Constructing Pallet City: Prep weekend at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, May 29-31

Our building site at Agger Fish in the Navy Yard!

Since we could not go out to Governors Island to build until weekend of June 5, when the island officially opened to the public, we arranged for a temporary space to sort and prep our 90+ donated shipping pallets, and do test layouts of each different section of the "city." Agger Fish, a fish company in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, generously lent us space for building next to one of its warehouses, as well as several stacks of pallets. We picked up the rest of our pallets from Build it Green, a warehouse in Astoria, Queens that collects and sells reused goods.

To quote a popular movie line, discarded pallets can be a bit like a box of chocolates--you never know what you're going to get. They might be dirty or discolored. Boards might be broken. The texture of the wood might resemble a furry animal. So, before starting to put anything together, we needed to select the exact pallets we wanted to use for each part of the city (for example, on any pallets where people would be walking, boards couldn't be too far apart from each other), replace broken boards when needed, and sand off dirt and splinters with power sanders.

We had a great crew of volunteers for this opening weekend...and fortunately the weather cooperated...at least until the very last day!

Unloading pallets from the truck...
We start laying out the "city"

Power sanding!
Breaking pallets apart to replace bad boards with better ones

Fixing up boards to use for specific sections.

First People's Market

So my first People's Market was a laid-back, easy-going, non-stressful time. I didn't sell nearly as much as Park City but the calm feeling that encompasses the area is worth it. I've met some great people, traded for cool stuff, and really enjoyed every second of it. I got henna tattoos, two beautiful handcrafted necklaces, Chris got a custom print shirt, and I'm so excited to be back in two weeks. Park City.. here I come!!!

the story of stuff

This makes sense, is completly understandable, and is overall interesting:

The story of stuff goes into the production and comsumption of all our stuff. I have noticed how now even mops, cleaners, etc are all disposable. What a waste.

 http://www.storyofstuff.com/

Mirror Makeover... Rust Rust Rust

I have had this mirror since college. Most of my friends are aware that it has been 5 colors: Silver, Light Gold, Dark Gold, Red (or "Red-ish), and now..... RUST! I took a metal paste and covered the mirror with it. It was like covering a surface in thick paste. Once that dried, I took a chemical that causes it to rust. The directions say to apply a new coat of the chemical every 24 hours. It was really cool to watch it slowly rust. I did about 4 coats of the chemical until it was the color I wanted. I love it! Once a mirror in a college apartment... now a homemade vintagerusted mirror!

First Market in Park City

Well. I managed to get through my first market last Sunday. It was stressful, nauseating, exhausting, and rewarding. My booth neighbors were fantastic and had so much good advice for me but there's a lot of things I'll do differently. For one thing all my cassette tape wallets sold out and a lot of less expensive items were my top sellers. So, for the next two weeks, I'll be working on producing a lot of inexpensive products like wallets, broaches, and hip bags.

For my booth I decided I need a professional display panel and mirror for customers to be able to actually see themselves wearing my bags. Eventually a mannequin would be amazing but in the meantime I really need to focus on inventory. Here's an image of my first booth and I'll be sure to keep you posted on how it changes.

More De-Yellowing...

I knew when to pick up the phone and call a good painter on this one... There was no way I was getting up on a ladder to paint our main entry. An awesome painter in Bend (Eric Drake), came by and painted the entire foyer and upstairs common area in 4 hours! It's done! No more 'Antique White' (aka YELLOW)... except in 2 of the bedrooms and 2 ofthe bathrooms. I'm getting there. Rome was not built in a day.

Before:

After:

Hard to Top this Bar Table & Chair Find!

There is a couple in Bend who take furniture or furniture pieces and add their own flair to it. The husband builds most of it and his wife paints or stains it. It is amazing what they do! Every 3 or 4 months, they open their house to people to come through and purchase their most recent projects. You recieve a plain envelope in the mail (with only the street as the return address) with a very simple flyer inside. The flyer is hand drawn and simply says the date and time. This place gets packed...and I will never ever ever miss one of her 'Trunk Shows".

My mom and I went to her last one. Thank goodness she was there with me. A high bar like table and 2 unique matching barstools were sitting out back. There were a few people looking at it also. As we were talking about it, we realized how perfect it would be on our huge wall in our dining room. My mom dove for the tags and handed them to me and said "GET IT!". It was $460 for a very unique and amazingly sturdy furniture set! We love it and it is perfect!

The kind man helped load it into the truck and as he did so, he told us that he had just taken really unique pieces of wood and made them work together. Someone had thrown the barstool bases out and he grabbed them and created wood seating surfaces that matched the table perfect. I am so glad that my mom dived for those tags! Go Mom!