Tag: makeover

Quacks of Quedlinburg Custom Storage: Broken Token Storage Makeover

Posted on | by cursingcats.com | Leave a Comment on Quacks of Quedlinburg Custom Storage: Broken Token Storage Makeover

First, it’s like Christmas, so let’s jump to the end and then go back to the beginning. Here’s where we’re going: LOOK AT THIS MASTERPIECE!

Quacks of Quedlinburg

Ok, so in the beginning, I had an interview. It went well. I was chatting with the interviewer about boardgames after we were done and she asked if I’d ever heard of Quacks of Quedlinburg. I had not. I wrote it down in my very professional interview portfolio to look up later.

I pulled it up on Board Game Geek to give it a glance. It had a long list of award nominations and finalist titles and a “few” wins:

  • 2022 Ã…rets Spel Best Family Game Winner
  • 2020 Origins Awards Best Family Game Winner
  • 2019 UK Games Expo Best Board Game (European Style) People’s Choice Winner
  • 2019 Hungarian Board Game Award Winner
  • 2019 Guldbrikken Best Adult Game Winner
  • 2019 American Tabletop Casual Games Winner
  • 2018 Meeples Choice Award Winner
  • 2018 Kennerspiel des Jahres Winner
  • 2018 Golden Geek Best Family Board Game Winner
  • 2018 Cardboard Republic Daredevil Laurel Winner

Yes, those are just the awards it WON. Clearly she wasn’t over-hyping it. I also liked that it can be two player. I recently received a long-awaited Kickstarter game that we have yet to play because we need a minimum of 3 players. So 2 players — fucking-a! I immediately added it to my Amazon Wishlist. Along with a game organizer to go with it.

The Broken Token Game Organizer

I’ve never had a Broken Token game organizer. I know the brand. I know it’s reputable. I’ve just always found them so… ugly. I love me a game organizer — game changer (literally!), but damn. However, I did look at the Amazon reviews and saw this photo of someone’s customization:

WAIT. Wait wait wait. These are supposed to be CUSTOMIZED? That’s why they’re ugly? Holy fuck! I don’t know if yall noticed my recent booknook fandom and the amazing Sherlock Holmes booknook I did (link). But I knew I had the skills to make this AWESOME. So that went on the list as well.

Makeover Time

For my birthday, my wonderful husband got it for me! Woot! I love a craft project! So I dove in. I spent over a week on this. First, I stained the wood and assembled the boxes with glue. Then I hit a roadblock, which I knew was coming.

When A Hindrance Becomes Your Greatest Asset

The Amazon Review photo had been done with stickers/paper. I did plenty of that in my booknook and that’s why I know we have an amazing black and white printer but a very shitty color printer. The resolution isn’t great and you can see the print lines. So just not gonna work. I could print and paint over it, but I’m not that good at painting small details — I have shaky hands.

So have you ever heard that overcoming obstacles makes a better product? Like in the first Deadpool movie. You know when Deadpool forgets his big bag of guns in the taxi? Well, that wasn’t just any old gag. There was supposed to be a huge scene there with all those weapons. But their budget got axed so they couldn’t afford that scene. So the amazing scene that ended up in the movie replaced it. That’s one example. They had to forgo all the FX budget and do a practical scene. This EPIC case I just made is another perfect example. I couldn’t just print my graphics, I had to make this shit for real.

Aside from the labels, I could do everything else practical. I know I have an excellent black ink printer so I ordered some clear sticky paper to do the typeface. I could paint under it and then just stick the type over my paint. Yay!

Gathering Pieces

Remember when I talked about my nightmare Hobby Lobby trip? Well, during that trip, I looked for things I could use for this project. I really wanted some of those tiny brass label holders that you put on photo boxes. They did not have any. So I got metallic puff paint to make something up. I also found some cute tin corner details in the wood craft section for 99 cents (for the four pack)! Were they black? Yes. Irrelevant. Then I looked through all the charms and jewelry bits. I found a pack of six insanely tacky photo charms. They’re really cheap brassy gold and the fake “diamond” inlays and thin plastic. PERFECT.

So I snipped the charm loops off with some wire cutters and painted all that shit in enamel gold paint — going for a brass accent look. Then I used paint to fill in the center of the photo charms for each player color. In the final photos, you’ll see they look like cabochons. So funny story. I was going through my glue stash and found Mod Podge 3D in there that I had bought for some project and never used. I’m pretty sure I thought it was clear puff paint but it’s not! It’s a liquid to fill bottle caps or pendants to seal things in. What? So I filled up my cheap pendants and daymn — they look amazing! Yall these were six for like $6 and half off. I’m good.

I also picked up some earrings I had hoped to use on the ingredient drawers but they were too small. I ended up using one of them on the black book spine. A bat charm also makes an appearance — I TOTALLY already had that! Again, just snipped the loops off with wire cutters and painted them the brass color.

Layout Time

So at this point in the project, I had decor bits and boxes. I had decisions to make. Do I use the corners as true corners? They look kinda cool sideways. I gotta cover this ugly engraving work too. Do I want to do books like the one I saw? How could I do a potion shelf?

It was time for Photoshop. I love making decisions like this with photos so I can see the different options side by side. So I laid out all the boxes I had and put it in Photoshop. I used the clone tool to fill in some missing wood bits. I googled some playing cards to visualize where those would be in the finished product. And I took the Amazon Review guy’s labels to play with just for the visual. This is what I came up with:

Thankfully, the ingredient drawer fronts could be installed backwards so no worrying about that engraving. The flap in the middle (it flips up to reveal a shelf) could also be installed backwards. I was not so lucky with the other two compartments. I’d have to work something out to cover those.

The book compartment was the worst. That had to go. I couldn’t just paint books because it was engraved. Also, a bit of 3D wouldn’t kill anyone. So I made my book spines with sculpty clay! I used a earring on the black notebook. I modeled the fat green book after my own leather happy book where I have lots of Four-Leaf Clovers and cat foot-prints and even butterfly wings. I envision it being a similar book for herb identification. Oh and I totally had some glass skull beads for an upcoming booknook, so I tucked one of those guys in.

Now We Paint

I’ve moved my crafting from the kitchen table to the living room for two reasons. One: I totally mess up the nice table every time I do stuff on there. Two: Louie gets really needy when I’m ignoring him. This way he can sit by me. Kills my back though.

I color matched the ingredients to the corresponding game tokens. I just used good old acrylic paint on the books and labels. You can see I printed out a fancy outline for my puff paint and to show me the rectangle to color in. I did not outline the squares with puff paint because, as you can see on the Rubies box in the final photos, I can’t do straight lines.

I had been hemming and hawing over what to do with the bottom compartment. I considered covering it in leather bias tape I had or maybe red felt? But It was looking very busy with all the colors. I wanted more wood to show so I decided to do a monogram. To cover the engraving, I cut an oval out of the sticky clear paper for the flat surface (all of this is Mod Podged so no worry about the adhesive strength). The Q is the same Q in the games logo. Does the puff paint work on that Q look shitty? Yeah. But I spent over an hour and like 50 Q-Tips trying to get it reasonable. I’m really proud of my puff paint filigree though.

I also had to add handles to the player token drawers. I didn’t install the wood ones so I could use my swanky cabochons. I did leave a small bit of the opening though so I could thread something through. I had thought maybe tassels. However, when I went to grab my skull bead, I realized I have Evil Eyes! How much fun would Evil Eyes be in my alchemy cabinet? So I grabbed those and the copper beads from the Sherlock Booknook and made some little pulls. I LOVE THEM. Holy fuck they’re fantastic!

I also used a lot of stain markers for clean up. More about that in the Lessons Learned section at the end.

THE FINAL BOX

So look! Here’s my alchemist cabinet! I am beyond thrilled with this! Can you believe I would have just printed off graphics if I had a good printer? What? This is AMAZING. I might store the game in its lid like this. Like just put the guide and player boards in the lid and slide this in over it and just put it on my game shelf like this. I think I will.

Lessons Learned

I learned a lot on this crafting journey. I’d like to pass some of that on to you.

  • Glue Spots. So I glued my boxes together after staining the wood. Well, where any glue spread or I touched it with gluey fingers, there were noticeably shinier spots. That’s why I had to use Mod Podge– I coated everything so it all had the same sheen.
  • Mod Podge and tolerances. I used “Extra Matte” Mod Podge. I’d have rather used regular, but I didn’t have enough and I was using stuff I had. So it was Extra Matte or Super Gloss. Well, this stuff is thick. And that made the tolerances of the sliding pieces off. UGH. So where the trays slide into cutouts in the wood… well, I had to sand that down. I chose to sand down the cutouts to make them wider where they slid in rather than the trays. It sucked. I’m glad that the Mod Podge adds a coating plus strength in that it’s just more glue — but damn.
  • Mod Podge looking “Flat.” In some areas where there was too much Mod Podge, they clouded. This happened on my tin corner decorations. It also looked bad on the back of the flap. The wood is rougher on that side and since I installed it backwards to get rid of the engraving, that was out. I fixed this with Stain Pens. They’re made to fix/hide scratches in furniture — so worth having. I also buffed a bit of that gold enamel paint back over the raised metal additions to bring back their luster. This actually makes them look more aged since they’re less shiny in the nooks. Over all though, I’m not down with the Mod Podge I used. It ruined the tolerances so I had to spend hours fixing that with nail files. It messed with the shine. Also, it has a rough feel. I think the “Extra Matte” fucked me over.
  • Stain Pens are AMAZING. So this is layers of wood. So the stain didn’t go all the way through every layer of wood. This left the center of the wood edges lighter. Stain Pens to the rescue!
  • Stain Pens are shiny. I also used the stain pens to cover some mistakes. Notice how non-square my paint labels were. Squared those up. I told you I used like 50 Q-Tips getting that monogram right. Well, wiping away metallic paint leaves a bit of a color. Fixed that with Stain Pens. But even going with the grain, it was so obviously different where I used the pen over the Mod Podge in levels of sheen. So basically, I covered the front of everything in stain pen. I mean, it looks fucking awesome — but I only did the fronts. I wouldn’t be able to get into the nooks and crannies with the pens even if I wanted to.
  • Clear Sticker/Tape over paint — not great. So the paint was obviously not perfectly flat. This led to light refraction and you could see the areas behind the sticker paper I had printed the text on even after I Mod Podged everything to the same sheen. This sucked. I had to solve this by painting over the sticker paper with paint again. Obviously, I couldn’t get right up against the text though. This led to a ghostly sort of shadow around the text. It works, but it was not intended. I’d say it looks awesome on some of them, like “Fortune” and “Ghost’s Breath.” On those it adds to the look. It’s not noticeable at all on the white and grey. It is noticeably bad on the red Toadstool and Rubies though. Oh well. I stand by the printer making me do this all for real being the greatest thing to happen. But I’d totally print those labels and then add the 3D around them.
  • Puff Paint is for people better than me. I can’t draw a straight line to save my life. Also, a consistent squeeze to get a uniform thickness is impossible. This shit requires skills I don’t have. I’m thrilled with my filigree on the drawers/trays though. It’s abstract so it doesn’t matter that it’s not uniform and perfect. Also it was done by starting by squeexing out a blob and pulling away while releasing the squeeze — this led to nice drop shapes.
  • Paint this interior of the game box. I’m really glad I realized how much of the box would actually show through. What alchemist cabinet is backed in freaking cardboard? So I painted the inside of the box all black before putting this in there. Pro move. I’m so smart.

Feedback for Broken Token on This Exact Box

I don’t like that the ingredient trays aren’t drawers. That sucks. The player tokens are drawers that slide in and out. The ingredient trays are just trays with a lip that slides about a centimeter into the frame. 1) this looks awkward when using the trays on the table to play because they have those stupid tabs on the sides. 2) I can’t use them as drawers like I want. I’d much prefer these had bottoms like the player token drawers.

It kind sucks that you can’t open the books compartment without removing the Fortune and Rubies tray. This is a super small complaint since you’d have to remove those for play anyway. But it also has the same stupid tab problem of the ingredient trays.

Since the box isn’t rigid and you gave us no drawer slides, the side with the ingredient trays can bow out slightly. This means the ones in the middle can come out of their tabs. Seriously, these should have been drawers. It would have fixed this too. There’s nothing holding that column to width anywhere but the very top and very bottom.

I like the swing out bottom compartment. That’s fun.

The ingredient trays need separators for the different values of the tokens. I’m going to add these with painted cardboard because I really do think you need those to play the game more efficiently. It would let you know at a glance if one item is out and also making grabbing what you want easier.

First Game Play(s)

Husband and I actually gave this three plays on Sunday. Once in the afternoon and twice in the evening. We love it. It really is a good game! It’s fun! This picture is the last game where I was DESTROYED so ignore that. I did get 13 rat tails on that last turn though so fucking-a. I love the rat tail catch up mechanic!

There is a lot of luck here — but also a lot of resource management going on. It’s not coincidence husband won all three games. If the game was longer, you could even it out a bit. Only having 9 rounds means that the BEST your bag will get is 1/3 cherry bombs (8 cherry bombs plus assuming you bought 2 ingredients each of the previous 8 rounds). I wish we could buy more ingredients per round.

So far we’ve only played with the starter set of of books, so I’m sure there will be a lot of changes when we change the ingredient books up. Hawkmoth kinda sucks in only 2 player. I know it will be great in larger games though. It’s still a good game for two player! But Hawkmoth sucks for just two.

This is a great length of game for two players — just about 45 minutes.

Five Stars!

five stars

Future Plans

I’m going to make some customized player tokens to go around the score board. I’m cool with the wood discs for the rats and water drops though — don’t see any need to upgrade those. I’m actually going to buy insanely tiny glass vials with cork tops to make color-coded potions for each player!

I HAVE to get the Herbs and Witches expansion. Not too thrilled about the Alchemist expansion, but I really want that Herbs and Witches one. It has a better rating on BGG than the original game! I probably should have got the big box that just had the expansions. But then my organizer wouldn’t fit… so nevermind.

I might put the Evil Eye bead pulls on a nice string or ribbon instead of the seed beads. I’d like them to hang more freely.

I’m going to use cardboard to make separators inside the ingredient trays for the different chip values.

I want to get chip “sleeves.” – plastic to go around the cardboard. Would I ABSOFUCKINGLUTLY LOVE the BGG Geekup acrylic tokens? Fuck yes, I would! But that would be $42 for the base game plus $30 for the expansion. So damn.

I’d like nicer bags, but not any of the ones I’ve found for sale to go with the game. Does anyone sew? Like I like that the bags are black. I don’t want them to be color coded to the player. I want black. I think a nice black crushed velvet would be fucking sweet! With like a silky liner? Chef’s kiss! I wouldn’t mind the silky liner being matched to player color (maybe even the drawstring too). Or even them all having the same color liner on all of them– like maybe a grey? Or purple? They’d have to be the same size cause they gotta fit in my box. But yeah, I’d love a soft nice bag upgrade. But not in garish colors — I like the black bags. I might buy just some velvet bags later that aren’t intended specifically as an upgrade for this game.

IKEA Hallway Makeover

Posted on | by cursingcats.com | 1 Comment on IKEA Hallway Makeover

Since we moved into our gorgeous home nine years ago, I’ve had a shame. (Well, the bedroom furniture is tragic, but no one sees that.) With an open floor plan, it’s hard to hide. Unless you’ve been to my house, you haven’t seen it. I have probably shown photos of every inch of my house, but not this one. In fact, I’m glad I took some before pictures knowing I was doing a makeover. I can’t find any old photos of this hall! I always clip it out or avoid it in photos. Unfortunately, it’s on display in the house though. It’s the hall where our garage door meets the downstairs bathroom and the cat’s litterbox room. It’s fully visible from the dining room and kitchen and I’ve HATED IT for years.

So, as you know, we recently had our floor redone. After it was done, we had a few days waiting on the movers to move our shit back in. During this time, I saw a fully clean hallway. I realized how much I REALLY fucking hated that hall. And that’s when I decided, I gotta fix this like NOW.

You all know, my husband is not a spender. So until we pay off the house, we aren’t making big purchases. So this hall has always just been some cheap 13-year-old short Target shelves full of shit. I TRIED to make it better by using storage cubes I already had. But yeah, bad. Especially, always seeing the cleaning tools. So I’ve been telling myself that we will have the cabinet people come and build some nice storage there. The other side of this wall is the garage so we could even steal some space from the garage to make them deeper. But that’s gonna cost.

But I finally broke. I needed to fix it. Here it was in its CLEANEST state. That’s because we had just moved everything back in and I tried to make it look neater. I don’t even have any photos of this area before the floor redo. Notice I never hung anything over here so no one would look.

We kinda need the storage. Some of the stuff could go other places (and since has). But we want our shoes there by the door. This works out as a great feeding station for the cat. It’s a spot to drop things off when you come in and out. And there’s just some shit that doesn’t have a home, okay? Where do you keep all your spare candles? All the clips and command hooks and stickies? All you bottles of chemicals? And before the litter closet makeover, this was where the spare food and litter and supplies went as well.

So I needed something with doors. Cabinets. But I needed a broom storage so tall cabinets. So I looked at IKEA. I’ve never used IKEA. But they make affordable stuff, right? Everybody has “cheap” IKEA furniture, right? I decided on the PAX system. Just kidding, that’s sold out and unavailable. How about the Billy? These are Billy shelves with Oxberg doors.

OK, OK. The tall cabinets have a non-optional middle shelf… but like it’s not the LAW that I have to install that. So a single for brooms and cleaning shit. A double for everything else. The 15 inch doors above the cat food station are only available in glass, but I can put some contact paper or something on them. Their cabinets are wider than what we had, so the shoe bench won’t fit anymore. So I added a single short for shoe storage.

I can make that work! And I DID — look at this shit: My so not-at-all-shameful hallway!

Look at how CLEAN it is! Holy shit! All those plants are from IKEA too. They were absurdly cheap. I didn’t intend for them all to go here. However, I like the inspiration to not set anything on top of the cabinets. As you can see, our base molding is taller than normal so they don’t sit flush against the wall. Hence the hanging plants. They were super shiny, but I hit all the plants with some matte clear spray.

It’s so clean! The white is so fresh too! And there’s so much storage! Here they are before I got the tall doors on:

They are shallower than the shelves I had before. So I didn’t get to keep my easy cube storage. But I made it work. Everything has a home! Those storage boxes from IKEA are a perfect fit. They’re the Kuggis boxes that are 10.25 inches deep so fit like a glove. I’m so glad I bought enough to do a whole row of them. I wish I had bought more. They’re like useful little junk drawers. One is for clips and hooks. One is hardware and wires. One is craft miscellaneous. The last is WTF miscellaneous. I got a basket with all the pool bits and bobs in it. But most importantly…

I HAVE A BROOM CLOSET, MOTHERFUCKERS!

I never thought a broom closet would make me so fucking happy. But it does. It really really does. Like I didn’t know those broom handles were eating my soul until I put a door there. LOOK! (For those wondering, that middle shelf did seem kind-of required. I assembled it without the middle shelf and when I stood it up it bowed out just enough for the back to pop out. My solution was to install the middle shelf vertically. It is glued in using the wood dowels in the back most holes.)

Also, all of these units are screwed together with barrel bolts and screws for the PAX system. Six for each tall connection and four in each short. So this unit is solid. See my post about connecting them here.

Now look at the difference when you exit my downstairs guest bathroom. I mean da-y-mn. Such a difference. Holy shit. I’m so pleased. I just want to look at it. Before vs after:

I am an IKEA convert. Holy shit. This is better than I could have hoped. I meant this to be a temporary stopgap until we could get some professional stuff built. But I’m so happy with it, I think I might just hire someone to do some hacks to make it look more built in later. You know, move the floor trim, flush against the wall, cover the outside sides with real wood. For now though — holy fuck, 90% there! I can’t believe it was so affordable! I can’t believe how much I HATED THIS HALL.

Oh oh oh — did you notice the hardware? The IKEA Oxberg doors come with the tiniest joke of a door knob known to man. So I went online and picked up some simple handles and knobs. Turns out I bought the EXACT SAME hardware that is all over my house. I guess my tastes on cabinet door hardware doesn’t change much. I used the existing screw hole for the bottom of each handle. The shorter doors I bought the option of handles or the matching knobs. I did not like the look of the handles. Since they wouldn’t line up with the other three, I thought it looked bad. So I used the knobs. I don’t absolutely love the knobs, but they match the handles (same set). Oh and I used extra knobs to switch out the silver ones in the guest bath so that cheapo cabinet matches now too!

This is such a big win. I just can’t stop looking at it. No more avoiding photos now! This is AWESOME!

Oh, and I know I already did a whole post about the cat lounge and litter room makeover before it was complete. I painted the cabinet doors now. So now all of the extra cat stuff that was on these shelves lives in the litter room (tons of unopened food, cat litter, deodorizers, ect). And the stuff I need daily for feeding lives above Louie’s Jazz Lounge! The opened kibble, the opened case of cans, all of his treats, paper plates for wet food, a water carafe for water refills, even a knife (in the green glass) for splitting the cans of food. And look — hooks for the food scoop and can opener! IT’S SO PERFECT! I whipped up a box to hide/protect the fountain cables and extension cord too.

NOTE: The doors are not painted perfect and you will not comment on them when you see them. It isn’t noticeable, but it’s not perfect. First, I tried just using contact paper on the glass. That was far too stark white, slightly see through, and the corners weren’t great. So I painted it with our house trim paint. That was a huge debacle of rusted paint cans, paint spilling out of holes in the bottom, and rust spots in the paint. But it’s a super thick luxury eggshell paint. I did 3 coats with heavy sanding between each one. But I’m a human without a mechanical sander and you could still see the paint brush lines! UGH! I finished it off with a white wash of acrylic and two coats of clear matte sealant. I’m fucking done with them. Even though some of the god damn paper over the particle board peeled off with the blue painters tape! It was a tiny bit and I touched it up with the acrylic paint. It’s fine. It’s all fine. I’m done. Five fucking coats of paint plus two coats of sealer, I’m not messing with them anymore.

IKEA Quest: Attach Bookcases Together

Posted on | by cursingcats.com | 1 Comment on IKEA Quest: Attach Bookcases Together

Are you looking for a way to attach your IKEA Billy Bookcases to each other? Are you looking for how to screw them together? Glue? What do other people do?

As the youths say: I got you, fam’

Have you discovered the IKEA Barrel and Bolt Spare Parts 100402 & 100644? Are you searching the breadth of the internet for what goddamn bit size you need for your drill?

I got you, motherfucker.

You see, I am redoing my hallway. I am decluttering it with a beautiful array of IKEA Billy Bookcases. It’s fabulous. After I ordered all my cases and doors, I knew I’d need a way to attach them together. I figured I would screw them together. But I didn’t have them yet so I didn’t know how wide the sides were and therefore what screw size to buy. So I took to the great internet wasteland. I found a better way.

IKEA actually has a FAQ about this. “How do I link my BILLY bookcases?”

You’re home free, baby! But wait, the link takes you to a place to order spare parts. They want a postcode, but you keep getting an error. Why have the gods forsaken thee? Fear not friend, you are on the IKEA site for the Netherlands. Are spare parts only available to the Dutch? Do they get legal weed and free IKEA parts while the rest of us are relegated to IKEA Billy Bookcase Hacks?

Nay. You just need to find the same page on the US (or your relevant country) site. Go to your home IKEA site and find “Customer Service.” Then find the link to order “Spare Parts.” From there, click “Order Small Spare Parts” Bam, motherfucker. Free parts unlocked!

Barrel Bolt & Screw

So you want to attach your IKEA furniture together? You need a barrel bolt and screw. You can buy these at any hardware store or online. But did you know that IKEA has them for the IKEA PAX system? And you can use them for your IKEA Billy system? Oh hell yeah you can!

Yes, You just need a few spare parts. You need the pair: IKEA part 100402 and IKEA part 100644. You will need a pair for each join. I chose to join my short IKEA Billy Bookshelves with two near the top and two near the bottom of each join. For the taller ones, I added two in the middle as well. Order extra. You’re going to wait a while for them so make sure you don’t need to order more. Also, they’re free!

That’s right, bitches: FREE. Straight from IKEA. You can google these part numbers and find them on eBay and Amazon. But those people probably just got them free and are scamming you. Yeah. Just get free ones from IKEA. I got 16 of each. They arrived about a week after the shelves themselves (even though they were ordered the same day). You’re welcome.

What size drill bit do you need?

This is where I hit a road block. I scoured the internet. I looked at Reddit’s r/IKEA. I looked on IKEA’s own site. I looked at the Amazon and eBay listings. NO ONE said what size drill bit I needed. What the actual fuck? So I had to go to Walmart to hold the damn barrel bolt up to drill bits and try to figure it out. I figured it was a 3/16 inch by eye. Thankfully, they had a super cheap set of drillbits though so I got that instead of the single bit I THOUGHT I needed. Look, it has a tool for this shit!

Perfect fit for… the 13/64 Inches hole.

Why doesn’t America use metric again? What the fuck is this Imperial shit? 13/64s? Really? Anyway, no, I do not know what it is in metric. I only have this little tool that came with my cheap drill bits from Walmart. I’m sorry. Google it. Or better yet, I saw that IKEA sells a set of drill bits and a drill. Why the fuck didn’t they try to up-sale me that? I’d have totally bought it! And I’m sure it has the right size. Every order of furniture on the IKEA site should suggest you buy those tools. I’d have bought them, IKEA.

Thinking you can sneak by with that 3/16? You can’t. I tried. I mean, you can hammer it in with enough gusto. I just ended up using the 1/4 bit because that was the next size up I had. Good thing too because I was trying to line up the holes perfectly, and surprise, I don’t drill perfectly straight and parallel holes! So I needed the wiggle room. Even then, I was jamming screw drivers through to find the matching holes.

The videos I have seen have you drill straight through the two sides and attach. I wanted to be a bit more exact. So I separated the cases and drilled through a matching shelf support hole on each case. This way, I knew I wouldn’t screw it up and have a lopsided set of shelves. Cattywampus as we say in the South. But when I lined the cases back up, I discovered: I suck at drilling straight. So good thing I had a little extra wiggle room. I used a screwdriver to find the other hole and determination got me through. Jam that barrel bolt through any way you can and screw in the screw. TA DA!

You will need a screwdriver for each side. One to hold the bolt from spinning and the other to turn tighten up the screw. You’ll also need a vacuum for the saw dust.

Oh and DON’T PANIC — your hole is gonna look like shit. This is MDF with a paper overlay. The drill is not gonna leave a clean hole. It’s ok! Don’t panic. Just shove all the edges back in the hole before you put the fasteners in. See how clean it looks?

NOTES:

  • Drilling holes in things means you can’t return them.
  • If you ever disconnect these shelves, now they have random holes in the sides.
  • Do not use the two top and bottom sets of holes that are for door hinges. You might want to add those later.
  • Know where your shelves are going to go because the screw now takes up that hole so you can’t place a shelf at that level.
  • Do this before you install the doors. It will be a bit difficult for one person to reach both sides of the shelves around a door.

So there you go. The info I couldn’t find ANYWHERE. Go forth and assemble custom shelving solutions on the cheap. If you are going to build IKEA Billy case’s, shout out to this man:

That’s PP FlatPack on YouTube fucking pwning the assembly. Look at how he spreads the panels like a fucking deck of cards. His way is far superior to the IKEA way. Look how fucking fast and efficient he is! You know that instruction book/guide doesn’t even have words. Just watch this. I had watched it before mine arrived, took one look at the book, and did it his way. I had them together in no time.

And yes, I will totally show you the hall transformation in another post. I haven’t put the tall doors on yet. (Future me says click here for that reveal.)

I did put the two short doors on and that was a breeze! I thought it would be hard. I couldn’t find any particularly good youtube videos for it so I just used the book. Super easy.

Some Things 5/11

Posted on | by cursingcats.com | 2 Comments on Some Things 5/11

1) I painted my pool chairs “Key Lime.” It was like living in a Rust-Oleum commercial! Look at this before and after. The chairs were originally bright green when I bought them. However, five summers have faded them to nothing. Note the small green area on the unpainted chair. That’s because they always have pillows in them so the sun didn’t bleach there. It took two coats — so three and a half cans of paint = approximately $20.00. It’s nice to have revived the old ones rather than buy new ones. Even if they are dirt cheap, it’s still nice to have put in a little effort to revive something I already had. They REALLY pop against the dark fence too! K and I will be sitting in them on the tanning ledge soon.

2) I counted ninety three (93!) bats leaving the bat house on Saturday. Ninety Three! My little bat army. Go forth and murder all the mosquitos! Muah ha ha ha…

3) Mr C and I got our second dose of the Covid-19 vaccine Friday! I couldn’t sleep and had a headache. Poor Mr C had a fever and felt like absolute shit. But here’s to having pool days with our fellow vaccinated friends this summer! *cheers*