Take the power tools away from me

When we moved into our current house almost two years ago, we needed additional storage, and a TV stand, so I bought an unfinished dresser.  Also, a coffee table and book cases, but those I finished long ago.  The dresser remains unstained, mostly because I can always come up with something else to do on nice days.

It also hasn’t had drawer knobs, because I didn’t like the originals and got rid of them and then never found what I wanted to replace them with.  And then a recent trip to IKEA resulted in just the right long bar pulls.

For some reason, probably having to do with Sweden and the metric system, the pulls were just slightly too short, by less than a quarter inch, to fit the pre-drilled holes.  No problem.  I could drill new holes.

But it then it turned out that the screws were also too short, probably because these pulls were intended for thinner cupboard doors, and the longest screws of that size at the hardware store were still a little short.  And they didn’t have enough of them, probably to do with the metric system again according to the clerk, so we’d have to special order some.

The screws, both original and longer-but-still-too-short versions.

Having waited a year and a half to get handles, suddenly waiting any longer was unbearable.  It dawned on me that I could use a very large drill bit to sink the screws in deeper, making them long enough.  What didn’t dawn on me is that I have few skills with drills, and my ability to judge the depth of a drilled hole while drilling upside down in a drawer at an awkward angle is pretty non-existent.

I ended up with too shallow holes, too deep holes, too wide holes, and weirdly warped holes. I had to find ways to make suddenly too long screws shorter so the handles would fasten tightly, which involved rubber bands and bits of buttons and the occasional nut when I could find one the right size. I had to keep changing between small and giant drill bits, got saw dust everywhere, and kept losing  screwdrivers until I had four of them underfoot. The insides of the dresser drawers are not pretty.

This was my most creative endeavor to make a screw fit after I accidently drilled all the way through the drawer with the giant drill bit. All I had that would hold it was a pried off part of a button.

But we have handles now!  And someday I will actually get the dresser stained.  And make a runner, because that beach towel is sort of embarrassing if I want to call myself a quilter.  And no one looks at the inside of drawers anyway, right?

Meanwhile, since this is a fiber crafting blog, to keep me company my sister was embroidering trees and zombies.