Mar 20, 2018 3 min read

I built something that I saw on Pinterest. I’ve done this many times before, and usually the finished project ends up in the burn pile.

Have you seen those sites on TV or online? You know, the ones where people delusionally try to build, bake, sew or create the things they saw on Pinterest? Or, more accurately, they complete the project but delusionally think it looks exactly like the original. They’re usually called “fails,” and there are sites dedicated to laughing at them. I should definitely be on there most of the time.

We had a project at church a couple of springs ago, called the Talent Project, where each family was given a sum of money for start-up and were supposed to use their talents to grow it for a mission project. I tried to make things out of pallets because I had ready access to that material and also because I had seen several things on Pinterest that looked feasible for me. What I discovered was pallets are really built to last. And also, I have little talent.

So, when I tell you today I built something I saw on Pinterest, please understand I am actually bragging.

I built a bookcase out of crates I purchased for a few dollars each at Michael’s, and the bookcase turned out wonderfully. (It’s total luck that it did, however, because I have a tendency to not follow the building instructions that are given.)

I began with a carpentry-challenged girl’s best friend: Gorilla Glue. I used the glue to tack the crates into the formation I needed them, prior to nailing them together. I had to use a putty knife to scrape off some of the excess glue that foamed out, but whatever.

Once the glue was dry on the first step, I painted what was visible on the exterior and interior of the remaining crates. And then I glued again, and then a third time. I was extremely careful to continuously monitor the position of the crates so they were both lined up in the front, and level in the back.

I finished the gluing prior to leaving for work one morning. All day long, I envisioned my cats knocked over both the can of paint and the bookcase and I would return home to splintered wood and rustic gray paw prints all over my house. My first pleasant surprise was arriving home to discover that nightmare had not occurred.

The second pleasant surprise was the crate bookcase had held together exactly as I had envisioned. And the third pleasant surprise was, when stood against the wall, it was as close to perfect as I could have imagined. I placed all of the DVDs, several photographs and a few knickknacks within it’s spacious shelves.

This one success, formulated from prefabricated parts, has, of course, caused me to conclude I can build anything from anything. I currently have plans to turn an old table into a flower trellis. I’ll keep you posted on my progress, and in the meantime, watch out for me becoming a YouTube sensation on some show called carpentry fails, or something to that effect.

Laura Zoeller can be reached at zoeller5@verizon.net.