HONESTY IS VALUABLE

today you’re going to make yourself something really nice

G

A

A

H H H H

FB

G

E

C

C

D

D

E

G

G

FH

E

D

B

A

C

BACK VIEW SIDE VIEW

A .75” x 1.5” x 28.75” 2

Dimensions Qty.

BCDEFGH

.75” x 1.5” x 12.75”

.75” x 1.5” x 16”

.75” x 1.5” x 12”

.75” x 1.5” x 11.625”

.75” x 1.5” x 11.625”

.75” x 2.5” x 11.625”

.75” x 2.5” x 13.125”

2

2

2

2

2

2

4

EC

C3”

Assembling the front legs

•Pre-drill two holes from part E to part C as shown.

• Using the 1” screws, assemble part E and part C

• Congrats, you might have assembled the front legs!

The universe may not always play fair, but at least it's got a hell of a sense of humor.

Carrie Bradshaw / Candice Bushnell,Sex and the City

It's so nice to know where you're going, in the early stages. It almost rids you of the wish

to go there.

Samuel Beckett,Molloy

E

AA

Assembling the back legs

• Pre-drill two holes on either side of part E to part A as shown.

• Using the 1” screws, assemble part E and part C

• Congrats, you might have assembled the back legs!

17”

Convincing the men at Home Depot That You are More Than a Twink and You DO Know How to Use a Hand Drill (Even if You Don’t)

As you approach the lumber section of Home Depot, bumping your loading cart into

the corner of the aisle, many of the men will hawk towards you, imagining you got

lost in search of interior paints. Some of them don’t have Home Depot aprons, and

you get the sense they don’t actually work there, but rather wander the aisles in

search of a�rmations. You want to paint your bedroom a nice yellow too but don’t let

them know that. Tell them you are looking for framing lumber, to which they will

point to the pile. Refer to anything that you’re doing with this lumber as a “project.”

Only look them in the eye, and try to have a sincere smile. Smiles are unclear for them.

Ask them to cut your pieces down just because you haven’t the space in your

garage-studio. Your pair of Timberlands may be too clean and conspicuously a size

too big, and the cu� of your jeans might have given away that you don’t do this too

often, but the divine right to Home Depot is yours too.

B

B

F

F1.5”

Assembling the stretchers

• Pre-drill two holes on the four points where part B meets part F, leaving 1.5” in the back part of the stretcher for the back leg

• Using the 1 1/4” screws, assemble parts B and parts F

• Congrats, you might have assembled the seat stretchers!

On Saying Fuck and Doing It In Uncertain Times (When you don’t know how the tools work)

The day before your magnum opus is due, you opt to �nally drill the legs of your chair

into the seat. You’ve gotten co�ee twice and cried once upon picking up the hand drill,

and today’s the day to hunker down and do it. Talk to as many people around you about

the 15-minute operation, have them tell you as many times possible that they have done

it and it’s going to be totally �ne. You stare at the two chair parts until neither is

recognizable. You mark every spot you need to drill. You pick up the drill. You begin to

drill your �rst hole. It drills smoothly and perfectly. You let out a deep breath, and your

heart pounds like you’re 16 and a boy texted you. You drill another hole. It’s perfect. You

drill another, God! Fear is so useless of a feeling! You turn the chair seat over, reveling in

your success. You have no �nesse for drilling. You drilled 6 holes through the top of your

seat. You start screaming fuck at everything. You sit down on the ground. You start

laughing. You patch the holes with wood �ller and smoke a cigarette. You sand the wood

�ller and �nish the piece. Your professor �rst asks what happened to your piece. You say

you have no �nesse with a drill. Everyone in the room shrugs and everything else goes

great. It’s the best thing you’ve ever made and it has 6 dark brown dots on it.

A

A

C

C B

Putting the legs onto the stretchers

• Aligning the front and back legs with the stretcher as shown, drill holes from part A into part B, as well as part C into part B

• Using the 1” screws, assemble A, B, and C

• Congrats, you might have the framework of a chair

F

Curbside Chairs, Slow Romance, and Not Using Designer Products

The only good part of being an unpaid intern is that your bosses feel particularly guilty

about the strange perverse labor system you’re subject to. So on your last day of work,

they o�er you a number of their products. You leave broke, but with several candela-

bras, coasters, and other accessories. They sit on your dining room table, and as pretty

as they look and as prideful you get as you tell your friends about your designer

candelabra (that you made yourself, perverse), you never use the damn thing. You pass

by a somewhat dirty metal lawn chair on the side of the road near your house. The paint

job is chipping, and the wiring is actually painful to sit in. Though you have the feeling

that you are in love, but unsure who with. You put the chair in the trunk of your car and

take it home. Nobody sits on the thing. It’s kinda short. It’s appearance is resonant of

dust and sweat. In a last-ditch e�ort to keep the thing, you drape a greenish piece of

foam over it. Suddenly you and the cat both love the chair, but in the way that you love

someone who you can’t introduce to your friends. Your roommate brings his girlfriend

home, and she loves the “contemporary design.” But you know your love is more

expensive than that.

H

G

Putting slats on the frame

• Pre-drill four holes connecting the H slats to the seat and the G slats into the back. Align them as you see �t.

• Using the 1” screws, attach G and H to the back and the seat

• Congrats, this might actually bear some semblance to a chair you’ve seen!

There's a welcome mat at the doorAnd if you come on in, you're gonna get much more

There's my chair, I put it thereEverything you see is with love and care

It's my house and I live hereI wanna tell you it's my house and I live here

On the table, there sits a roseThrough every window, a little light �ows

Books of feeling on the shelf above'Cause it was built for love, it was built for love

It's my house and I live hereIt's my house and I live here

There's a candle to light the stairsWhere my dreams await someone to share

Oh, there's music on the radioAnd good vibrations won't let me goI put my name on the ceiling above

'Cause it was buillt for love, it was built for love

-Diana Ross, “It’s My House”

Decorating One’s Own Home with One’s Own Creations

In turmoil of our world at large, we have control over little in our lives. The

smallest acts of control become more important. In Diana Ross’s It’s My

House, she describes her every sensual decision when it comes to interior

decorating. The act of decorating becomes a means of courting a lover. Her

sensuous home, full of feeling and care, stands in for her. She projects this

version of herself as to court a lover and to, in some way, court herself. In

making anything, you want think of the sexy projective self that exists as the

maker and as the object. To decorate a house with the objects that one

makes is a game of fantasy. A fantasy that allows us, if brie�y, to exist outside

of the continuum of political, economic, and social turmoil.

DD

CCA A

Putting that lastcrossbar on

• Countersink four holes connect-ing crossbar D into legs A and C

• Using the 1” screws, attach Dto A and C

• Congrats, you made a Joseph Kosuth at worst!

4.5”4.5”

Politics are decorative.Sciences are decorative.

Theologies are decorative.The metaphysics of presence are decorative.

Decoration is communication.Pure function does not exist.

Only function in context.Communication is decorative.

-Matthew Sullivan, “On Decoration”

Luxury Items and When You Incidentally Make One

A Trinity de Cartier ring, produced by Cartier, three bands, pink gold, yellowgold, and

white gold, designed for poet Jean Cocteau. 18 K Gold, selling for a nice $14,000. It

doesn’t on Cocteau’s �nger. Utility dissolves, and we have the value and aesthetics of

gold, of luxury and everything it dictates. Luxury supposedly happens when we pay for

the idea of the ring over paying for the use of the ring. Who told me that this

materiality, of Cartier rings made of tinted gold, was the apex of my pursuits? What’s a

Cartier ring when I’m happy? What’s a Cartier ring when I’m sad? When does an object

speak for you and when does an object stand with you? We are kept at a distance from

the labor and the craft of it all, unable to see ourselves re�ected in its marred surface.

Perhaps there could be a luxury that stands with you as well as for you. A chair that

wavers with you. A chair that projects you both inwards and outwards.

Got on all my ice, talkin' cash shitBeen ballin' all my life, Lamborghini's, fast whips

She down to ride and deserves a boss who down to provideWe run the streets but on G-5's, I'm talkin' �y

Boots and blue jeans, Cartier, newer rings

-Rick Ross, “Lemme See”

Congrats on your new luxury

For instruction help / design suggestions / emotional support

/ further endeavors, call or text (973) 715 5590