Construct It!

I have this idea to open a restaurant and call it CHAR.

This is, as you might expect, a reflection on my cooking style. Twice now, in our new house, I have cooked my foolproof pork chop method, set off the fire alarm, and received an urgent call from our home security company. If I don’t talk to a nice lady who is asking me what my security word is, I can no longer be sure that my pork chops are cooked.

But this is not my million-dollar idea. It does have much to do with us having just moved house, though.

I love the reality/game show Making It. The people are adorable, including the hosts – Amy Poehler and Nick Offerman – and the tasks are interesting and surprising. It is at the forefront of what apparently is now called “Nicecore” – which is exactly what it sounds like. People do crafting challenges – creating things in their own styles to fulfill the show’s brief: Something to remind you of your childhood, a gift for a real or imagined pet, a front lawn celebration of a holiday that will make all the HOAs in American collectively explode.

My spin, based on my recent house-moving experience, is a show that features teams of experts and non-experts – one each per team couple – who must put together household furniture and other items without the instructions. I have recently experienced buying furniture on Etsy, much of it from foreign companies, and my experiences have been mixed. Some come with all the parts and are no problem at all to put together. Others, though, come with some of the parts, but (for example) no holes for the screws or any indication of where the screws might go.

(I have, incidentally, reached Peak Middle Class by learning to not be embarrassed to pay a complete stranger to put together furniture for me. This has been life-changing.)

So, as a pilot episode of my show, we would have the following.

First quick-fire round: Put together a simple hanging bird-feeder, against the clock.
Second quick-fire round: Put together a more complicated bird bath, against the clock.
Final round: I don’t know, a gazebo? Something big.

And nothing comes with a description, a picture, or an indication of what it’s supposed to be.

Later episodes could include bunk beds, TV stands (without screw holes…I’m still bitter…), chests of drawers. Maybe Lego sets? I’m still brainstorming here. Points go to the team that finishes first; that matches the actual design; that makes improvements to the actual design.

I would call it Construct It! And the hosts would be Amy Poehler and Nick Offerman. Obviously.