The ILH Making Your Own Furniture/Decor thread

i just found this thread!

i used to do a lot of this when i was younger, went crazy spray-painting things and glue-gunning plastic flowers to astroturf and whatnot
also when i was 23 or so i made this weird wall hanging with an honest-to-goodness axe on it and hung it over my BED until i realized that it could be used to chop me to pieces. eventually i got rid of it. but yeah i love making stupid home decor shit!

i have really bad taste though obvs. i think i'm getting better, but no more weapons. that was almost as embarrassing as having a pet snake.
i'm more matoor now, after all

i also have a superman table that i made for my mr's 24th bday but it's looking p gnarly all these years later. i still have it though!

in fact, here it is, among other things

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7340/8890014139_f6a8b1257e.jpg

http://i-cdn.apartmenttherapy.com/uimages/chicago/042108lane2.JPG

I found one of these dudes - rather beat up - on my street and dragged it home.. Wanted to DIY it a bit but I don't really have any room for it :( Also unwilling to throw it out so it's just sitting in my dining room sadly crowding everything.

LL, is that modge podged or similar? Our living room table is painted & shabby and I thought it would be fun to collage the top but I'm not interested in having glass cut to fit.

That's a great step table, ffm! I hope you find a good home for it.

yeah i used some crap that people use to make the clear coating on the tops of bars? first i color photocopied the comic, then i cut it up, then i arranged it on the painted wood table thing (which is really really pathetic in its design but hey i had/have no training or tools beyond a drill and two arms) and then i spray-adhesived the comic to the top and poured the polymer shit over it.

this was a long time ago -- almost 13 years to the week! -- but it has held up alright.

Thanks io! My mom inherited all her Dad's cool furniture incl one of these (& a giant boomerang shaped coffee table) but put everything in storage and defaulted on the payments so I am basically chasing my childhood by hoarding this. I will find a spot!

LL this polymer stuff sounds fabulous! I will price it out and see if its feasible for this table. Now to brainstorm collage ideas..

Also, does anyone know if I rock up to a home depot with a cut list, will they cut everything for me?

Not necessarily, especially rips. I went to to two different Home Depots where they told me they weren't allowed to do any ripping. I would go to a lumber yard or get a wood shop to do any cutting that requires precision.

The Home Depot* near my house used to not do any cutting b/c it is small (despite being 3 stories), so the first time I bought boards there, I had to cut them with a hand saw and a mitre box. That was weird.

*called by some** the Homo Depot b/c it is near Boystown and its staff has lots of gays

**some like me

haha je55e -- this is getting off topic and maybe it's just me but i've always felt like home depot is kind of a cruising environment, it's basically a series of long hypermasculine alleyways populated by rugged dudes and you have to kind of lurk around near all this manly stuff, sometimes you stop and ask a guy a question then you end up following him down a darkened aisle. idk, maybe i just get confused by the signage out front for "contractor pickup" because i always think "yes, please."

i used to walk around there aimlessly all the time, back when i was making this ridiculous stuff and: you're not the only one whose mind that has crossed. it even smells good in there. chemicals and wood? yes, please.

roaming around hardware or building places is the best, either aimlessly or more often when I have a particular need but don't quite know what what piece of hardware will get closest to solving my problem

I like it, though it gets stressful when I get stuck in hunting mode when I have nothing left to hunt for.

Hardware stores are THE BEST. I've sung the praises of that hardware smell so many times.

Once I walked into my local Home Depot and they were playing "I Feel Love".

I'm usually so goal-focused when I go to Home Despot, I've never gone in and just wandered.

I have to be goal-oriented in there or else I will buy the fixings for at least 8 projects at a time and spend $$$ before I know it.

There used to be a Yelp review for the Homo Depot where the reviewer claimed that the gay guys who worked there were always cutting up and throwing around innuendo when he asked them for caulk, screws, and wood. I really didn't believe him. Sadly, the review is gone now.