Do I Have To? The Smorgasbord of Stupid Edition

There are several stupid things about this post, so I'm going to point them out instead of trying to pretty up the situation.

"Do I Have To?" is a first-Monday-of-the-month blog feature. And it's.......Tuesday. Mid-month. But I wanted to really make myself do it anyway. I didn't want to get out of the habit of taking care of one pain-in-the-rear home improvement task a month.

Since blog posts that get written out of guilt and fear of failure are bound to be, well, full of guilt and fear of failure, it's no surprise that I tried to over-compensate by trying to do two tasks, and then failing in some of the details with both. Sigh.

Anyway, meet the drawer in the kitchen that we all refer to as "that damn drawer."

It had been glued, but the dovetails worked themselves apart again, and the repeated open and shut of daily life (reaching for sandwich bags and measuring spoons) were taking its toll.

I emptied out and removed the drawer and took a look.

What's worse, after scraping the dried glue away with a utility knife, it was clear there was no "there" there. Over time the wood had worn down, and in some places splintered away. The joints were no longer tight. Glue wasn't going to help this situation.

I'll admit here that joinery is outside my level of carpentry skills. Also, I tend to need to be doing about twelve other things at any given time, including watering tomatoes, cooking dinner, and finding the sticky note with my son's college account password on it. So finessing dovetail joints on a 30-year old-drawer isn't going to be top priority.

I guess what I'm saying is that I have no idea whether what I did next was advisable, or right, or even remotely intelligent. So I can't recommend this as a solution if you are having a similar problem.

I went to the hardware store and found some long-ish thin screws:

Then I drilled a pilot hole through one of the dovetails......and immediately realized I'd put the hole in one of the non-nesting dovetails, so it wouldn't go through both pieces of wood. I am. so. brilliant. Then, I drilled a second pilot hole:

Yes. Isn't that awesome?

Thank goodness this ugly MacGyver business can't be seen when the drawer is shut. What a mess.

Meanwhile, upstairs in the twins' room, I was looking at this developing situation:

That is a paint bubble which broke and peeled off the wall. Floating in a film of grubby kid dirt. I'd like to claim that I don't live like this. But apparently I do. Ew.

Cleaning was the first step.

Then I skim coated the hole with joint compound, and sanded, and primed, and painted. Which all would have been nice to photograph because you know I write a blog about this sort of stuff. But no. I put down the camera, apparently sustained a concussion of some sort, fascinated myself trying to get just one more bit of joint compound out of a crusty container, and didn't take a single other photo. I have no idea what's wrong with me.

But hey:

It's clean, and fixed. But I didn't "show my work." I blame the monkey.

I'll be back in September with the next monthly installment. I may even drill holes in their proper places, and remember to take pictures. Sigh.