Craft Room Project: Materials Planning Headache

This last week has been one long, drawn out headache.

I have had to make so many tweaks and adjustments to my plans to make everything work and then have to turn around and do something different again, because I realize I either did it wrong or that I was doing my damnedest to make something that should be easy, excruciatingly hard. All just to get the designs on paper so I could work up a materials list.

After several more days of putting together the impossible puzzle of each single piece of cabinet into a layout that could tell me how much of each type of material I needed, I managed to put together a materials list. It was MASSIVE.

I was so stressed and discouraged because I had zero clue how I was going to get all of it home. After talking with Hubby and doing even more shifting of plans and measuring vehicles, researching delivery options or renting another truck, we finally had a plan that would work.

We head out to get the first round (because of course there was no way all I needed was at a single store or was able to get in a single trip), and the very first item on my list crumbled all my plans to dust.

This is an example of plans on paper vs. reality are very different. The idea of a 4 foot by 8 foot sheet of 3/4 inch plywood isn’t all that daunting. Reality is that it is massive and heavy and unwieldy in the extreme. Especially if you aren’t a body builder. Even with plans to have the store do some initial cuts to make it possible for me to get it all home didn’t seem very realistic and I immediately dreaded the thought of having to work with it all on my own or even with a little help from Hubby was too much.

We got a handful of other things on my list, but abandoned those pieces so I could go home and try and rework my plans. Again.

We’d seen some smaller “project panel” sheets of the same material and thought I’d be able to go that route. By the time I finished replanning all the pieces, I realized that was yet another impossible option. I’d need more than what was available in the entire city and it would cost more than double what I’d spend if I’d just gotten the bigger sheets. Considering this is already expensive, I really wasn’t willing to go there.

I’m now back to the original plan, but still not sure how I’m going to be able to pull it all off. Those sheets are crazy heavy and I need 15 of those suckers.

The current plan is to go back on Monday when it isn’t crazy busy so I don’t feel bad about monopolizing an employee’s time to cut all those sheets down and either rent a truck or arrange to have them delivered. I haven’t a clue where I’m going to put it all when it gets here or how exactly I’m going to manage to get them all cut down to the sizes and pieces I need.

I’m so frustrated that all of this has taken so long and that I’m STILL not starting on these cabinets. Especially because the bulk of this will still have to be painted before I can do anything.