Building with dad...Day two...

Day two started out a little rough. The internet went down. No, I don't need the internet to build, but my husband needs the internet for his MBA and he was studying for finals. I spent a lot of time on the phone and then in person with the internet company. I wasted two hours of my life and more importantly, two valuable hours of building with my dad. No Bueno.

Here's how day two went down:

My sister-in-law offered to take the two younger kids for the day so I could focus on the task at hand which was extremely helpful.

We picked up a router table from a friend and had to experiment to get comfortable with it.

Even after I bought nearly every piece of wood from the depot, I still had to go back and buy more poplar. Good wood is hard to come by and the selection was shabby at best. Hallie and Hunter enjoyed picking out paint swatches and hiding in the wood.

We built the stand for my miter saw. I got a new saw for mother's day last year and it's heavy. Heavy enough that I ask Steve to move it in and out of the garage for me. I hate feeling dependent on him for silly things like this so I opted for a nice portable stand on wheels. It's going to change things for me!

We built the 6ft by 8ft cabinet carcass (the center unit). This was painful. Not only was it big and awkward, but it was extremely heavy and sadly enough I wasn't a whole lot of help for my dad in maneuvering it to where we needed it. At this point in the process I was second guessing my grand idea to make this thing so ginormous!

Each shelf sat in a dado and it was difficult getting it all lined up and tight. There was a lot of hammering to get this to line up and sit right. We built the face frames for the two side units. This was the step I was most dreading. In my mind, I had no idea how we were going to line up everything perfectly. You build the face frame completely and then attach it to the unit with glue and pocket screws and it's got to fit like a glove. But with every step of this project, measuring perfectly (often measuring multiple times just to make sure) led to amazing results.

Here is the back of the face frame before we attached it. Every joint had glue and screws. I would've been okay with just screws, but my dad loves glue. He looooves glue and I hate it. I hate the feel of it on my fingers, caked on my nails, cleaning the ooze that comes out of the joints when clamped and then scraping off the excess when it dries. I hate it. But I know it's a better way to go. There were multiple times today that I was ready to attach something together and my dad would suggest we use glue and I just rolled my eyes as I walked across the garage and grabbed the bottle of glue. Sometimes I'm a great student and other times I let my eyes roll!

We were able to get one face frame attached to a side unit before we closed up shop for the night. It was at this point that I started to see it take shape. It looks so finished with a face frame on...although I know we're a ways from finishing!

DIY Entertainment Center - Day 1
DIY Entertainment Center - Day 2
DIY Entertainment Center - Day 3
DIY Entertainment Center - Day 4
DIY Entertainment Center - Day 5
DIY Entertainment Center - Day 6