TV shows that make your job harder

[Sofar]

Admittedly, your usual wood choices are pine or oak... extra for oak... but it's real wood. Real, real wood. Precccciouuusss wooooodddd....

Good lord, I am so tired of pressboard. Okay, backstory, my family collects books. We also move around a lot. At first we kept all the books in cheap, lightweight and dismantlable steel book shelves, we'd overload them, break them, scrap them and buy new ones. Unfortunately, after a while we couldn't find them anymore, all we could find as far as dismantlable book shelves were these big press board things that didn't come with enough shelves and took up too much space, they were designed for big hardcover books when all we had were mass-market paperbacks. And the thing about pressboard is that it's three times as heavy as real wood, half as strong, and it dissolves if you get it wet, and we had to lug those things around with us for ten years.

Do you know how hard it is to find a dismantlable bookshelf made out of real wood?

[draggar]

All those hyped up "news specials" about how all cell phones will give you cancer.

(And those commercials that say if you put a magical piece of tape underneath the antenna it will give you the best reception ever).

[Hon'ya-chan]

For starters, i'm kinda glad Oprah has little to no interest in her bookclub anymore.

What I don't like: other TV shows that feature some author and his book.

No, i'm sorry, but I don't watch these shows:

*Insert any Morning News Program*
*Insert any Daytime Talk Show*
Daily Show w/ Jon Stuart
The Colbert Report
*Anything on CNN or Fox News*

Ironiclly enough, I still manage to run into episodes of Reading Rainbow during the morning. Why can't people ask for book from LeVar Burton?

[Polenicus]

Heh, I've got absolutely no decorating sense or taste, which is a shame, because my Mom was actually really good at it, and without resorting to the stock nonsense you see.

First off, whenever we moved (Which was about every 2-3 years!) she would always find the house that was a beautiful design, solidly built and with character, but had been lived in and decorated by drunken retards from the 70's. I have no idea how she did it, but EVERY house we moved into had shag carpet, in either orange, green or beige. ALL of them. The rest of the deco was generally horrible. She did this, I think, to give herself carte blanche to be brutal with her redecorate. She could scrap everything and redo it, because everything there was basically crap.

She NEVER used white. NEVER. The closest colour she ever used was one called 'Desert Sand'. She favoured earth tones pretty heavily, and she absolutely LOVED ceramic tile. Carpet was only allowed when absolutely necessary.

When the main space in one house needed more light, instead of painting the rough-finished wood walls in white, she had her contractor come in (This guy had worked on nearly every house, we'd known him for literally decades) and put in something like 8 skylights in the roof (Was for the entire upper floor). Her solution to brightening a room was almost always more light, be it bigger windows, skylights, whatever.

The only time she ever painted wood was to cover something else gawdawful that couldn't be stripped. She had several kitchen cabinet doors that she saved with some kind of paint she found that would cover anything. Everything else wood was stained, occasionally varnished.

She always had these bizarre, radical ideas that, with the help of said contractor, she made work and function practically. Like the second floor balcony to the master bedroom, which she enclosed in glass and installed a hot tub (Including devising piping to allow easy draining and filling of said hot tub, reinforcing the supporting wall and balcony to support the weight, and fixing a number of design flaws in the house itself that caused leaks)

She also had a knack for finding 'treasures'. One time she was moving, and she had these eight lovely oak dining room chairs to sell, but no table. The only oak table she could find was an old, puke-green table from a local printing company, used as a workbench to repair printer parts. Well, she stripped it down, and invented a story for it. It was a 'harvest table'. It had been owned by a farmer, often repaired (Which is why the legs weren't of the same wood) and used for everything. The nail holes and oil stains were where he hung his oil rag from repairing his tractor. The story was total bunk, of course, but the table looked nice, and even had that authentic 'distressed' look that was so popular. She sold the whole set, making something like $400 over the worth of the table and chairs. She just had an ability to find something worthwhile in some abused piece of junk, and bring it out.

Yet, she always said I was crazy when I told her she should do this sort of thing for a living. When I asked her why, I think she said something along the lines of 'I'd have to do it for someone else, and then it wouldn't work'.

[Sofar]

First off, whenever we moved (Which was about every 2-3 years!) she would always find the house that was a beautiful design, solidly built and with character, but had been lived in and decorated by drunken retards from the 70's. I have no idea how she did it, but EVERY house we moved into had shag carpet, in either orange, green or beige. ALL of them. The rest of the deco was generally horrible.

Ah, for six years my family lived in a sesquicentennial Folk Victorian in Milford, Connecticut. The rednecks whom lived in the place before us thought that shag carpet and fake knotty-pine paneling* would make the place real spiffy. Strange place, that. For a long time we thought it had been built in 1875, though it seemed older. We discovered later than it had only been moved to its current location in 1875, when it was built was a mystery. While remodling we found joists being held together by hand-made nails.

*W.T.F.? Knotty pine is the cheapest wood available, and these clowns could only afford the fake stuff?

[protege]

*W.T.F.? Knotty pine is the cheapest wood available, and these clowns could only afford the fake stuff?

25 years ago, my father remodeled our basement. Previously, it was damp, one open room, and had lightbulbs literally hanging from the ceiling. He put up new walls, insulation, new lights, etc. However, I think he could have used better paneling. This stuff isn't bad, but it's pretty common, and seen in about 99.9% of homes and offices from about that time. Only problem is, that the stuff sucks. Bumping into it sometimes leaves holes and marks.

[DesignFox]

Indeed. I used to make lovely native-style chokers, using real materials if I could get them (bone, horn, leather, glass, shell...I used the waxed-cotton "sinew", but it still looked great). Tried to sell a few on ebay....no dice. I priced them as low as I could while still covering my costs/time and making a little profit, and I'd get emails "can u sell this for $5"...erm, no. You want one for five bucks, go bid on one of the mass-produced mostly-plastic ones.

Ooh I love stuff like that. I bought a great necklace from a local carver when I went to Hawaii. It's made out of whale bone. Beautiful and simple...carved and smoothed by hand. I paid $45 for it...but I rarely take it off. It lasts through everything and still looks great. And I know it's not some cheap piece of plastic mass produced in a factory. I got to shake the hand of the artist who created it, and take a piece of that person, that place, and their history everywhere I go. (and I continue to get lots of compliments/comments about the piece!)

While the BF and I were chatting it up with him, a few younger people passed by to look. Turned off by the prices, they ran off to the gift shop with a rude comment about it being expensive. The carver's reply..."well, my necklace will last you forever".

We assured him that we had no second thoughts about it. I think I've had this necklace for over 2 years now...even the woven string is still perfectly intact...I don't know what he used for it, but it's great.

[Reyneth]

My grandfather had a workshop in his basement and my childhood headboard along with the dressers I now use, jewelry boxes, and on and on were all made by his hands. There's going to be a fight over the knotty pine curio cabinet he made my grandma.

I just realized after reading other people's remarks about knotty pine, that the giraffe cabinet is not made of that kind of wood. Wormy something? Dang, I can't remember right now!

[Erin]

Oy... I stopped watching Clean Sweep after the host(ess?) spent the entire show trying to convince the homeowner to get rid of his dogs ashes. >_<

If anyone tried to convince me to get rid of my dog's ashes, I'd kick them out of my house. I'm never getting rid of TinyMonsters' ashes. (TinyMonsters is the dog in my avatar)

I'm planning on being buried with TinyMonsters' ashes. I'm keeping him with me forever.

[Sofar]

This stuff isn't bad, but it's pretty common, and seen in about 99.9% of homes and offices from about that time. Only problem is, that the stuff sucks. Bumping into it sometimes leaves holes and marks.

That's the stuff. It's made of two-ply plywood and a pine veneer, (sometimes the stuff is so cheap that the veneer isn't even real,) generally people put it up over plaster walls, but occasionally people put it over bare studs, no backing at all. In that instance it's pretty easy to put one's fist through it. Real knotty pine paneling is cheap, strong, and nice to look at. It was pretty popular in the twenties, so you see it in the attic rooms of Craftsmans and the like around here. Another advantage is if you damage one of the planks, you can just pry it off and nail up a new one.

I just realized after reading other people's remarks about knotty pine, that the giraffe cabinet is not made of that kind of wood. Wormy something? Dang, I can't remember right now!

Dang, I used to live in Santa Fe, everything was made of that stuff, but I can't rememeber what it's called . . . ,

[Gravekeeper]

The worst one I have ever watched was a trading spaces show, the woman did a purple and pink room. I shit you not! It was barbie pink and purple for a dining room no less.

Oh I think I know which one you mean. She has a HIDEOUS sense of style and I've seen her make so many homeowners cry at the end of the show. Her and one other guy, not sure what his name is. He looks like Jerry Springer's anal cousin. Between the two of them they've crushed so many dreams. =p

There's only two of them on the show I'd trust with anything. Which is a shame because the premise of the show is actually pretty interesting. The only consistently entertaining person it though is that angry carpenter they're always abusing.

Most of my furniture is wood ( Cept the couch ) and its ALL unpainted dammit. It will remain that way too.

[Noelegy]

He asks, "What the Hell did you do to my occasional table?" and she tells him she gave it a "distressed finish." The reason? "It looked too new."

On the other hand, I had a vintage ring that I felt like was "ruined" by a jeweler. I had one that I'd bought on eBay as my graduation present to myself, a lovely onyx oval setting with a diamond in the middle. I didn't buy myself a college ring, but I wanted some sort of piece to mark the occasion. The ring came from an estate sale and dated back to the 40s. I got it for a steal because no one else bid on it.

However, it was not a size that was comfortable on any of my fingers, so I went to have it sized. When I picked it up, it had been polished and looked brand new. It hadn't been terribly scuffed or scratched to begin with, but it took away some of the "vintage" appeal.

The same thing happened with my late grandmother's wedding band. She'd worn it for over 40 years. With both sets of grandparents, they started out with very thin gold bands and then "upgraded" to wider and more elaborate rings when their finances were better. This was my grandmother's "upgrade" band and every one of those scratches and scuffs had been put there by her. I took it in to be sized and they polished it, too. Most people would think that the appearance had been improved, but as I said it meant more to me that it looked old.

[Sofar]

A patina can always return with time. My desk has a lovely distressed finish, but that's because it spent ten years as a dining room table and then the next sixty years as a desk for a series of rowdy teenagers. My dresser is the same way, but that's because it spent half a year in the rain and sun, in the middle of a field behind my house. It was being used as a planter. I've been thinking about getting both of them refinished, being as there really isn't any finish left at all at this point.

[Andara Bledin]

We assured him that we had no second thoughts about it. I think I've had this necklace for over 2 years now...even the woven string is still perfectly intact...I don't know what he used for it, but it's great.

It's probably sinew. My mother and aunt do traditional and contemporary native leather and beadwork professionally, and that's what they use.

As for the people who have rings or the like that take them to a shop to have some form of adjustment or maintenance.... It's a shame that you have to specifcially order them to not do things that would ruin the "charm" of items. If I had something that I didn't want touched other than what I'd brought it in for, I would leave quite specific instructions that they not do that on pain of whatever was appropriate.

^-.-^

[powerboy]

Unfortunately, in our cheapy cheap world, fine craftsmanship in anything is no longer appreciated. People don't want it to be nice, they want it to cost less. Quality is a dying thing and it is really sad.

So true. My grandfather before he passed away, used to make things by hand. He didn't do to make money on, unless they wanted to pay for them. I used to make some furniture, whenever I had the time and materials. But everyone wanted the cheap stuff and nothing made from fine craftsmanship.