Lees, Lees, Lees

Photo credit: Jon Rausseo

When furniture reaches its expiry date, or simply doesn’t fit a space anymore, what do you do? Throwing it out is a waste of perfectly good furniture, but who has the time to dismantle countless pieces and recycle them, especially if the units can be reused? That is where we come in. Our furniture recycling program takes undesired furniture from all over campus and tries to find a new home for it! In the interim, the furniture gets stored at 200 Lees, where I lurk with a clipboard and pen, desperately trying to create a wonderful inventory system for it. Currently, the system follows the come-by-and-see method, usually followed by okay-let’s-find-a-matching-chair-and/or-table.

What I am aiming to do is create a method to our madness, and make this furniture recycling program into something more. We want the rooms that the items are stored in to eventually look like showroom floors: well-organized, well-labelled and tidy. That end product is still floating on the horizon, but is close enough to be reached. So, what exactly have I been doing all this time over there?

What Vedrana Does at 200 Lees: A Breakdown
My job is to:
  1. Find matching furniture and make sure it’s all grouped, for easy access (this part is clearly not done entirely by me, as I cannot singlehandedly manoeuvre 200 lb tables shaped like tetris pieces through doorways),
  2. Identify the number of unique pieces and label them with masking tape (usually resulting in accidental masking tape waxing and/or permanent marker stains),
  3. Log the bar codes of the items in addition to their newly assigned numbers,
  4. Dismantle and recycle furniture that cannot be reused due to its poor condition (lamenting its loss if it is a particularly excellent and/or neon item),
  5. Photograph it in a tasteful way (this isn’t Victoria’s Secret, now), and
  6. Input all the data into a master spreadsheet that will allow people to access our information with ease.
So, that’s about it for me and 200 Lees; if you ever need some free furniture, do come by (contact Jon Rausseo or Brigitte Morin first, though)!

-vedrana

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