Furniture Reporter

DACKE Steel Kitchen Island by Jon Karlsson.
Comes with a wooden flip top for preparation and a casual dinner among mates

I love the long utensil shelf with the steel handles.
think of all the “good morning towels” you can hang on them

Ikea DACKE Kitchen Island

There is this ad on Facebook for “Luxury Cat Furniture”. I think this is hilarious!

Do they honestly think cats care if they have their own furniture? Sounds like the ad is geared towards people who have too much money and not enough time on their hands.

And, I never did understand why some people treat their pets (be they cats, dogs, gerbils, ferrets, etc) like or better than human children. I have children, and I’ve had cats… children need to be taken care of. So do cats, but sometimes they look at you like, “hey, I really don’t give a shit what you do, just as long as I have food, water, and a clean place to poop.”

Oh, and old furniture of yours to destroy.

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Yesterday, I was at Walmart, and I saw two things I really, really want… but don’t really, really need: a digital camera for under $100 and a mini laptop (notebook?) for $350.

As nice as it would be to have both of those things (my birthday is in a month, BTW), I just don’t need them now. I have a camera in my phone, and I’m writing this post on my laptop… the one I bought in 2007 shortly after I started at Rose State and WinVista came out. Forget for a moment that the mini notebook laptop runs XP… I’m happy with what I have for now.

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I’m not holding my breath for a phone call from a certain someone this weekend. If I have to continue the balancing act between them and Chaz, I will.

Not that Chaz is all that interested in anything lately. I think he’s convinced himself that he’s too old for me, and maybe he’s right. I still enjoy his company when he wants to be around. Suffice it to say that I don’t think we’re a) dating and/or b) a couple anymore. Just friends. Somehow, I think we got this backwards last March when we met.

He certainly wasn’t expecting me, that’s for sure.

That’s all from where I sit.

–MorelaterZ–

There are tons of rocking chairs.  Tons.  Most of them are hideous.  I mean, have you seen the Glider?  I know, I know, it works like a charm and some moms swear by them but I just couldn’t look at that thing day in and day out.

I was a bit overwhelmed on my search and didn’t quite know what to look for.  I mean, how do you know what you’ll need at 4 in the morning after being up all night walking and walking and walking the baby until finally you think, “I’ve got to keep moving AND sit down or I’m gonna loose it!”  Of course, in that situation, anything will do, but I found that having a rocking chair I liked to look at for all the other, more sane times of day was important to me.

First of all, here is what you absolutely need, no matter what the design:

1.  Arm rests.  Sure, babies are tiny and weigh next to nothing.  But, hold anything for hours on end and your muscles will start talking to you.  Do that after a string of sleepless nights and even a paperclip may seem like too much to carry.  And, don’t even get me started on the fatigue associated with breastfeeding!  So, when you sit down in your rocking chair you’ll need some place to rest your weary arms while your baby sleeps peacefully in them.  Don’t underestimate the necessity of comfortable, padded armrests at the appropriate height.  This one is a favorite of mine, though I just sat in one and it’s not as comfy as I wanted it to be…you can see it at Zac and Zoe HERE

2.  Silence.  Make sure that whatever makes the rocking chair rock is quiet.  Again, think of the hours you’ll spend swaying back and forth.  Look for parts that will either wear or grind or squeak.

3.  Neck support.  Now, I’m not talking about anything fancy here – just, when you test out your rocker, slink down in it so you can get really comfy, lean back and see if you can rest your head.  When you are beyond tired and you still have to keep moving so the baby will stay asleep, you’ll want a place for your head.  Remember, the human head weighs 8 pounds!

4.  Foot support.  Some people like to have their feet up while they rock, others don’t.   It’s not the most important factors in choosing a good rocking chair, but with all that time spent sitting there rocking it’s nice to take care of your feet and legs, too.

Now, on to the good stuff: design.  Clearly I like simple, clean lines and there are a few good options.  Here is a round up of modern rockers that, while beautiful, may leave you kicking yourself?

Why?  Arm rests from hell…the yellow bubble chair is HERE and the Barcelona rip off is HERE

Butt padding – what butt padding? (to see these online, go HERE and HERE

These are a few that I found fit the bill (all from Zac and Zoe)

And my favorite – I went for the casual, “I could be a regular chair” look,  clean lined and not too expensive.  It’s from Room and Board and you can see it HERE.

It comes with an ottoman which, if you have room, I’d recommend.  We didn’t get it because it won’t fit and I’ve often thought wistfully of putting my feet up while rocking.

Now, this isn’t an exhastive “How To” buy a rocking chair, just some things I’ve come across in my own research.  And here’s a shout out to Heather who supplied most (if not all) of the links!  Good luck choosing your chair!

Image by MontanaRaven via Flickr

In another life, I had hobbies of all sorts.  I used to draw.  Pencil art, mostly, and I was particular to the comic book-style artwork.  Line art, essentially, with some shading and such, but most of it’s open art.  I got into trying to draw with Photoshop too, but I’ve neither the time nor the equipment to make that happen in a meaningful way, so I’ve dropped that.

Before that, a lifetime before that other life, I built furniture.  Yep, I took planks of wood of various kinds, cut them into pieces sized appropriately to the particular thing I was constructing, and through varied methods of joining them together, I built furniture.  Carcass work for the most part, but I could do other things.  (In the strictest sense of the industry, I was probably a cabinetmaker, not a furniture builder; I did not address matters like chairs or upholstered pieces.)  I built a couple of tables, and a few cabinets for various rooms.  I custom-built a buffet that hung on a wall in our house, where, as far as I know, it remains to this day.  That was a wish from my beloved, and a labor of love.

My favorite part of the process was finishing.  There is a long-standing saying among woodworkers that a bad finish can ruin a great piece, and a great finish can save a mediocre piece.  I took that to heart after being unhappy with a few finishes I’d applied to early pieces, and decided wasting wood wasn’t an option anymore.  So I got hold of some books and a couple of videos and studied them, and learned everything I could about furniture finishes.

My favorite furniture finish was wipe-on polyurethane or other high-resin finishes, like varnishes.  I loved them because you could do so much with them when they cured.  I could knock the sheen of the surface to either a semi-gloss or even a flat (although it’s easier to just buy flattened varnishes, which have silica added to them), or polish them to a high-gloss, mirror finish, which gleamed in the light like a still, clear mountain pond and shimmered in the light of a room or from the sunlight falling through a window.

I also loved the marrying of left- and right-brained activity involved with making furniture.  The aesthetic aspect calls upon the creative, voiceless, image-oriented right-brain, while the precision of calculation, measurement and joinery required to make two or more pieces of wood stay together in a strong and lasting way requires the logical, language- and process-oriented left-brain.  For me, it was a great match.

Oh, and I love the smell of sawdust and metal and oils in a woodshop.  The cast iron tables of the stationary tools, blades, the whine of the motors … there’s something primal, guttural in that.  And the solitude, concentration and focus of using fine-tuned hand tools – planes, saws, chisels, spokeshaves, riving knives, scrapers – there’s a poetic calm, a meditative sort of trance-like state achieved in those moments, which stretch to hours without your notice.

I loved woodworking, and miss it dearly.  As years of my life slip away, lost to the rushing white-water rapids and crashing boulders of time’s river, irretrievable and irreplaceable, I wonder if I’ll ever do it again.

What about you?  What hobbies do you have, or have you had before?

-JDT-

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