Playing with Power Tools...

It's been a crazy week. But here is why I've been missing all week on the blog:

Yeah. This thing took all freaking week.  I started tinkering with the idea for a shelf for Benjamin's room about a week or so ago, when I realized that his legos were taking over the whole damn house. Not to mention the fact that when he finishes a set, it often gets set aside, knocked over, broken apart, and may never get put back together.

I've seen these shelves online and in various stores, and really liked them. I've also been looking for an excuse to see if I could actually accomplish a woodworking project like this. It's one of the things that has been on my list for when I have some time, and what better time than now, right? So I found an online plan, did a little research, figured out that we probably had most of the tools that I needed to do this, took a deep breath, and jumped in.

This is probably a fairly simple project for anyone who has any experience with wood working. Read: NOT ME. I had to learn several fun lessons about circular saws and where you make your cuts on the wood (note: on the outside of your line; otherwise, your board is too short). I also got to play with a protractor (my miter box doesn't have 15 degrees on it), and learned how valuable a sander and some wood glue can be in covering up all sorts of mishaps. 

So the pros here:

• Only one trip to Lowes to get all the wood and stuff I needed.
• I didn't mess anything up the point where I couldn't recover it.
• It's actually standing up and seems pretty sturdy;
• I actually FINISHED it - this was the part I was most concerned about. I could totally see me finding a problem somewhere, getting frustrated and impatient, and either messing it all up or just walking away and never finishing it.
• I learned a LOT. I think I can fix most of the errors I made on this one. Alyssa wants one for her room (of course), so this time around I'm going to do a few things differently. Hopefully this one won't take quite as long.
• I'm really, really happy with it.

The cons:

• I did mess up a couple of the shelves, but that was part of the learning process;
• I got lazy towards the end and just screwed in screws wherever.
• It took me an entire damn week. (But it was worth it.)