Home Furnishing

When Nick and I moved to Chicago in 1989 (before some of you dear readers were born, I know), we rented an apartment in a 3-story brick building.  The landlord, Martin Pomp (I am not kidding), was a middle-aged, gay anesthesiologist whose property was an investment opportunity rather than a public service. A series of "janitors" were happy to bring their hammers to fix problems in the apartments, all the while complaining in broken English about their poor pay and disrespect for Pomp.

photo by nathanbluestone.com

Both Nick and I came to our marriage with a toolbox, so we began doing some of our own repairs. Besides, we preferred screwing our broken blinds back up, gluing down unstuck tiles, and replacing the toilet's flush mechanism to asking the poor janitor to come beat more nails into the aged window frames or pound the floor and toilet with his hammer. Someone must have told Pomp about our fix-it attitude, as he asked us to manage the building for a discount in our rent (a welcome exchange for graduate students seeking distractions from library study). The best part of the whole endeavor was the Clark-Devon True Value Hardware store, located just a couple of gang-ridden blocks away. At the hands of the hardware men, we learned more about plumbing (e.g., how to unclog a toilet into which an unattended child had poured kitty litter), the powers of Kilz (defeater of smoke, mildew, and cooking grease buildup), and the wonders of having the right tool for the job. We refinished hardwood floors, installed new sink cut-offs, and scraped/painted the three-story staircase that connected the building's back porches. Happily, every purchase was charged to Pomp's tab, and he thereby supported our DIY education.

Then I got a job at Dordt College in 1997.  We bought our first house and were thrilled with all its possibilities for renovation.  Our realtor had been pretty patient with our suspicious, big-city questions; at the closing, we asked, "What's under the really ugly, grey kitchen carpet?"  We hoped for original, 1915 hardwood floors akin to those we'd cherished in Chicago. Alas, he was tired of us and responded dryly, "Well, I think there's padding under there."

We quickly found the local hardware store, again staffed by men and women eager to help us fix up our salmon-pink kitchen. We removed the carpet, the paneling, and 9 layers of ceiling wallpaper; with Nick's folks we removed much of the ceiling, strengthened the joists, and built skylights out of windshield safety glass. As the years passed, we ripped out and restored, adding wiring, lights, drywall, and paint room by room. I remember this chaos with warm fondness, but I know there was a lot of sweating and sneezing and maybe even a few extra holes pounded into walls as we screwed up or disagreed about how to move forward or fussed about the kids getting in the way.  But over time, working and learning together through successes and failures became part of our lives.

Now we're living in a small, semi-furnished Korean university apartment in a building finished just before after we moved in.  It's a cement-and-steel building with fresh beige wallpaper on all the walls and ceilings; the ceramic tiles covering the bathrooms and the vinyl flooring are very easy to clean; the wiring, appliances and plumbing are all new. But we have found ourselves longing for a wall to knock down or a fence to build together or even a room to paint in a non-neutral color. I am grateful we're no longer responsible for the quirks of an old house or deciduous trees that whirl their leaves and branches about the yard or dandelions who scare the local lawn snobs. But I find myself restlessly haunting the local places where furniture goes to die so I can fix something.

And so, here are a few projects we've done so far.  These little accomplishments help my heart somehow, making this place feel more like home (and perhaps appeasing my inner control freak) and helping us connect through the work of our hands.

(1) Building a bunk bed for the boys out of broken bed scraps at the campus dumpster:

Sam drills holes for bolts that will hold the top bunk in place.

Nick bolts the bed to the cement wall.  We've learned a few
things over the years as parents of active boys.

(2) Making shelves from the doors of a discarded wardrobe (see picture above).  Most Korean furniture is made of pressboard: sawdust with a wood-grain plastic laminate; the wardrobe doors included some actual wood trim that would support a shelf:

Our coatroom/entry floor is also our workbench. At least the
tiles are easy to clean up.

However, the nearest outlet for our "workshop" is two rooms away,
in the bathroom.  (Why is the only outlet behind the toilet, you ask?
So your shower spray doesn't electrocute you. Obviously.  :)

Our bedroom shelf for family pictures means less drilling into the cement walls.
The steel brackets were actually brought from Iowa - left over from a shelf project in our first house.

(3) Making a tabletop of plywood found at the "dead bed" pile on campus:

Sam masterfully measures before wielding the circular saw.

Ah... my very own corner office (on our bedroom balcony).
Used frequently for sewing and editing.

(4) Re-finishing an old stool reclaimed from a ditch behind a baseball field in Hyeunghae:

 (5) Repairing our broken bed supports:

A paint can (yes, a dumpster find) had been sorely pressed into service
as a temporary bed support these last few months.  

Sam and Nick use scrap pieces from the shelf project
to build new bed supports.

(6) And my favorite project to date, which nicely brings us full circle on our handyman history: re-finishing the wardrobe we bought in 1990 from Chicago's Naked Furniture:

Before: mostly naked (and filthy!) with
green that matched our old living room.

After: A happy sea-glass blue.  Still looking for
new knobs at the Dead Furniture piles.

What's next?  I'm not sure.  I really need to slipcover two armless chairs we found (their vinyl has seen better days); or fix the drawers on the found dresser that stores crafts and seashell; or paint the naked bookshelf Nick built for his Iowa basement office, which now serves as a living room bookcase and room divider.  Or maybe I'll wait for more furniture to show up at the Dead Furniture drop sites and find some clever way to get Nick or Sam to work with me.