The weekend began with the simple phrase, "Ben, I have an idea!" He is learning to hate the phrase- painting the bedroom, installing new hardwood floors; the list goes on and on of all of my ideas that have turned into near divorce court battles.
I have decided that it is time Ben and I get our food storage. (Leaders of our church encourage us to get a years' supply of food in case of emergency- does this make us crazy? Perhaps. But if there is an emergency, come on over and we'll supply dinner!) A friend of ours has this fantastic shelf that rotates your food for you and I decided that Ben and I should build one. These cost about 350.00 in the store, and that is just WAY too much for a shelf.
So, we borrowed a circular saw and made our way to Home Depot where we bought 90.00 worth of wood. Ben said, "this had better work!" It was a reasonable comment considering more then one of my ideas has gone horribly awry and turned into disaster.
On Friday, we got to work. Four hours were spent just getting the actual shelves ready- and by the end I was exhausted and wondered why on earth we didn't just spend the 350.00 to buy the ones already made (though, we would have had to buy 2 of them to get as much space as we have on the shelf we made).
Here is Ben dilligently screwing away. This picture is misleading, however, because I did 95% of the work- though he watched the girls so I could build it which is almost as difficult.
On Saturday we worked for another 4 hours and got it finished. Here are some pictures of the finished product. You can't really tell, but the shelves are slanted so you put the new food at the back and the older product rolls to the front so that your food rotates for you.
It ended up turning out fantastic (a little surprising since I was the one in charge), and I am certain we will be grateful for it for years to come. This is the reason, however, that we will never move: I am never taking that down and reinstalling it anywhere else! This turned out to be a mammoth project. Was it worth it? Yes. Will I ever do it again? NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
And Ben has forbidden me from getting anymore ideas. Smart man.
Congratulations on your new shelves. When you figure in the cost of labor for both of you, it might have been cheaper to buy it. However, you wouldn't have this great feeling of accomplishment!
ReplyDeleteWay to be ambitious! The shelf looks great!
ReplyDeleteWow, that is impressive!
ReplyDeleteChris, you never do anything half-way. :)
ReplyDelete"Diligently screwing away".... The twelve-year-old boy in me wants to make an inappropriate comment.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, good times. Sure, you could say that your labor cost was more than you would have spend if you had simply bought the shelves, but you can't put a price on the sense of satisfaction you get when you do something like this by yourself and it turns out well. You can use that thing for years and say to yourself, "I built that" whenever you use it. Priceless.