You’ve probably seen those make-over on a dime shows where some highly creative individual takes some old worn out end table, strips it down, buy’s about $5 in hardware, repaints it and two minutes later, voila! …This is not one of those five-dollar stories.

The assemble it yourself particle wood L-shaped desk I’ve had for about 10 years was finally getting too worn out and crowded. So I decided I needed a real executive desk. Something large, rectangular, ornate, menacing to on-comers, but more importantly something with lots of space for me to work with two computers and lots of paperwork. Me being the creative type, and cheap, decided it would be cool if I could build a large rectangular desk and simply add some ornate creative styling to it. I could have gone down to the local hardware store and bought some wood, but again, I’m cheap. With my job I have a lot of connections to grocery stores and sometimes they give away the wood pallets that all their freight comes in on. I figured I could gather enough good wood from the used pallets, and that the beat up wood would be a great start for creative inspiration on the look of the desk. Shabby sheik.

I did a web search to see what is out there for reclaimed wood and pallet wood furniture. I found immediate inspiration from James Higginson’s posting on his build of a $5 picnic table made from pallet wood here. James does a great job at showing what he did at each step along the way and I was confident I too could do this desk idea of mine. Then as I’m looking over James’ pictures, two things dawn on me. Number one, I don’t have the skills to actually build anything and number two, the only tools I have are a set of screw drivers, a hammer, and a skill saw from the 1970′s. A far cry from what I see in James’ photo’s.

Now before you tilt your head and say to me “awe, now come on Gary, you can do it.” No, no I can’t. You see God gave my dad the ability to make things with wood and he gave my older brother the brains to build a company that he can hire people to build things for him, and my sister married someone who not only can build stuff but wire it for electricity too. And my little brother, well we’ll just say as of this writing he’s building a small house, renovating a bathroom and helping to build a brewery. Me, I write.

I don’t build, I don’t measure things and cut them let alone assemble them into something recognizable. I even drive my wife crazy when I cook because I only choose to cook things pre-made or cook something based more on taste than measured ingredients. Even growing up all my friends could read a tape measure or fix a car. Not me. I just don’t have that gift. My neighbors can build things, some of them even have jobs that entail building things. When I die, one of the first questions I’ll ask God will be “did you sneeze when you were making me? Because you obviously left out the male pattern ‘build’ gene with me.”

However the good news is that the answer to the question about if God ever laughs is yes. He laughs at me  …whenever I try projects like building this desk. I’m pretty sure God snorted milk out of his nose, doubled over and fell off of his throne from laughing so hard when I started this little adventure of mine. And Jesus was doing his best not to move, sitting cross legged trying not to pee his robe, shaking Heaven from his stilted giggling while the Holy Spirit has his head in his hands trying not to hyperventilate. I hope there are bonus points for being God’s court jester.

Anyway, the initial thought was that this would be a two weekend project once I collected enough pallets. One weekend to tear the pallets apart, the other to assemble the desk based on James Higginson’s basic layout and of course $5 for hardware. Well it took two weeks to collect 17 pallets. And during those two weeks I found this from Funky Junk Interiors where they claim it only took $3 in additional parts. And the way they did that desk had the boards over the top of the frame, which for me meant I could hide my inability to actually make a right angled frame. Brilliant! Hide the flaws! I loved it. I’ll be combining both styles. Or so I thought.

After collecting all the pallets, it dawned on me that my little hammer wasn’t going to cut it for the breaking down. I say “dawned on me” because well I actually tried it, and maybe it is just me, but I seem to have collected pallets built by Thor. These things were glued, screwed and tattooed by some super being and my dinky little hammer wasn’t putting a dent in releasing anything Thor had hammered in. I had to buy a Crow bar for $7. And this is just the beginning, I’m starting off $2 over what the highest of these furniture builders are posting.

Five weekends worth of pallet break down and I’m finally past stage one. Two dollars over budget and five weekends into a two weekend project. And I still haven’t settled on a design because in between weekends I found this from Far Out Flora. Wow! They stained it! What a concept! Now I have to do that.

The working plan was to frame it like James did, sand down the boards like Funky Junk did, set the boards hanging over the frame like Funky Junk did and now to stain it like Far Out Flora did. It’ll be beautiful.

Ok, I go back to James’ site and look at his framing. He did a few things I can’t do. Well a lot of things I can’t do. But, I’ve got something even better than tools and skill. I have Dave from Art Effects Framing and Five Dollar Frames who I’ve known for years and if anyone can do a perfect right angle with a miter joint it’s someone who does it professionally and sells framing all across the U.S. So I called Dave up, told him what I was doing, and after he stopped laughing agreed to help. I brought the chosen pieces to him, told him what I wanted and in a blink of an eye he had cut and framed it all into one giant rectangle. I’m pretty sure Dave could have assembled the whole desk in a matter of minutes, but I didn’t really know which way I was going to go with the desk.

While I’m letting my creative juices stir a bit. I knew that I still wanted to stain the desk the same way Far Out Flora did. So I went ahead and stained the top boards brown. And of course since this is me building the desk, picking the color of stain alone took me a week. I decided on Ipswich Pine 221 from MinWax, $5 for a half pint. And Ebony from Cabot, $10 for a pint, for the frame. During the staining of the top boards I spilled the stain and had to go buy another one, $5. I ran out of Ipswich Pine 221 and did not look closely at the stain number, ended up  buying and using enough of Ipswich Pine 109 before realizing it, $5. Then bought the right Ipswich Pine 221 to complete the top boards, $5. …$37 so far if you are counting.

I decide to alter course again and go with how James set his boards inside the frame and flush with the top. Which puts me in a dilemma because again, I don’t have the skills to copy what James did. But I have another secret weapon that is also better than tools and skill, my old neighbor Allen. Allen tried to move away from me a few years ago but that failed, I still annoy him with fixing my problems. I can’t count how much he’s done for me over the years. Everything from plumbing, engine repair, misc. household items, electrical, and now desk building. I’m fairly certain he regrets every time he answers the phone and its me calling. There will be special mercies given to Allen and his wife in Heaven for having to deal with me. I think God will take a deep breath, snicker, and say to Allen “whatever you did for the least of these…” and wave his hand for Allen to enter Heaven. Then God will look over at me and burst out laughing again.

When I called Allen and told him what I’m attempting to do he too had to stop laughing just long enough to say he’d help. Since I can’t cut the pallet wood like James did because all mine have nails in them, Allen tells me to buy some strips of wood and come on over. Straightest wood strips I can find, $25. …$62 and rising, this ain’t no $5 desk.

I had every intention for Allen to just show me what to do and then let me do it. But Allen knows better than to leave a new born babe in the woods and point it towards home and expect it to actually survive. During all the measuring, figuring, thinking and what not associated with construction Allen looks over at me and says “you didn’t think this through very well did you?” To which I bravely answered, “well, I…, and…, well no, no I did not.”  Allen set me up so that all I had to do is go buy some L-brackets and finish the very last part that Allen was ok with me finishing, $4.

Both Allen and Dave strongly suggested I not try and sand down the top boards for various reasons such as the boards are actually curved now because of the way I pulled them away from the pallets, which means I’d have to sand them down to nothing in order to have a flat surface. And the fact that I don’t have a sander, and I’m too lazy to even attempt that by hand. I end up with buying a large piece of glass through Dave who can get me custom made glass through his Art Effects Framing. Why custom made? Because I didn’t check what a standard size executive desk measures to be. I just created the size I wanted, 43 inches by 66 inches (which for those of you like me, that’s three feet seven inches deep by five feet six inches wide). The tempered glass, $195. …$261.

Three cheap 2×4′s to transport the glass safely in my truck to my house, $8. …$269

I know what you are thinking, I could have just bought a desk for that. And yes I could have. But I’m a glutton for punishment it seems. And it continues.

My wife asks me “so what are you going to do for legs.” To which I replied “I have no idea.” She suggests I use the four plaster columns in my office holding up a table between two book shelves, then get two book shelves in the table’s place. Great idea. Book shelves, $50.

…$311. sigh.

I took the left over Ebony stain and brushed it onto to the plaster columns. Which by the way turns out to become glossy when it dries on plaster. So four can of flat black spray paint, $8. And two cans of spray can protective sealer, $10.

All told with other miscellaneous items like brushes and such the final bill was $375. This is definitely NOT a $5 reclaimed wood desk AND I didn’t really build it, Dave and Allen did. I just painted it and wrote the story.

So now would you like to see it? Let’s look at the pictures:

Here’s where it started. Pallet dismantling.

And here are some shots of playing around with the layout of the boards

Staining the boards…

Destroyed more than one brush.

Seeing how the color contrast is going to look. And if the column’s will work or not.

Before we get to the final part, you should see the “before” pics of the desk/office.

Now for the install.

And finally…   (pre-clutter)

I don’t know about you but I think Dave and Allen’s desk turned out just fine. Despite my intrusions into the building of the desk, I’m pretty proud of what they did.

There’s more to the story of this endeavor, but that’ll be for another day. If you want to see a few more pics, I’ll put some up on my Facebook page. Now if I could just sell a few books to cover the cost of this non-five-dollar desk, that’d be great.

The Monster Must Be Fed!

Here is a free pdf with a satirical description of some popular social networking sites and how to deal with them. Feel free to download it and pass it around if you feel it has value to others.

TheMonsterMustBeFed

*clicking link will automatically begin download.

In my latest blog series I’ve been asking people I follow on Twitter or their blogs to guest write a blog for mine on certain given subjects. I asked Bruce DeBoer of www.DeBoerWorks.com and my favorite www.permissiontosuck.net to write on the subject of “Anything worth doing is worth doing badly” and I let him have free reign on how to fill in the subject matter. Bruce was kind enough to say yes and to write on the subject below:

Humility is the Quiet Skill of Creativity
“When weaving a blanket, an Indian woman leaves a flaw in the weaving of that blanket to let the soul out.” – Martha Graham – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Graham

Reading words were once hieroglyphics. With talking, early on I was incomprehensible. With walking, ask a stroke victim how hard it is to relearn those first steps. Apparently we’re not afraid to be terrible when desire is high or fear is low. Conceivably, groundwork might be easier without speech so we couldn’t talk ourselves out of trying.

Enjoy your badness because once you’re accomplished there will be times where you think you were once better than you are. Backsliding is much less fun than improvement; there is fulfillment in working your way up from the mail room of creative talent.

If being an expert at anything means you abandoned your need for approval then it has real value. Unfortunately, revered talent has much more to lose than those rewarded for trying. There is something to be said for that grammar school soccer ribbon given for hard work – win or lose. All we have to do is try hard to win – you’ve already won. Life is that way – most success is just being there; so be there. Finding humility is the quiet skill of creativity. The justly successful are high achievers in creative humility. It’s why the most talented genuinely rebuff compliments, it keeps expectations low, both internal and external. “No really, I suck – don’t expect me to do this again anytime soon.” – is what the artist is thinking.

“The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic, and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant, and kind. Failure makes people bitter and cruel.” – W. Somerset Maugham

Accordingly, I believe sustained creative failure to be a refusal to accept humility, and an error isn’t failure unless you give up the fight. Authentic creatives have a passion for doing; they can’t not-do, and the results are secondary to the act, but no less important than their original idea. Sooner or later, humility provides freedom to fail.

If something is worth the effort, the rightly talented risks embarrassment. Only the arrogant and conceited perform solely what they look good doing. Humility shrinks our need for approval.
I don’t know about you, but I’m going to wait to begin painting until I’m an expert. How absurd. “If a thing is worth doing at all, it is worth doing badly.” – Gustav Holst – http://www.gustavholst.info/

You can follow Bruce at these sites:

www.permissiontosuck.net

www.DeBoerWorks.com

Twitter: @http://twitter.com/brucedeboer

For all those wonderful “social media experts” out there, Scott Stratten has a message for you about facebook. I loved it so much I’m posting it here, making it officially ripped off.

I most definitely feel Scott’s pain with app invites, farmville, mafia wars, notices to attend a local event in a country I don’t even live in…. Anyway on to the next Un-Amercian Idol

Today’s guest blog on creativity comes from @Mike Brown who is a very brilliant mind. I invited Mike to tackle the subject of having everything open for discussion during a brainstorming session, but how to deal with what “everything” means. See his wisdom below:

You’re probably very familiar with standard brainstorming admonitions such as any topic being okay for discussion and “no idea is a bad idea.”

But what’s your attitude toward these concepts outside a creative session? Specifically, if you want to foster a more creative workplace, are you willing to extend them into day-to-day work life?

Learning and experience has shaped my belief you’ll have a stronger, more creative team and organization if you are willing to consider observations on unexpected or potentially unwelcome topics pretty much any time. Doing so has provided many valuable, unanticipated insights into how people are thinking and reacting.

This openness isn’t without challenges though, particularly with people whose personal agendas get in the way. Here’s how as a leader to manage three less productive open discussions you may encounter:

When Something Doesn’t Matter – The standard I use for strategic discussion is focusing on “things that matter,” i.e., they create real results. In business though, much time gets spent discussing topics which ultimately have little material impact on real world outcomes. This can happen when someone fixates on a topic important to them, but of little relevance in the bigger scheme of things. Protracted discussion distracts from what really needs attention, leading to wasted energy and slowed progress.

How to handle these situations? Scuttling discussion on marginal subjects every time they’re raised signals the expectation you’ll only focus on things that matter. But doing this risks individuals shutting down on more important topics too. As a leader, it’s important to give in and discuss some of these issues, especially if valuable team members are raising them. You’ll more than make up for what seems like wasted time by cultivating a more engaged team.

Tackling Things That Matter a Lot – Maybe it’s a strategic decision, a company’s values, or a moral or ethical principle. Whatever the case, when a topic matters a lot, determining how open it should be for discussion is challenging. Typically, a decision has already been made or a very visible position taken suggesting those in charge aren’t open to further discussion or debate. Yet these very topics, when left untouched for extended periods, can result in blind spots. They may prove to be organizationally crippling long-term; in the near-term, ignoring the discussion can off-putting to team members who have legitimate, sincere, albeit conflicting points of view.

How to handle these situations? One way to allow conversation on seemingly unchangeable topics is through defined periods where they are open for discussion. This could be in conjunction with annual planning (with consideration of a company’s values, vision, or strategic foundations) or during a specific forum (i.e., a special meeting or conference) where discussion is entertained and deliverables expected. By opening windows for conversation on these topics, you’ll benefit from new and potentially impactful insights without wasting discussion time when there’s no realistic consideration of change.

Dealing with a Biased Point of View – I’ve dealt with a variety of co-workers so convinced of their own correctness that discussions on sensitive topics quickly become unproductive. They expect their desired resolution and every statement is geared toward force fitting a personal viewpoint without considering others might have legitimate perspectives.

How to handle these situations? There’s a maxim in courts of equity that “one who comes into equity must come with clean hands.” In short, it means if you’re asking for aid from another’s wrongs, you must not have committed a wrong yourself. I’ve adapted this concept as a guide for determining how open I’ll be to listening to someone who appears biased or dug in on a particular point of view. A person has to enter a conversation honestly – intellectually and ethically –with an openness to consider alternative positions. If someone expects an issue to be discussed yet is unwilling to consider alternatives or rethink a personal position, the privilege of having a topic re-considered isn’t earned. Set the stage by sharing ground rules upfront, making it clear an open conversation, or none at all, will take place.

So what do you think? If you’ve been using an “open discussion” policy, how are you managing them productively? And if you haven’t followed this approach, are you willing to give it a try and reap the creative benefits? – Mike Brown

# # #

Mike Brown is an award-winning marketer and strategist with extensive experience in research, strategy, branding, sponsorship marketing, and social media. He’s a frequent keynote presenter on innovation and is a Strategic Innovation Catalyst at Brainzooming™.

I thought this song from Phineas and Ferb’s Christmas Special was rather funny and thought provoking on a few levels. Take a listen, and after you can’t get it out of your head, the lyrics are below the video.

*Side note: if Phineas and Ferb are supposed to be on ‘permanent summer vacation’ then why do they have a “Christmas” special?? …just a thought.

You see Valentine’s is torture, and my Birthday is a mess
New Year’s is a lot of noise, and Arbor Day’s a pest!
Halloween’s a horror but I guess I must confess
That I really don’t hate Christmas!

You see Flag Day is infernal, April Fool’s is just a bore
Mardi Gras is a waste, unless you own a candy store
All these other holidays I can admit that I abhor
But I really don’t hate Christmas.

Now it isn’t that I like it, at the most I feel ambivalence
But should I really just destroy it? I’ll admit that I’m still on the fence,
It makes me tense!

From the evil scientists’ community I’m sure to get ejected
But for Christmas I can’t seem to summon any true invective
Because what is there to hate? I mean it’s really so subjective
No, I really don’t hate Christmas.

I hate puppy dogs and kittens, I hate flowers in the spring
Heck, I even hate the sunshine and the birdies when they sing
I can work up animosity for almost anything
Tell me why I don’t hate Christmas.

Though my childhood was atrocious, Christmas never was that bad, you see
So the most that I can muster is complete and total apathy
What’s wrong with me?

How can I prove that I’m an evil villain worth his salt
When with a holiday so jolly I can’t even find a fault
If I didn’t feel ambiguous I’d launch a big assault.
But I really don’t hate Christmas

Oh, what the heck. Kickline!

No I really…
No I really don’t hate Christmas!

I have an intense BURNING indifference!

So I had a thought, “I wonder what type of creative or funny Twitter List names people have come up with for some of the famous people on Twitter?” And I did some checking. I looked up www.wefollow.com to see types of people on Twitter and the most popular tags for types of people. Then I did some digging. Lots of digging. After almost a thousand page views of “listed” lists for these famous people I had to stop. But I did notice one thing on the political celebrities. It seems that Republican followers follow Democrats but Democratic followers don’t seem to follow Republican. The way I noticed it is by the list names from people. The Republican celebrities didn’t have any outstanding list names. They were all “republican” or “politics” or bland. But the Republican bent people had names for the Dem’ people they were following. You’ll note President Obama had quite a few funny or creative list names.

I also noticed that the more polarizing of a celebrity you were the harsher the list name was. Note Perez Hilton’s list names. I chose not to post some that were very harsh or quite vile.

I’m still compiling list names but for now here’s what I found. Some are funny, weird, mean, and well some I just didn’t understand:

Rev Run

@trevord209/lots-of-updates

@KimmieTex/brain-food

@pancakes4life/hollyho-s

Ellen DeGeneres

@ElleHadley/amazing-land-mammals

@daylenickee/i-be-creepin

@juancpgo/dicas

@chalitkid/just-trying-something-new

@bibiliybob/celebrities-or-santa

@netpup/misc-dribble

@Sk8eR_GiRL4ever/will-never-follow-back

Ashton Kutcher

@Cashblessings/network-markerters

@Satayar/hahalol

@psycrystal/design-resources

@bevolk/queenbees

@MPCheesecake/would-like-dinner-with

@WeblogofWeeds/passesthetime

@jorgedemelo/outofbrazil

@TulipFlower1/tulip

Perez Hilton

@HULAgate/unemployable

@celeb/gadfly

@CALLINGuOUT/fabricators

@OfficialMsBling/ugly-ones

@indehed/hollywood-post-a-lots

@misterdisco/horrible-people

@marconibeam/matteroflifeanddeath

Barrak Obama (note he is listed on over over 22,000 lists. I gave up looking after 500 pages)

@YWCAChicagoCEO/wonks-and-pols

@inbtwnrthedoors/people-i-don-t-know

@alissbiss/chessey-people

@boriiss/spy

@EffingTobster/naked-and-famous

@dubiouslygreat/you-may-have-heard-of

@razamabrar/ho

@Aritra_sen/anime

@innocentwood98/these-idiots-r-mah-lyf

@DolpheenaIDF/antisemitesnazisypathizer

@soulslikestars/fancy-pants

@joemsie/deaf-blind

@endlessummertan/tanning-specials

@Caitlinwoods/mypuddings

@StrickFit/odd-men-out

@tracd12/crazy-people

@junebuggy61698/gummie-bear

@QPRISEllc/dogs

@SaveTheBluefin/savethebluefintuna

Fireproof is bulletproof. Men, read this book.

I’m not the kind of reviewer who tells you the whole story in a book review. For me that’s like telling a potential reader they don’t need to read it. What I will tell you is that the novelization of Fireproof by Eric Wilson is well worth the read. I’m sure many women will buy the book just based on the marriage issue that the story is based on. But I’d like to tell all the men out there that this book is a great read. Its a book that even the toughest guy can read and not feel like he’s reading a mushy romance novel being marketed as a man’s book. Fireproof the book will keep men interested and page turning till the end. Its part action adventure and all the “hero” dreams men have of wanting to do something great, part love story and part “how to deal.” Men you won’t be disappointed and I can almost guarantee you’ll learn a lot about life without having to feel less of a man.

Fireproof

More details on the story here