The next day I tackle the mess. This was a big chore. Pieces of fake wood are dragged out to the trash, the majority of my precious treasures are stacked in a corner and lots more stuff are dumped. I pull out the vacuum and away goes old food particles and unidentified junk. Now that I fully examine my office/guest room, I realize I must have a replacement for my computer desk. As someone who enjoys facebook, chat, emailing and writing I also realize I'm old fashioned enough to want a place to keep my computer that's not the arm of the couch or my dining room table.
I wish I could say I went to pinterest and found a neat idea, but that's not how true upcycling works. Oh who am I kidding? Upcycling is just a new way to say recycling without all the processing and strange processes I know nothing about. People, I went out to my garage and looked around. I was surrounded by junk I need to throw away, but can't manage to do. I am a science teacher and you never know when something might come in handy; for instance a huge stack of empty boxes.
In the midst of all this mess I discovered an old closet door. I would like to say the Lord above gave me divine insight, but lo and behold, my eldest son thought it was his invention. I'm not calling him a liar, but we both agreed that his father was the one who started the trend of placing an old door on two sawhorses for an easy display table at a rendezvous. Now I probably should admit that this closet door hadn't been a closet since 2003. That year a tornado ripped through our home and the door was salvaged to our new garage.
I also discovered four metal sawhorses, two I used used under the closet door. So my upcycling came from a practical use before upcycling was ever a catch phrase. Now that I have my materials, my first thought was how to make it permanent. I didn't need some other flimsy crap that would fall over the next time it was bumped. Since my husband has left his earthly body, I call my brother. He talks about drilling screws into the sawhorses up into the door. It sounded simple, but left me with crossed eyes. I'm not dragging out some drill.
I do drag out the sawhorses and the door the next morning. I dig out some old paint called Moonshine and use it to paint the white door and slap some on the sawhorses for the fun of it. Well, just one of them, until I get bored.
Now that fun begins. I let it all dry during the one nice day we had in February. Not joking here. I was fortunate that we had a nice weekend when I started this. When I set up the table, it looked awesome. Here's some photos for proof.
I like my new table. I have lots of room and I even bought a cute rug for my tootsies. Over the next couple weeks I started noticing an ant or two crawling around. Sometimes they would be by the printer or around my laptop, but most were near my monitor. (See to the left above.) So I just smashed them with my index finger and go about my business.
It wasn't until I left my computer room and sat on the couch that I came to realization that something was wrong. I felt a creeping sensation on my neck. With my fingers searching, I discovered an ant on my neck! What the heck was going on?
I examined the room thoroughly and found dead ants clustered on the floor, a couple dead ants in the window sill, on the window, dead ants everywhere. They weren't here before. What have I done to my room?
All day long I used some bug spray I had around the house and sprayed the heck out of the door and sawhorses every couple of hours. I removed dead ants and live ants each time before I shot another stream of chemicals. The next morning, I banged both ends of the door against the concrete patio and decided it's coming back in.
I perused the internet and labeled my creepy problem as carpenter ants. I read somewhere they don't like vinegar with pepper in it. So I made up a spray bottle. Every once in a while, I'll spray the left side of the desk. Currently, I'm not sure if they are all dead or just waiting for another attack, but I'll handle that problem also. Thanks for reading this.
