Bath Update & A Little Paula Abdul

We had some awesome weather here last week, which gave me a chance to head out to the garage and make some progress on my bath projects.  Which is good.  Because I have a lot of them!

I stained and cut the wood for shutters to go on the window.  Now I need to touch up stain on some cuts and then assemble.  I also began the herringbone frame for the mirror.

The biggest project, the vanity, went well… until it didn’t. I was so careful with all of my measurements, and being gentle with the wood, and assembling with care…  I made great progress one day, getting most of the frame assembled.  I made and attached the feet and top trim.  I felt great, buzzing with a sense of accomplishment, even taking a few pics to send to my husband so he could pretend to share in my joy!

And then I took it into the bathroom to measure exactly where the plumbing was. It seemed a little big. I knew it would feel a  little tight, especially compared to the wall sink there now.  But oh well, I thought, naively.

Then I placed the sink on top.  And wait a second… it’s 3 inches too long! Wait, what?  I have no idea how that happened. I had originally drawn up a wider vanity, and so I must have pulled the measurements from the wrong sketch??… I have no idea.  Still don’t.

So there she sat, in my living room, for a couple of days because I was too annoyed with the whole thing.  I was excited for my progress, and then not only was that progress taken away, but I had to add more work to the whole thing by cutting it down and reassembling.  During this time I decided to move the drawer to the bottom because the sink was just so obtrusive.  More on that later…

A couple of days later, when I was ready to just get it done, I took it out to the garage and took it apart, cut down the long pieces, and began putting it back together.  Only it wasn’t going back together.  I thought I just didn’t have the end panels lined up correctly, but after lots of maneurvering, I figured out the problem.  I had switched the front panel trims – the shorter one on the bottom rather than the top where it should be, and vice versa.

And so I detached the trim pieces… AGAIN.

In the middle of all of this were about 832 requests for swing pushing, swing moving, bikes taken down, and juice…  So that’s what I will blame for the next part.  After attaching my trim to the first end panel, I tried, again, to line up the other end panel.  But it wasn’t lining up…. AGAIN!  Yup… I made the SAME. EXACT. MISTAKE…. TWICE!

Ugh….

I then checked and checked again and finally felt that I was ready to put it together for the, count ’em, third time.  And hallelujiah I got it right this time!

Woo hoo!!!

But then wait, remember how I said I had decided to move my drawer down?  That changed the way the vanity would be assembled, and meant that I wasn’t assembling it correctly at all.  I needed to attach the ends together using the front panel, rather than the panel trim. And at that point I walked away.  I haven’t been back.  But I do glare at that vanity every time I walk by it.  I guess I’ll have to make up with it soon…

And so that was my Paula Abdul action last week… 2 steps forward, 2 steps back…. Opposites Attract.  I can attest to that.  My husband I are opposites in many ways.  He would have NEVER made those mistakes.  Not because he would have been uber careful and checked everything several times first, but because he’d never be making a vanity to begin with.

If anything, this story confirms that the title of my blog, is as true as ever.  And I hope this anecdote gives you a bit of courage to jump in to woodworking or house projects that you are afraid to tackle.  After all, we all make mistakes. It’s usually nothing that another trip to Lowe’s, and a lot of laughing at yourself, can’t fix…

-Marianne