So we've acquired a great deal of furniture from my grandmother's house; we moved her into an assisted living setup and, naturally, sold her home. She'd asked me a month or two back if there was anything I wanted. It didn't take me long.
I wanted the desk. The desk. The one from the study off of her bedroom. The one with all kinds of cabinets and drawers and nooks and crannies. Apparently it's nothing but an old country clerk's desk, worth maybe $300--a meager sum compared to much of the rest of the heirlooms, antiques, and art throughout her house. She readily agreed I could have it.
Then things got a little messy. Then they got fine. Then they got messy again--differently. Then I learned a little about myself and, prospectively, grew up. It was good times, if a little frustrating.
Then came the actual moving around of stuff. My uncle didn't want anything so of course Bisi (my grandmother) forced the desk on him. My desk. I was a wee bit pissed but decided to let it go/turn it over instead of throwing a tantrum over it.
Somehow mom got Bisi to change her mind, a veritable miracle frankly. See, things work out when you let them go, eh? So she hauls the whole thing down in the hybrid Ford SUV thing. Turns out the desk is modular. Sort of.
The top chunk detaches; the boxy lowdown drawer thing on the lower left detaches; all the drawers and flaps detach. The one thing that doesn't detach is the legs. Yeah, that makes sense; "Let's make a hulking-ass desk {check} but let's make it modular so it's moveable {check}--oh, except for the legs which we'll practically cement on {check!?}". Clever people, obviously.
So my biffle/roomie, Parker, and I haul everything down. All the drawers, flaps, the top half (beastly thing that it is we certainly didn't look forward to the ungainly bottom half). Then we get to the bottom. Narrowly make it through the front hall. Manage to get it turned around to go back the exact opposite way to get down the basement stairs. Whereupon we discover--it's too wide.
No problem, let's just flip it on its side and--it's too tall.
Let's bring it in at an angle--got two legs through but there's not enough room to twist/angle it again to get the third through.
Let's try removing the banister--still not enough room.
Brute force? Nothing but severely scuffed walls.
All this trouble, and I can't even keep the desk in the end? What the fuck? With all the other shit piled up in our house and my mom at her wit's and emotional end, I know she's not gonna like it hulking up the back hall or porch or yard.
Well there is one way...not one I particularly like but.... In short: We cut off that third leg (giggity).
95% of the weight on that side is clearly/probably supported by that perfectly detachable/detached drawer-holding-box-cabinet thing I mentioned; the leg, apparently, is merely for aesthetics, to match the two on the other side, or perhaps there was a fourth leg but it was removed when those drawers/cabinets were added. Either way, this is, at least, the assumption we have to make.
Assuming we are right--and the leg is non-essential--then we have a solution; we could get the other legs through without too much trouble: it was just this third one causing all the trouble. One stupid little unnecessary leg.
A leg that's part of the whole desk thing. A part of the set. I don't like breaking up sets. I don't like removing parts. I don't like taking things off unless I know I can put them back on in a seemly enough fashion that no one really knows it was ever gone. Stupid little OCD/perfectionism hitch, I know, and one relatively meaningless considering, but....
I wasn't willing to commit to the plan until I'd had assurances from my dad that we could rig up some way to reattach it--a peg or dowel or bar embedded in the leg/desk that let the other slide into place & stay put.
So it's settled. That leg is getting the saw. I just need to break down my current desk set-up and we can put the new one in place.
In the end, the decision was made for me. As we had brought it in piece by piece, I fell more in love with the beastly thing than I could have imagined. It's just so...me. It's got drawers and cabinets and slots and shelves and flaps and nooks and crannies. I'm a very nooks and crannies kind of guy.
Given that, the small "sacrifice"--violating one of my own, illogical rules--will probably end up more than worth it. I just need to 'relax' and look at the big picture, which used to be something virtually impossible for me to manage. Apparently I'm growing up, and getting a sexy desk as a reward, eh?
I wanted the desk. The desk. The one from the study off of her bedroom. The one with all kinds of cabinets and drawers and nooks and crannies. Apparently it's nothing but an old country clerk's desk, worth maybe $300--a meager sum compared to much of the rest of the heirlooms, antiques, and art throughout her house. She readily agreed I could have it.
Then things got a little messy. Then they got fine. Then they got messy again--differently. Then I learned a little about myself and, prospectively, grew up. It was good times, if a little frustrating.
Then came the actual moving around of stuff. My uncle didn't want anything so of course Bisi (my grandmother) forced the desk on him. My desk. I was a wee bit pissed but decided to let it go/turn it over instead of throwing a tantrum over it.
Somehow mom got Bisi to change her mind, a veritable miracle frankly. See, things work out when you let them go, eh? So she hauls the whole thing down in the hybrid Ford SUV thing. Turns out the desk is modular. Sort of.
The top chunk detaches; the boxy lowdown drawer thing on the lower left detaches; all the drawers and flaps detach. The one thing that doesn't detach is the legs. Yeah, that makes sense; "Let's make a hulking-ass desk {check} but let's make it modular so it's moveable {check}--oh, except for the legs which we'll practically cement on {check!?}". Clever people, obviously.
So my biffle/roomie, Parker, and I haul everything down. All the drawers, flaps, the top half (beastly thing that it is we certainly didn't look forward to the ungainly bottom half). Then we get to the bottom. Narrowly make it through the front hall. Manage to get it turned around to go back the exact opposite way to get down the basement stairs. Whereupon we discover--it's too wide.
No problem, let's just flip it on its side and--it's too tall.
Let's bring it in at an angle--got two legs through but there's not enough room to twist/angle it again to get the third through.
Let's try removing the banister--still not enough room.
Brute force? Nothing but severely scuffed walls.
All this trouble, and I can't even keep the desk in the end? What the fuck? With all the other shit piled up in our house and my mom at her wit's and emotional end, I know she's not gonna like it hulking up the back hall or porch or yard.
Well there is one way...not one I particularly like but.... In short: We cut off that third leg (giggity).
95% of the weight on that side is clearly/probably supported by that perfectly detachable/detached drawer-holding-box-cabinet thing I mentioned; the leg, apparently, is merely for aesthetics, to match the two on the other side, or perhaps there was a fourth leg but it was removed when those drawers/cabinets were added. Either way, this is, at least, the assumption we have to make.
Assuming we are right--and the leg is non-essential--then we have a solution; we could get the other legs through without too much trouble: it was just this third one causing all the trouble. One stupid little unnecessary leg.
A leg that's part of the whole desk thing. A part of the set. I don't like breaking up sets. I don't like removing parts. I don't like taking things off unless I know I can put them back on in a seemly enough fashion that no one really knows it was ever gone. Stupid little OCD/perfectionism hitch, I know, and one relatively meaningless considering, but....
I wasn't willing to commit to the plan until I'd had assurances from my dad that we could rig up some way to reattach it--a peg or dowel or bar embedded in the leg/desk that let the other slide into place & stay put.
So it's settled. That leg is getting the saw. I just need to break down my current desk set-up and we can put the new one in place.
In the end, the decision was made for me. As we had brought it in piece by piece, I fell more in love with the beastly thing than I could have imagined. It's just so...me. It's got drawers and cabinets and slots and shelves and flaps and nooks and crannies. I'm a very nooks and crannies kind of guy.
Given that, the small "sacrifice"--violating one of my own, illogical rules--will probably end up more than worth it. I just need to 'relax' and look at the big picture, which used to be something virtually impossible for me to manage. Apparently I'm growing up, and getting a sexy desk as a reward, eh?
That sounds like an awesome desk. Take a picture! I want to see it!
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