Hasta La Ideas

I refer to some of the things I’ve built as “crap” because a) It’s often built from leftover materials, b) I’m more concerned with utility than a high level of finish, and c) Not knowing what to do, I often make it up as I go along. Here I’ll walk you through how I built some banquettes.

Pornographers ruined my couch. I had a nice big couch in the photography rental studio that I run, and I unwittingly rented the studio out to a porno film crew, and they ruined the couch in exactly the disgusting way you’d think they would. I tried cleaning it but eventually sent the couch back from whence it came, Craigslist.

Now couch-less, I needed to provide my studio clients with a comfortable seating surface, but had very little money. I also had a bunch of building materials left behind by a legitimate film crew who constructed a fake elevator interior in the studio for a shoot. So I decided to use what I could scrounge to build a banquette, or actually, two of them. An industrial design grad should be able to build what they need, even if they don’t know how to, no?

Here I’ll show you what I’ve done, including all the mistakes I made and things I wish I’d known beforehand, in case you want to attempt similar.

(more…)