprints.
August 9th, 2006 at 6:48 pm
I’m not sure where the blueprints ended up, to be honest. But you know the Not Me ghost from Family Circus? There was a Not Me ghost on one end of the page that looked like me and a finished bookshelf on the other side. A giant question mark divided the two.
Oh, and we used graph paper. That’s important.
August 22nd, 2006 at 2:42 am
hello matt! hello maggie!
maggie looks great. tank tops are all the rage down under you know. why don’t you come visit? send me your email addresses. love,caitlin
August 22nd, 2006 at 8:19 am
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
August 23rd, 2006 at 2:27 pm
oh, god! caitlin!
August 25th, 2006 at 4:46 pm
Bob stopped by today. I’m quoting him with a surfer-dude intonation: “New Yorkers are, like, totally lame, man.”
August 30th, 2006 at 5:03 pm
So, I was busy surfing the web after a long day of work, hoping matt raw had updated his blog o’ fun, when I am affronted by TB’s pointlessly mean comment. What’s up with that? Now my commute home, with my fellow New Yorkers, will be filled with sadness. Pointless sadness. Thanks TB.
And Matt - from one lame New Yorker to another - please update your blog. It’s been almost a freakin’ month.