So, I started researching/getting into witchcraft about 5 years ago. A year before that, my partner and I were very fortunate and able to get this big older house in the semi-rural outskirts of an Indiana city on the cheap, because it hadn't been updated since it was built in 1978... and required some extensive but not completely horrible renovations (bones of the house were good... mostly.)
I have an office. When we moved in, it's where we had to sleep because our actual bedroom needed to be repaired and redone, so it was earmarked for my office for the first 2 years we lived here. I remember when I was first reading witchcraft books in bed, absorbed in a new special interest, dreaming about when I could finally make my space my own-- and how would I fit an altar in here?
I'm autistic, and it's the kind of autism where my space is deeply integral to my well-being. If my space isn't orderly and pleasing to my eyes, it reduces my spoon count by a staggering amount. (This made living in a constant construction zone very, very, very hard on me, but that's beside the point.) For me to be able to engage in an activity on the regular, whether it be cooking or playing games or playing music or painting miniatures, I need there to be a designated, organized, clean space for it. Any time I spend digging supplies out of a closet that are behind other supplies hogs up valuable amounts of my limited mental bandwidth.
To sum it up, I knew I would need an altar space. The kind of altar space that had drawers and storage integrated with it, where on the top surface I could make things pretty to inspire me, and have all my supplies ready to go at a moment's notice.
However... as I mentioned, I was reading a bunch of witchcraft books. I got super in my head about what I actually wanted to have be my altar. It's going to be more "magical" if it's a hand-crafted item, right? And obviously I wanted it to be made out of real wood, not out of particleboard off of some place like Amazon or Wayfair. I knew it would be expensive and that I would have to wait a long time for it-- but that's worth it, right?
I spent hours on Etsy, finding small altar tables but nothing that really spoke to me (and since it's Etsy, not being sure if it was actually an item handmade by the seller or simply drop shipped from another supplier.) I thought about my good friend Jamie, who was really getting into woodworking and had already made furniture for their own house. I also wanted to get into woodworking. Maybe she could help me make this! After all, what could be more magical than an altar table built by you and a good friend? Or maybe I should do some thrifting or garage sale-ing?
Nothing ever really came of any of this. We still had a house to work on, that's where my time and money and energy had to go. In the meantime, I threw up various folding tables in the space in my office by the window where I knew I probably wanted an altar to go. At least it gave me a place to put my plants in the winter.
Fast-forward to a month ago. The house is mostly together, we will need to add things like baseboards, but at least every room is functional. Due to that and other circumstances, we're taking a break on major house projects this year. My partner and I got some new desks-- I said goodbye to a faithful old L-shaped glass desk I got at an Office Depot 12 years ago and upgraded to a non-L-shaped standing desk. This change of desk shape made me realize I didn't really have any place to put my stuff, save for a closet. I have books and electronics scattered across my desk most of the time, and even though I loved my new desk, I could no longer sit these things off to the side on the "L" part in neat little stacks. This absolutely started to drive me nuts. It was time that I had more furniture in my office besides my desk and a folding table next to the window. I needed a storage solution.
I will stan IKEA so hard when it comes to storage systems. When I lived in my apartment, it allowed us to neatly fit a staggering amount of stuff in there and make it still look good. The end tables in our bedroom and the TV stand in our basement are from the BESTA line. I have a BILLY bookcase that I hacked some LEDs into to turn it into a light-up beverage shelf. I have a rail system I use as my pot rack in my kitchen. Most of this stuff is back from when I lived in my apartment, survived the trip to the new house, and stayed useful in the new space. IKEA is so good at modular, customizable storage, and I will die on that hill.
So, to IKEA I went to figure out a new storage solution for my office, quickly cobbling together something that would meet my needs. There was a special going on for free shipping for furniture items if you spent over a certain dollar amount. I asked my partner if he thought he wanted anything, he said no, so I started poking around the site for anything else we might need.
And I came across this sideboard cabinet. It was the perfect width to sit in front of my window. It had two shallow drawers sitting under the top, and two big cabinet doors underneath that. It was a pretty shade of dark brown.
It. Was. Perfect.
I felt some hesitation. Did I really want to get like, real furniture from IKEA? It was also like $500. Cheap in the realm of fine furniture, sure, but absolutely the most money I would have ever spent on a single item from there. Plus, $500 is not an insignificant chunk of change on its own, and over double the amount I was about to spend on my other storage.
And then, I thought, why the hell not? I knew that, due to my brain wiring, not having a dedicated space really cut down on the amount of actual witch crafting I was doing. Did I really want to wait years and years longer until our budget could allow for a bespoke furniture item that would cost over a thousand dollars (if not thousands?) Would I have to work on my woodworking skills for countless hours just so that I could finally have the skills to craft the altar of my dreams so that I could finally do more magic?
All of that stupid nonsense I had been feeding in my brain came tumbling out. After 5 long years, I just wanted to be able to use my space to do stuff.
And so, I bought the IDANÄS sideboard. It finally arrived on Thursday, and I put it together on Saturday. As I moved my witchy stuff from my closet and into the new cabinet, I couldn't believe how well everything fit and how it was exactly what I wanted. It was perfect.
So let this be a lesson to you, witches. Get out of your damn head. Buy the cheap furniture or whatever it is if it fits your needs and your constraints, whether they be time-related, money-related, or both. And sometimes the most perfect thing for you comes in the most unexpected way.
This morning one of my cats jumped up onto the new sideboard. We typically discourage our cats from hanging out on tables, but I knew he just wanted to look out the window and I don't have any cat furniture in here.
He curled up on my altar cloth and started to nap.
It was magical.
NOTE: The above is NOT an advertisement for IKEA, I promise XD
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