By Paul Bianchina
After 30-plus years of marriage, there are four little words that my wife has learned to absolutely dread.
“I can make that.”
It starts out something like this. We’ll be in a store somewhere. She’ll see something she’d like to buy for the house, such as a simple little shelf, she’ll point it out to me. I’ll study it with a critical eye while she cringes waits for the inevitable.
“You know, there’s really nothing to that. It’s actually pretty simple. I could make that.”
“I knew you were going to say that. You always say that. Just this once, can’t we just buy it?”
“But look at it,” I reply, with all reasonableness. “Why throw good money away on some piece of imported junk, when I can make something even better. And for less!”
“I’ll tell you why. Because it’s a two-foot shelf. It costs 10 bucks. And I can have it today. If I leave it to you, you’ll over-think it over-engineer it. It’ll cover an entire wall, it’ll cost eleven hundred dollars, it’ll take three years of reminding you before you even buy the lumber! Then you’ll need some special tool, some special bit-thingy, you’ll spend another month doing research on the Internet, you’ll order some hardware then return it, then start stop the project eight times, in the end I’ll never, ever, ever see the stupid shelf! That’s why!!”
Okay. Those are, perhaps, in a way, semi-valid arguments. So this time, I thought I’d prove her wrong.
As soon as we got home, I disappeared into the shop set to work. It was, after all, just a 2-foot shelf. But then I thought, what would you put on a 2-foot shelf anyway?
Wouldn’t 3-feet be better? Or perhaps even 4? Or maybe a pair of 4-foot shelves – now that would really be h y. Plus you could get those out of one 8-foot board without any waste, so that would be thrifty also, who can argue with thrifty in this day age, right?
So I started to sketch something out. But somehow, a pair of plain old 4-foot shelves didn’t look right. They seemed unbalanced somehow. Maybe three of them. That’s better. But that would take a 12-foot board, or two 8-foot boards with some waste. How about four 4-foot shelves, you know, for economy sake? But now we’re getting a little cumbersome. If we’re going to go with four shelves, it would probably look better if the shelves were longer. Maybe 6-feet. That’s it. Four 6-foot shelves. Perfect! But the lumber yard only stocks that particular wood in 8-foot lengths, so that means 2-feet of waste, which is just silly. Might as well make the shelves the full 8-feet, not waste anything. Then we can put more stuff on them anyway. That’s not over-thinking things, that’s just being practical!
Oh, oh – a drawer. Yeah – a drawer. A drawer would be a perfect place to store little stuff that we don’t want out on the shelf! This just keeps getting better better. One little drawer under the bottom shelf – she can’t possibly object to that. In fact, she’ll praise me for my foresight, then she’ll see why that cheap imported shelf she was looking at was only 10 bucks in the first place – it didn’t have a drawer!
But you know, one little drawer looks kinda funny under an 8-foot shelf. Maybe a pair of drawers. Naw, still looks funny. How about three? Yeah, three looks good, at least on paper. But 8-feet is awfully hard to divide by three. That’s like 2 feet a bunch of inches. How about four drawers? That comes out even, with four drawers, we can even organize all the stuff we put in them. Cool!
Wait, wait – I know! Two rows of drawers! It’s perfect!! Two rows of four drawers each, underneath the four 8-foot shelves. Now that’s symmetry! And I’ll put label holders on the fronts of the drawers, so we know what’s in them. I think I have catalogs somewhere in my office with label holders in them. If not, I’m sure I can find them on the Internet somewhere. Oh, oh – hooks! Some cool little hooks underneath the drawers that are underneath the shelves. That way we can hang the things that won’t sit on the shelves won’t fit in the drawers. That is soooo practical. This is exactly what she doesn’t underst about the intricacies of good design work.
And I’m pretty sure I saw a special router bit that cuts an inverted T-shaped groove that accepts a special sliding hook that interlocks with a bunch of other accessories, like hangers racks little jars these awesome covered bins that have glass fronts hold all kinds of things.
Oh, oh – a metal surface for magnets, so we can post notes things. Yeah! And some cork for a bulletin board, in case we have notes that we don’t want to put under the magnets. And oh yeah, I know, a white-board area, for writing notes lists reminders.
And right at the top, I could wire in a spotlight, so you can see what’s on the shelves in the drawers on the hooks under the magnets on the bulletin board. With a couple of switches so you can turn it on from either side. And maybe a dimmer switch. Oh, a timer, so it shuts itself off when we go to bed, in case we forget.
This is perfect! I can’t wait to show my wife. It’s practical, I can have it done in just a month or two. This’ll teach her to doubt me.
Wait. What’s this on the wall? No it, it can’t be.
It’s the shelf! She went out got that cheap little 2-foot shelf, darn her! Although I have to admit – it does look kinda nice there.
You know, I bet I could have made that.
Paul Bianchina can be reached at paul2887@ykwc.net for comments.