I’ll start with the most exciting thing that happened yesterday. My plywood, trim pieces, and molding were delivered! I’ve never had anything like this delivered from Home Depot or Lowe’s before, so I had no idea what that process would even look like. Lowe’s brings everything on a huge flatbed truck (the size of an 18-wheeler) with a forklift attached to the back, and then the delivery person uses that forklift to place the items where you want them. It was such a quick and painless process.
And y’all, I was so thankful that we have a driveway now! That made it so easy for him to drive right up to the carport with the forklift and place them under the carport.
He had to place the plywood at the edge of the carport because the forklift couldn’t fit under the carport, but it was the perfect placement to leave lots of room for me to work under the carport. I had already checked the forecast, and thankfully, we don’t have rain in the forecast for the next week.
That’s a lot of plywood! 😀 Most of it (21 sheets) is 3/4-inch plywood, and the rest is 1/2-inch and 1/4-inch plywood.
Of course, the plywood that I needed to start with was on the bottom, so I had to move all of the other pieces off to the side before I could even get started.
And all of the 3/4-inch ply needed to be ripped down to the depth of the cabinet boxes because all of the 3/4-inch will be used for cabinet boxes, shelves, and separators (i.e., between drawer sections and to form the dedicated slot for my step ladder). I was having trouble deciding on 16-inch-deep cabinets or 20-inch-deep cabinets, so I decided to split the difference and cut the plywood to 17.25 inches so that when the face trim is attached, the cabinet boxes will be 18 inches deep. I got about halfway through ripping down the 3/4-inch plywood for the cabinet boxes.
Since I don’t have a big table saw with an outfeed table, I had to work on the ground…again. 😀 I placed a 1-inch foam insulation board on the concrete under the carport and cut everything with my circular saw.
I used my Kreg Rip-Cut Circular Saw Guide (affiliate link), which worked perfectly for this project. It’s a great low-cost option for those of us who don’t have table saws with outfeed tables. And it works with almost any circular saw.
I worked as late as I could last night (I don’t like using power tools outside past 8:00pm), and I got about half of the 3/4-inch sheets cut down and stacked. The stack on the right is the one for the closet cabinet boxes. The stack on the left is the waste, but I can assure you that it won’t actually go to waste. I still have an entire workshop that needs to be outfitted to make it usable as a workshop, and that plywood will be great for making shelves, storage cabinets, and other things.
In other news, I realized yesterday that I made a HUGE oversight. I still don’t have a scuttle hole to access the crawl space of our house. The scuttle hole used to be in the closet area of our home gym, but when the new subfloor was installed, I told them not to cut a new scuttle hole in that location because I didn’t want a scuttle hole in our bedroom floor. I also plan to move the attic access out of that room as well.
My plan was to put the new scuttle hole to the crawl space in this corner of the foyer, but of course, it should have been cut before I finished the floor. But now, I have a newly finished floor that I have to cut a hole in. Yikes!
I plan to put an upholstered ottoman in that area, so at least if I mess it up, it won’t show. But I’ve been stressing out about having to do this. In fact, I had trouble sleeping last night because I couldn’t stop thinking about how I was going to cut into this flooring and subfloor.
I finally decided (at about 3:30am) that the best option would be to buy a plunge saw. I’ve been looking at plunge saws for a while now, but the price for the brand that is considered the best has held me back. The Festool brand costs anywhere from $700 to over $1000, depending on the model. And since I haven’t really had a need for one to this point, paying that much money for a tool that I haven’t actually needed wasn’t really a priority for me.
But now that I need one, I still don’t want to pay that much for it! My priority now is to get the closet, bedroom, and foyer finished, and I don’t want to spend that much on a tool right now. So I’ve been looking at other options. There’s a brand called WEN that sells a plunge saw with a track for $169 (affiliate link), and it actually has really good ratings. And then Kreg has one for $299 (affiliate link), but it looks like the track is sold separately. So if any of you have experience with either of those brands of plunge saws, I’d love to hear your thoughts!
In happier news, I got the three-step ladder that I ordered for the closet (affiliate link). Y’all, I’m so impressed with this ladder! I wasn’t sure what to expect from an aluminum ladder that has a wood grain finish. Of course, the images on the product listing were impressive, but you just never know if those images have been edited to look great.
But it’s actually a very pretty, durable finish. It looks great, and it’s very sturdy!
When it’s folded and stored in its dedicated slot in the closet, this is all that will be seen. I may use a bit of Rub ‘N Buff on those bright chrome screws so that they don’t command so much attention. 😀
And finally, the electrician just left, so I have a working dryer outlet now! Woohoo!! That means that I can build that other cabinet for the dryer this weekend, and I can actually have a working washer AND dryer by the end of the weekend! I haven’t had a working dryer since the middle of December, and I’m so excited to get that in place and wash AND dry a load of sheets and blankets! I never thought I’d be so excited to do a load of laundry. 😀
The A2D Daily:
Addicted 2 Decorating is where I share my DIY and decorating journey as I remodel and decorate the 1948 fixer upper that my husband, Matt, and I bought in 2013. Matt has M.S. and is unable to do physical work, so I do the majority of the work on the house by myself. You can learn more about me here.
