Almost There by Bekah DiFelice

Author:Bekah DiFelice [DiFelice, Bekah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: RELIGION / Christian Life / Women's Issues, RELIGION / Christian Life / Personal Growth
Publisher: The Navigators
Published: 2017-07-18T04:00:00+00:00

Home is a place not only of strong affections, but of entire unreserves; it is life’s undress rehearsal, its back-room, its dressing-room, from which we go forth to more careful and guarded intercourse, leaving behind us much débris of cast-off and every-day clothing.

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE, Little Foxes

The project started out small. We were being sent from Yuma to San Diego, and after house hunting for weeks online, we decided to live in downtown San Diego in a tiny but conveniently located apartment. The unit was seven hundred square feet, and among other things, it lacked overhead lighting, cabinet storage in the kitchen, and a reserved space for dining. What it did offer, however, was a Starbucks located directly beneath us and an Italian sandwich shop across the street. I mean, what else could we need? Living in the city was both exciting and daunting, not only because it would mandate the mastery of parallel parking, but also because it required a severe downsizing in furniture.

With some creative staging, Mike and I figured the apartment had enough space for a small table three feet by five feet long, give or take. So basically a glorified desk with four stools around it. And instead of buying a table the way normal people would, Mike and I decided to build it with our own hands.

To say that this was a joint decision would be lovely but entirely untrue. Pinterest had just risen to popularity, and the ever-streaming queue of possibilities had taken over my entire life. Up until that point, I had no idea that nearly every product available for purchase could actually be made at home for basically the same cost and nine thousand additional work hours. I considered this a bargain. Strangely, Mike did not.

Hastily, I sold the large dining set we owned along with the sectional sofa and reappropriated the blank space in our living room for a construction zone. It’s possible that Mike decided to help me build our small table only after I eliminated all other options.

In case you are wondering, no, we did not have many construction tools or any building experience. Also, I lacked the critical character traits of patience and long-suffering. But I was restless enough to eagerly swing a hammer or grip a power saw, and Mike was fresh off the heels of deployment, which meant that he was used to dealing with temperamental people handling dangerous weapons. I saw only pros.

The building process included Mike studying blueprints or researching power sanders or doing basic addition on scraps of paper. On our frequent trips to Lowe’s, Mike spent hours measuring things while I spent a lot of time playing on the flatbed cart or buying snacks at the cash register. We made a good team, I thought, though I constantly wondered (and asked) what was taking so long. I was convinced our “small table project” could be casually completed in a single weekend. It took us two months.

Assembling the basic table frame was not all that difficult, but the actual tabletop was.

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