Always Measure Twice, and Cut Once

It's been quite hectic around these parts lately. I looked up one day and realized I was working on about 8 things at the same time. Needless to say I was feeling the burnout. Hard to believe considering that making things is something that I love to do. Though it was not all my fault. Usually my rule is to stick to one project at a time. However, this project got the best of me. Talk about trying my patience. Many expletives were said during the course of this creation.What is it you wonder? A pullout drawer. I wanted to add another level to my closet island.

My original thoughts were that this should be a fairly easy and quick project considering all it consisted of was a box and a sliding mechanism. First, I cut all the pieces. I definitely measured twice and cut once on this one. To get it to work, everything had to be pretty precise.

The front piece was cut longer so it could cover the drawer slides from the front. I used Wood Glue to hold all of the pieces together. Then I added nails to the sides for extra reinforcement. 

I definitely did a terrible job picking out wood because the pieces I grabbed were not completely straight. They were curved a little length wise, and one of the pieces had a warped section at the end. Shame on me! Usually I pick the nice Pine Select wood for certain projects, but they didn't have the length I needed. Both pieces required a helluva fill in job. I used wood filler to patch up the gaps. Which let me tell you were all over. Good thing only one side of this will be seen.

After 2 rounds of filling, patching, and sanding I was ready to proceed. I needed to add the bottom. I didn't have a spare piece on hand, so I had to pick up a piece of plywood from Home Depot. I laid the drawer sides on top of the wood piece and traced the inside dimensions.

Then I used my handy dandy new power tool, the Dremel Saw-Max, to cut the piece out. It's a hand held rotary saw (Just what I've always wanted). I have been wanting one of these for awhile, and finally decided to buy one.

I placed the cut piece inside. The goal was for it to fit perfectly snug. That didn't quite happen though. First it was too big, and then it was too small...SMH. So more patching and filling it was. 

Now that I had a perfect box it needed paint. I did give it a coat of primer first. Usually I don't prime projects unless I'm painting a special surface, or from a darker to lighter color. However, with all of the filling and sanding I did, I felt it needed a good primer coat before actual paint.

I gave the box 2 coats of a semi gloss white paint. 

I let it dry a full 24 hours before preceding. The next step was to install the drawer. I bought these drawer slides off of Amazon. They didn't come with instructions, but I watched quite a few YouTube tutorials. It seemed easy enough, so I went for it.

I lined up the slide where I wanted it to go. Very hard to do with only one pair of hands. I rested it on some scrap pieces of wood to keep it steady. Once I got the placement, I marked the screw spots with my pencil, and drilled the outside pieces of the slide securely into the side of the island.

Then I screwed the inside pieces to the sides of the drawer. 

I grabbed the drawer with 2 hands, slid it onto the track and.......It didn't fit! AWWWWHHHHH! *#&@*%!!!* *expletive* *expletive* *expletive*.

Okay, now that I've taken a breathe and collected myself, I will tell you what happened. SO apparently it looks like, when I cut the back piece I cut it 1/4" too short. So now the back won't slide on the track.

It's the worst! I sulked for a little bit. What do I do now? This is when a project turns into damage control. Dreadful, just dreadful. I went into think mode. What were my options. Well there is the obvious take it apart, but that seemed crazy. I could try and build out just the sides to compensate, but that seemed difficult too. Then it hit me. Just angle the slide. That was the only part that really need to touch the track. Friggin EUREKA! Being that the difference is 1/4",  I added an 1/8" piece to the back of each side, and screwed the inner slide back on.

I was proud of myself. What a great plan. I slid it onto the track....and.....it didn't fit. I was so sure this would work. UGH! This is why you're supposed to measure twice and cut once. So you can avoid these type of issues, and thus the frustration.

I went back to the drawing board. One of the big things about this is getting my measurements right. So I remeasured everything. The width of the space was about 34 6/8". I measured the 2 slides and they were 3/8" a piece. That left 34", so that needed to be the width of the drawer. 

Good thing I paid attention in math class. You really do use it in real life. I decided to add pieces to the sides that would compensate for the lack of width. I glued them down with  E6000.

Then I screwed the slide back down on top of the added width. Hard to see, but its there.

I went back upstairs and held my breathe. I slid it in, crossed my fingers...and it still didn't fit. It was a little wide, but only a little. Not the worst thing in the world. I sanded down the added piece until I got the right width. I picked up the drawer again, slid it onto the track....and it fit. FINALLY! YES! YES! YES! YES!!!!! 

I can not tell you how excited I was at this point. 

 I have never in all of my life had so much trouble with one project. Honestly, I'm just glad to see it be done. This definitely makes me understand the motto, measure twice and cut once. Ugh! I was so tired I didn't even clean up or move the island back. I just gave a sigh of relief and walked out.

After a day of rest and getting my mind right, I added hardware. For the drawer I had an extra pull in my project supply stash. I also replaced the knobs on the pullout trays. The ones that were there before were nice to look at, but difficult to grab. I bought 2 knobs from Home Depot, and spray painted everything pink.

In the drawer I put my bandeau and tube tops. 

So that's it. A pullout drawer that was suppose to take me a couple of days, that ended up taking me a couple of weeks. I have never been so glad to be done with a project in my life. I am exhausted, just exhausted. It is still rewarding though. I think the shelf adds a a little something extra. What do you think? 

You know, with this completion I think I am almost done in this fancy closet of mine. One more project to go, and in my head it should be pretty simple. Should being the key word, but you know how that goes. (Knock on something.) Until then...it's on to the next project!