Search Results for: label/lead/2010/06/the-urban-homestead/2011/04/making-it

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I Built a Harvey Ellis Dresser and it Almost Killed Me

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Design
14 Comments
...fitting drawers, finishing surfaces). Late 19th and 20th century furniture making involves not just one task all day but a mix of responsibilities as well as aesthetic decisions such as deciding which way to run the grain. The Ikea dresser is made on a post-Henry Ford assembly line where workers either monitor machines and/or do the same repetitive task all day. This makes for a much cheaper product but an unhappy worker. I made many mistakes buil...

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The American College of the Building Arts

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Design
2 Comments
...I was more invested in the idea of being a musician rather than the act of making music. And let’s not get into the plinky-plunky, modernist musical cat fight that passed for the musical curriculum at UCSD, where I did my graduate work. If I were to step into a time machine back to high school and ponder my next move I have no doubt that I’d ditch the University of California and head to Charleston, South Carolina to attend the American College of...

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A Thanksgiving Debriefing

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Thoughtstylings
23 Comments
...oing to serve turkey butcher it first and then roast it. Roasting it whole leads to dry meat. While we’re at it how about ditching the traditional side dishes? They have the taste and texture of baby food. What would happen if we gave the women in our lives a day off and had the men folk do all the work? Women seem to get the brunt of the holiday domestic duties. I suspect I’m preaching to the choir to suggest skipping the consumption nightmare th...

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On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs

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Reviews, Thoughtstylings
23 Comments
...e things you like to read about on this blog: gardening, beer brewing, jam making, beekeeping etc. Or how about a world in which teachers, nurses and caregivers made more money than tech CEOs? Sadly, we don’t live in that utopia. Instead we have an economy that often rewards people who either do nothing all day or whose work degrades our lives. Anthropologist David Graeber takes up these questions in his book Bullshit Jobs: A Theory. Judging from...

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A Better Garage Organizational System

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Design, Domesticus, Tidying up
11 Comments
...anges to the workshop I made in order to make it more useful for furniture making such as being sure that I could access my workbench from all sides, as well as improvements to the dust collection system. I can detail these changes in a future post but I’m more interested in showing that a well organized workshop can benefit any activity from sewing to gardening. Taking the time to plan a workspace makes work go much easier. Aesthetics are importa...

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