Vanity Fairest

My life is going in a new direction. So, it’s only natural that things be under construction. Before you can straighten up, things have to get messy, right? A phoenix rising from the ashes, and all that malarky.

So, after getting my letter last week, I (at least somewhat subconsciously) started making a big mess.

First order of business? A new blog design. I decided that if (they say) I can’t write, the least I can do is have a prettier blog, with all the bells and whistles. That’s right: rather than working on my writing, my instinct is to gussy it up a bit. Kind of like shopping for new clothes rather than trying to lose a little weight so the old ones look good on you again.

I recognize that I have issues — I do. But its all part of my process. At least, that’s what I’m telling myself.

So I have thrown myself into hosting my blog on a new server, so that I can make beautiful thematic changes. Apparently, even though Wordpress.org calls it a “painless five-minute process,” I am completely incapable of handling it. I am now buttering up my computer engineer friends to get their help. Kevin? Braden? Kyle? Help a girl out? I’ll bake you cookies. Because that’s what trophy wives do.

My blog will either be really gorgeous really soon, with a little help from friends, or I will be left to my own devices and it will disappear entirely into the vortex of The Interweb. Stay tuned.

I have also decided that woodworking is hobby that absolutely must incorporate into my already haphazard, schizophrenic life. I mean, why not? Jack of all trades, master of none — that’s me.

A while back, Rob’s mom gave us her old desk. It is a beautiful, behemoth piece of high quality furniture, with heavy drawers that lock and pull out on gliders. Not a square inch of particle board on this bad boy. And it’s certainly nicer than anything we own or would buy for ourselves. I mean, Pottery Barn would be our splurge, and they just don’t make stuff like this at Pottery Barn.

The only thing is that this desk is starting to look a tad outdated. Not so outdated as to be a hip statement piece. More like 1980s outdated, as in the person sitting behind this desk should probably be wearing head-to-toe pastel and a French braid. Which, of course, Rob’s lovely mother did in the ’80s, when that outfit and hairdo and desk style were all, well, in style. (I know; I’ve seen a home video of it. There’s something about seeing your husband as an eight-year old with a mullet wearing a wolf sweatshirt and carving a pumpkin on the floor next to the desk that at age 28-almost-29 you use to run your so-called multinational corporation from the second bedroom of the condo that you rent from his parents … that makes you want to refinish that desk. I don’t know, maybe its just me?)

And so, I had decided to give this great piece of furniture a facelift. New hardware would have done the trick. A good coat of black paint would have gone even further. But that kind of stuff is child’s play for this experienced handy girl. It is high time, my friends, that I learned how to strip.

Varnish from wood, that is.

After hours of research and no fewer than six trips to the hardware store in four days, I am well on my way to making a complete disaster out of a perfectly nice-looking piece of furniture that I probably should have just left alone.

Here’s the desk before I started:

After some environmentally friendly fairly non-functional 3M Safest Stripper Paint and Varnish Gel Remover:

After some less-gentle (sorry, Liz!) but non-toxic and minty green Zinsser Magic Strip:

and the purchase of a Black and Decker power sander with a cute name that (blessed be!) sucks up its own sawdust:

I have to say, I feel like Bob Vila, restoring something to make it beautiful. (Only with less facial hair, and no plaid. I mean, no facial hair and less plaid?) And when I got that power sander going, I’m not gonna lie: I almost grunted like Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor. And, yesterday, as I smoothed my hands in long strokes over the desktop that I had just worked on for the better part of an hour, I felt likeCarrie Bradshaw’s furniture designer boyfriend Aidan admiring his handiwork on the chair he made for her out of materials from an old pullman car.

[Sidebar: I recognize that, with every Sex and the City reference I make, I draw ever closer to becoming the trophy wife I do not want to be. However, I take comfort in knowing that I am less like the women who enjoy the delusion of likening their own lives to SATC than I am their husbands, who are out in the garage playing with power tools.]

Assuming that, come next week, I have a desk and a blog that are at least functional and at best aesthetically unobjectionable, I am pretty proud of myself.

Even Molly is impressed.