Well at least this post will provide a good laugh for everyone... although I'm not quite there just yet.
Here's what has happened:
This project was going to be a new bookcase for my living room. It is a very cool, modern design (see picture), but a fairly complex project (at least for someone who has just started out building things).
Anyway, things were going well. We gathered up the boards we needed and headed to have them cut. Then, a wonderful thing happened! I spotted full sheets of mdf for only $25/sheet!!!! They weren’t pre-primed, but that wasn’t a huge deal. Basically by having them cut the sheets for us instead of using the 1x12 precut boards, we only spent a total of $50!!!! Incredible, right?! What a great way to start a project. And a great way to convince Ray that this was a good new hobby of mine :).
Now, what would’ve made this wood 100% perfect would’ve been perfect cuts. Unfortunately home depot has not proven itself to me in this area just yet. Once I got the wood home and started setting myself up to put it all together, I started noticing just how much of the wood was uneven. Problem #1.
Problem #2 was my fault. I didn’t really think through my process of putting this thing together. Sure, I had the plans from the Knock-Off Wood site, but the way that she said to do it didn’t make much sense to me (although it will later on). Plus, I didn’t really think that I had the workspace or enough tools to do it the way that she did. So, I did it my own way. Sigh… will I ever learn???
Actually, it wasn’t a total disaster really… at least not yet. Basically what I did was put all of my squares together first. Since my boards were not perfectly cut, I then sanded them down to make the edges nice and smooth. But then, when I went to attach all my, what I thought were, now perfectly smooth squares to the tall sides and back I realized that by sanding them down first I made each individual square different from one another. So I ran into the issue of trying to attach uneven squares to a really long board and trying to get them all flush. Not an easy task. Actually, a pretty much impossible task. Especially since I was trying to do all of this on the floor of our garage with nothing to help me support the boards. So, I managed to assemble an entire side like this and when I stood it up I grew very disappointed… it was crooked. Not so crooked that I couldn’t make it work, but still, crooked. I decided to call it a day and saved side 2 for the next.
Learning from the many, many mistakes I made while assembling side 1, side 2 came out much better. I actually used the work bench this time so I was working from a much better angle. This also provided me with a wall which I could use as leverage when drilling and putting the screws in. With side 1, I had to physically try to hold the board still while drilling/screwing. I also decided to actually put the wood glue on my boards first, then I fastened them down where I needed them to go, then I drilled and put the screws in all in one easy swoop. With side 1, I had drilled the holes first, removed the board to put the wood filler on it, then attempted to put it back exactly as I had it so that when I put the screws in they found my original holes at the original angles. Needless to say, this did not always work well. My all in one method did though . All in all, I was VERY happy with the way side 2 came out. Now all I had to do was figure out the best way to make side 1 work… which I eventually made it satisfactory, but not perfect.
Here are some pics of my pre-assembled bookcase. It’s not all screwed together at this point… I was really just trying to make sure everything fit in the way it was supposed to.
I woke up this morning anxious to get the other side caulked so that I could do a final sanding over it and start painting. It was a great feeling… I was almost done and really excited to see the end product. But then reality hit me. As I got myself ready to caulk side 2 I noticed what I had done. Last night, in my desperate attempt to find working caulk, I didn’t pay attention to what kind of caulk was in that 3rd tube. And, of course, it had to be silicone. For those of you who don’t know much about caulk, silicone caulk is UNPAINTABLE!!!! Yep, that’s right. I caulked an entire side of my bookcase in white, unpaintable caulk!
I wanted to cry. In fact I called Ray and probably would’ve started crying, but his immediate reaction was “well, just toss it and start over”. And he was right. I did make a lot of mistakes with this first trial and the wood was fairly inexpensive, why not start over? Sounds like a good plan to me :). I think I’m still ok with side 2 and my large cubbies, so really I only need to rebuild the one side. Which to be completely honest will probably make the bookcase much better anyway since side 1 was my trouble side :). Or maybe I will just redo the entire thing. I don’t know… I’ll get Ray’s opinion when he is home tomorrow. For now, I’m just going to take a little break and let all of my mistakes sink in so that I don’t re-make them in round 2 :)!
Here's what has happened:
This project was going to be a new bookcase for my living room. It is a very cool, modern design (see picture), but a fairly complex project (at least for someone who has just started out building things).
The project started off great. Ray and I went to Home Depot (with the girls in tow) and found just the wood we were looking for… that which was suggested in the project plans. It was perfect! 1x12 boards of primed mdf… perfectly smooth and it would give me just the look I was going for. The only problem was that the wood was a little on the expensive side… probably one of the most expensive pieces sold at Home Depot. Still, it was only going to cost about $120 total for this project… not bad in my opinion, especially when the Crate and Barrel version is $350!!!
Now, what would’ve made this wood 100% perfect would’ve been perfect cuts. Unfortunately home depot has not proven itself to me in this area just yet. Once I got the wood home and started setting myself up to put it all together, I started noticing just how much of the wood was uneven. Problem #1.
Problem #2 was my fault. I didn’t really think through my process of putting this thing together. Sure, I had the plans from the Knock-Off Wood site, but the way that she said to do it didn’t make much sense to me (although it will later on). Plus, I didn’t really think that I had the workspace or enough tools to do it the way that she did. So, I did it my own way. Sigh… will I ever learn???
Actually, it wasn’t a total disaster really… at least not yet. Basically what I did was put all of my squares together first. Since my boards were not perfectly cut, I then sanded them down to make the edges nice and smooth. But then, when I went to attach all my, what I thought were, now perfectly smooth squares to the tall sides and back I realized that by sanding them down first I made each individual square different from one another. So I ran into the issue of trying to attach uneven squares to a really long board and trying to get them all flush. Not an easy task. Actually, a pretty much impossible task. Especially since I was trying to do all of this on the floor of our garage with nothing to help me support the boards. So, I managed to assemble an entire side like this and when I stood it up I grew very disappointed… it was crooked. Not so crooked that I couldn’t make it work, but still, crooked. I decided to call it a day and saved side 2 for the next.
Learning from the many, many mistakes I made while assembling side 1, side 2 came out much better. I actually used the work bench this time so I was working from a much better angle. This also provided me with a wall which I could use as leverage when drilling and putting the screws in. With side 1, I had to physically try to hold the board still while drilling/screwing. I also decided to actually put the wood glue on my boards first, then I fastened them down where I needed them to go, then I drilled and put the screws in all in one easy swoop. With side 1, I had drilled the holes first, removed the board to put the wood filler on it, then attempted to put it back exactly as I had it so that when I put the screws in they found my original holes at the original angles. Needless to say, this did not always work well. My all in one method did though . All in all, I was VERY happy with the way side 2 came out. Now all I had to do was figure out the best way to make side 1 work… which I eventually made it satisfactory, but not perfect.
Here are some pics of my pre-assembled bookcase. It’s not all screwed together at this point… I was really just trying to make sure everything fit in the way it was supposed to.
Alright, fast forward just a little bit…. I redid the bottom left box (as you can see in the pics this part was pretty crooked for some reason, I sanded it all so that the front was nice and flush, and I completed the assembly as best I could considering my individual pieces were not exactly right. So now I am ready to start finishing it up. I decided to use Ray’s technique of using caulk in the corners to give it a nice, clean, smooth look. Not a bad idea, right? For any other person its not… for me on the other hand, VERY bad idea. It was about 8 o’clock last night and both girls were actually in bed. I decided that I would go ahead and get the caulk started so that I could start priming today. I find where Ray has all the caulk and pull out a half used tube of Wood & Door caulk but couldn’t get it to work. I pulled out an un-open tube of Wood & Door caulk and couldn’t get that one to work either. Maybe this should’ve been my clue to give up and go to bed. But NOOOOOO! Not me. I was determined. So I pull out a third tube. And this one worked!! Yay! I caulked all of side 1 before deciding it was time for bed.
I woke up this morning anxious to get the other side caulked so that I could do a final sanding over it and start painting. It was a great feeling… I was almost done and really excited to see the end product. But then reality hit me. As I got myself ready to caulk side 2 I noticed what I had done. Last night, in my desperate attempt to find working caulk, I didn’t pay attention to what kind of caulk was in that 3rd tube. And, of course, it had to be silicone. For those of you who don’t know much about caulk, silicone caulk is UNPAINTABLE!!!! Yep, that’s right. I caulked an entire side of my bookcase in white, unpaintable caulk!
I wanted to cry. In fact I called Ray and probably would’ve started crying, but his immediate reaction was “well, just toss it and start over”. And he was right. I did make a lot of mistakes with this first trial and the wood was fairly inexpensive, why not start over? Sounds like a good plan to me :). I think I’m still ok with side 2 and my large cubbies, so really I only need to rebuild the one side. Which to be completely honest will probably make the bookcase much better anyway since side 1 was my trouble side :). Or maybe I will just redo the entire thing. I don’t know… I’ll get Ray’s opinion when he is home tomorrow. For now, I’m just going to take a little break and let all of my mistakes sink in so that I don’t re-make them in round 2 :)!
since the caulk is white, paint it white, and use it in one of the kids rooms as added storage. Or maybe in a garage for storage.
You read my mind. That is exactly what I'm going to do... probably won't even paint it, but we are just going to use it in the garage instead of wasting it :). Thanks for the ideas though!!