Did It Me-Self Bookshelf
Taking advantage of a very brief lull in the icy, spirit-dampening rainstorms of late, I busted out the box of spray paint that had been laying dormant since my graffiti-filled youth, and tackled a project that had been on the queue since last fall. Jeff and I had taken a trip to the local mecca of hardware/fixtures re-use, The ReBuilding Center, in search of molds for our soap venture, only to come across a massive heap of sad, abandoned desk drawers in a musty, damp corner of the cavernous warehouse. Inspiration sparked, and I quickly purchased four bright-pink, Formica-laced matching drawers ($4!), and took them home where I promptly forgot about them (a mind focused solely on becoming a soap-mogul refuses to become distracted). Anyway, time passed, and there was this pause in our shitty Northwest drizzle, so I cracked out the paint, dusted off the shelves, screwed them together in an interlocking alternating fashion, then applied many many coats of, I believe, Colonial Blue Rusto, embellishing this monument to our damp grey-blue skies with swollen, leaking rain clouds. The finished product, stocked with literary goodness:
Which brings me to the point of this post (aside from shameless back-patting for how good the project turned out); I think that I've finally let Portland's D.I.Y. culture begin to permeate my mindset. More and more, I'm finding that when faced with some challenge around the house that would have normally sent me scrambling to IKEA (damn those Sweds) or Fred Meyer (not Nordstrom...sorry, Mac Dre reference) with wallet in hand, instead I often find myself looking at the problem from a more creative approach. Bored of my t-shirt? Make a stencil and paint a design on it. Ran out of soap? Make some. Running out of room for my OCD-like collection of books? Well, you get the picture (if not, see above). The benefits are numerous...aside from the obvious cost savings, you're keeping previously unwanted items out of landfills, supporting local businesses, and most importantly, participating in an act of creation rather than consumption...getting in touch again with my artistic side has certainly helped me slog through this winter (which felt unusually dreary), and has sparked my interest once more in photography and drawing, hobbies that I had unconsciously left at the side of the road sometime over the last few years.
In other words, go make something, you'll feel better about yourself for it.
[Thanks to Aurora for the photos, and her original post. Much love.]
