I really didn't think about or look at the project all day Sunday. As I was heading to bed just before midnight I had a quick pow wow with my dad to talk about the day ahead of us. We had just two full days left for building so we had to maximize our time. The quick pow wow turned into a 45 minute discussion on the construction of all the doors. We didn't have enough wood and my dad agreed to venture out first thing the next morning to buy more.
I went to bed a little nervous. There was no physical way we would be able to get this thing done in two days. No way. My head was swirling with thoughts as I tried to fall asleep.
Here's how day 5 went down.
Apparently my dad had thoughts swirling as well because he didn't sleep well and was up earlier than planned and off to the Depot.
He returned with all the best wood they had (which wasn't much) and I quickly rushed off to Cannon's doctor appt. My dad took on the task of cutting all the stiles and rails (for all fourteen doors/drawer fronts) to size while I was gone. He also used the router table to rout a groove the exact depth of our panel (we used 1/4" MDF for the door panels, which really measured as 7/32, so we bought a 7/32 router bit) on every piece.
We went back and forth on the construction of the doors. Mortise and Tenon. Dowels. Pocket Screws. BeadLock. Each method had its advantages and disadvantages. I'm most comfortable with pocket screws but that would've required a lot of putty and sanding to fill them. The beadlock method would've required me going to buy another jig. So we tossed a coin and mortise and tenon won. Never before had either of us constructed a door this way so there was definitely some trial and error trying to figure it out exactly.
We used the table saw to create the tenon, making small passes with the table saw. (Found this great video tutorial here that we followed)
Once we got one side cut, we'd flip the wood over and start cutting the other side. Because the blad was only partially raised, the portion not cut from both sides became our tenon.
We set the fence at 3/4 inch so we would be left with a 3/4 tenon to fit in the 3/4 deep mortise.
By early afternoon I was feeling pretty happy with the progress and then it started to go downhill quickly. We made a few small errors in cutting wood which led us to need even more wood. We had already scoured two Depots and picked through all their wood. So I sent my dad to yet another depot in search of decent wood to complete the doors.
It took a while but he finally came bearing gifts of wood. We got them cut to size and created the mortise and tenon.
Preparing to put the doors together we realized some of the wood had been cut to the wrong size. Cue the silent swear words from my dad as he knew we were already short on wood.
Later in the evening we found some other wood not the correct size. I think there was a pencil thrown. Possibly a door slammed. Not good at all. We were both tired and frustrated and clearly in this state of mind, errors became more abundant.
We should've stopped for the day. But we didn't so you can imagine the errors didn't stop there. No. I was cutting the panels for the doors and even consulted my drawing as to how it should all be cut and still I cut them (not utilizing the board as I had planned) which left me short of wood for the backing of the unit. Again. There was a lot of anger in the garage that night! I think the stress of knowing our time was short was sitting heavy on us, hence all the errors.
We had to get the doors built so they could be painted the next day.
With all the frustrating mishaps of the day, surprisingly we managed to construct all the doors and drawer fronts. Of course, not without wanting to throw half of them against the wall as we worked and reworked to make them square. They day was pretty awful. We were both done and had we not been so far into the project I would've taken this as a sign that we were not capable of completing said project. But we were too far to turn back. So we shut off the light just after midnight both in awe of just how hard the day ended up being for us. One day left with my dad's helping hands...
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
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