Start With The Plan—There's No Building Without It

Today Laurie and I built a custom made shelving unit for our laundry room. Some would read that and think: "So what?" And it's those people's voices I hear in my head all the time when I work on projects like this. I have a lot of friends in trades, and they know how to build things exceptionally well.

On the other hand, I also have friends who are not builders by nature, who would be perhaps impressed by the fact that we had built something ourselves.

It all starts with the plan. Just as everything that has to do with creativity (at least in my experience) needs a framework to help it along, the plan is what really gives a project purpose.

My wife is the one who develops the plan. She has a vision for what the project will look like as a finished product, and so that's usually where we start. I mentioned to her this time after we spent a couple of hours at Lowes buying the materials, that I wished I was better at making the plan. But, just as it is with everything, you don't get better unless you continue to do something.

When Laurie and I built our deck, she once again made up the plan from which we worked to pull it together. Sure, I offered input along the way, and I can confidently say that we built it as a team, but without that plan, there would have been nothing to refer to. The vision, the plan—that's where the project got its genesis.

So even though there were stop-gap decisions along the way, like building a kick plate for one of the cabinets, measuring on the fly, and some other minor adjustments, I found myself going back to the plan quite a few times during the day in order to stay on track.

So there's nothing profound about the necessity of a plan. But a plan can help make something possible that you were unwilling to tackle at first. And I ended up surprising myself in our little project, mostly because I found myself truly enjoying the process. I was able to slow down and concentrate on what I was doing. I was having fun building something. I got into the creative process of it.

There's nothing like building something yourself from scratch. Laurie mentioned that a contractor likely would have charged us a few hundred dollars to build a custom made shelving unit for our laundry room, and we ended up doing it for my time, and less than 300 bucks.

So having said all that, my next goal is to develop a plan. We're talking about building a kitchen cabinet next. Maybe I'll start there. I think developing a plan, and then building it through to completion will be an exhilarating experience. I'm looking forward to it.


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