I was trying to think of when (and why) I got the bug.... I was wondering if DIY is more popular now? Or is it just because of the internet and HGTV? I wonder if generations past, who always did do it themselves (DIT?), think this to be a silly craze? Will it continue? Why wouldn't it? I think too much and occasionally drink too much wine.
I guess for me, it must have been moving to Mom Hollinger's somewhere in the 4th grade with Daddy. I needed a dresser. We had little to no money. Everyone in my life has heard this story, but now for all of time (or at least until the internet crashes along with the economy) I will put it here. So I needed a dresser. We went to Great Grandpa's barn to scrounge around.
Everyone in my area probably knew about Grandpa Hollinger's barn. He and Grandma were antique collector's. And if you were to drive down E-town Road, 9 times out of 10 after he retired, you would see Grandpa working in his little wood shed. So we drove over. (We could have walked, we lived so close, but Daddy's heart didn't permit long excursions, even back then.) I freaking, SERIOUSLY, loved that barn. Even at that small age of not-quite-4th-grade, I loved all the wood furniture. The busted ones, the carved ones, the neglected-but-still-usable ones. Anyone would have to admit that he had some cool shit out there. And chairs. He had a crap-load of chairs.
We looked upstairs and downstairs, and in the once-upon-a-time stalls. We found my dresser. It was a three drawer bureau, waist high, and as something extra special, Daddy found a mirror to go with it.
My family is mostly German. But Grandpa. He must have had some Jew in him. (Which right off the bat, I want to say, I know that isn't very politically correct of me. I don't even know any Jews personally to know if that stereotype is correct.... but at least when I say that, you can conjure the correct image. He was TIGHT. And CHEAP. And could stretch a dollar further than anyone. I really mean this label as a compliment.)
Daddy and Grandpa haggled over the price. I have heard that in other families, one member may just offer something to another, but not in mine. You worked for it. Daddy got Grandpa down to $55. On our way out, I saw a little stool and a little tobaco measuring shelf that I really wanted. Grandpa, in a completely uncharacteristic way, told me I could have it. Just like that. Weird.
Well Daddy and I took that ugly, beat up dresser home. We soaked the handles. I was allowed to paint it and the mirror any color I chose. I chose YELLOW. Bright, sunny, YELLOW.
That same year we built a rabbit hutch for my black dwarf bunny, Velvet. And I haven't stopped thinking, dreaming, scheming, since. I see anything and I think I can build it, I can do it, I can do it better....
As a side note - That year at Christmas I got my traditional Christmas money card at Grandma & Grandpa's. Mine felt weird. Didn't seem like it had the $25 like usual. And it didn't. That envelope had $3.75 in it. The price of that tobacco shelf and little stool came to $21.25, I later found out. I had bought on credit against my Christmas funds, little did I know!
************ POST-SCRIPT***********
When I turned 18 I left home with that yellow dresser. It certainly didn't fit into the decor of my fashionably (free) furniture at my apartment. I stripped it down to it's natural wood, and the mirror. I used it as my dresser until I got married. It has served as a TV stand. A mircowave stand. A linen closet & a baby dresser and changing table. It didn't make the cut when we moved into the new house. Sat in storage as no way in hell I'd get rid of it completely. But with the divorce, I loaded my stuff, including that old dresser, and it's with me now. It sits awaiting something new. I have a few ideas.
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