What have I gotten myself into?

Well, it’s been a while, but that’s kinda how things go, isn’t it? For those of you who don’t have Facebook or have somehow creeped out from under a rock and immediately gained access to the internet, here’s a quick summary as to what I’ve been up to lately. I went to ranger academy last Fall in Flagstaff, Arizona and then spent the Winter in Park City, Utah ski patrolling at Park City Mountain Resort. After the season was finished (and it ended 6 weeks early for me due to lack of snow) I moved back up to Alaska and picked up where I left off and I got a dog. Was that a quick enough summary? Good, moving on.

So when I got back to Alaska, I moved into park-supplied housing, where I have been living for the past 8 months. I’ve been essentially housesitting for another ranger and his wife who were gone for training for the past year. I’ve been eating on their plates, breaking their glasses and using their furniture while they’ve been gone. It was kinda like moving into a vacation home where everything is already supplied! It’s been pretty cushy. I’m really fortunate to have such great friends that let me come in and invade their home completely unsupervised for a year. The dream had to end at some point though and I will be moving out on January 1, 2013.  So, where to go from here?

The park only has one place to live that is both winterized and allows pets and that is the house that I’m currently living in, so I have to go out into the dark and cold world of private rentership. I’m lucky enough to have found a neighbor across the street from me (as across the street as it gets in Alaska, probably about a mile and a half away) who is renting out his 2 story log cabin. He’s splitting it up into an upstairs and a downstairs apartment and it looks like I’ll be moving into the upstairs.

This cabin has some, well, character, you could say. It was last decorated (as far as I can tell) in the late 70’s (green shag carpeting, stained glass windows and 117”X74” mural of a woodland scene included). I’m not one who has ever been picky about décor, but the fiesta red raffia cabinet in the bathroom has to go.  The outside stairwell (my access into my portion of the house) has to my knowledge, has also not been updated since that date, which if you’ve ever been to Alaska, wood doesn’t fair well here and they’re beginning to look a little dicey. Other than that, it’s a great “big girl” house and I’m really looking forward to moving it. So, all things considered, I’m doing beyond all right. I’ll have 2 bedrooms, bath, kitchen and large living room. It’s almost like I’m a real person.

So along with all of this newfound power, comes the responsibility of furnishing it and making it a place for friends to always be welcome in. When I left California, I sold/gave away every piece of furniture I owned. I’ve been fortunate enough to have made it this far without furniture, but it looks like my luck has run out and it’s finally time to get some more. If you’ve never been to Alaska or even thought about Alaska, then you may or may not be aware of the cost of living differences and shipping challenges that we face here. Things are staggeringly expensive (my hummus sandwich and a soda cost $14 before tip at the local deli) and shipping large items nearly breaks the bank. I also live in a remote town and the largest “big city” is Juneau, which is 7 hours away by ferry or Anchorage, which is 16 hours away by car. This is all just to say that buying furniture can be challenging. My town of a few hundred is definitely not large enough to have a furniture store either (our hardware store has a few pieces, but see above for prices).

So what does a girl have to do to get some furniture up here? Well, buy it second hand (or in this town, more like 5^th hand), pay for it dearly or build it yourself. I have chosen the latter. I am going to build all of my own furniture from scratch.

Yeah, I’m about to go crazy. No, apart from time spent in my Uncle Ray’s woodshop as a kid where I pretty much did the sweeping and he did the building, I have absolutely no experience whatsoever. Anyone who has ever dealt with me and anything maintenance related can attest to that. I’m going to pick up some really good life skills and make some furniture that I can tell stories about for years to come. What have I gotten myself into?

This all really came about when I was aimlessly surfing the web one day and happened across this website called Knock-off Wood (http://www.ana-white.com). Ana, the founder of the website, is a homemaker (every pun intended) up here in Alaska and she encountered the issues I outlined above in getting furniture. She decided to start breaking down Pottery Barn, Anthropologie, Restoration Hardware and many more companies’ furniture into “simple” designs that supposedly “anyone” can do at a fraction of the cost of buying it from the store. I’m going to put that to the test.

I’ve pulled designs for 10 different pieces of furniture (bed, kitchen table, kitchen benches, coffee table, console table, end table, media center, desk, bed side tables and recycling center) and I am going to build them.  They are all pretty classic designs (see my Pinterest at rangerliz if you want to see the plans for yourself) and to my completely untrained eye, I think I can do this.

One lesson I have learned in life is that the value of friends’ skills cannot be undervalued. One of my coworkers here was a member of the carpentry crew last year and has done a lot of maintenance work in the park and he is conveniently unemployed and out of housing when I’m looking to begin the build, so I’m going to put him to work for room and board to teach me the basics. I figured feeding him and putting him up in my spare bedroom were a small price to pay to minimize the inevitable screaming and throwing of tools. Hopefully with his knowledge and the knowledge of others, (who have already begun teaching me the basics) we can make this happen.

I have begun somewhat maniacally researching building techniques, tools and lumber in a vain attempt to somehow be ready for what’s about to come. I spend a good chunk of time most evenings trying to plan for something that I know nothing about (I mean, what else am I going to do? It gets dark at 2:45 in the afternoon and it’s COLD. I’m not going out there.) I’m hoping that all of this effort will pay off in a relatively inexpensive and stress-free as possible build that gives me only half-wobbly furniture.

I spent a good bit of my day today breaking down my lumber costs and trying to figure out the best way to go about buying it (Do I go down to Juneau on the ferry and have to spend 2 nights until the next ferry?  Do I drive to Whitehorse, Canada and how much will the exchange rate, credit card foreign transaction fees, and taxes add up to? Will the road even be open because of the avalanches that time of year? Do I wait til I go to Anchorage for training in April? Do I buy it locally and just pay several hundred dollars more? Do I hope the magical lumber fairies drop it from the sky? The logistics go on and on. This is life in Alaska.) The answer is, TBD. Ick.

Well, hopefully this catches everyone up with me and will provide some more material for some blog posts to come. I felt like I was becoming redundant before, but I think there will be lots of challenges and learning for me to write about and for everyone to laugh at me for to come. If you feel like coming up here around late February/early March, I’ll put you to work helping me build some furniture!

Til then,

Liz