Posts Tagged ‘good enough’
New Door
Back in May, Cyndie and I ordered a replacement storm door for our front entry. We were told the lead time was going to be 90-days. Happily, they surprised us by calling me while I was on my bike trip to say the door was ready for pickup much earlier than expected. I forwarded the message to Cyndie in case she might be able to swing by and get it before I got home.
The good news is that she was able to pick it up and save us a lot of money on a delivery charge. The bad news is that she forgot to pick up the handles. We didn’t pay for professional installation so that adventure landed on me. It was only supposed to be a couple of hours of work but it took me two long days.
It will be time well spent because we were both growing increasingly irritated with the old storm door that had broken antique-looking handles, sagged on its worn hinges, and didn’t latch well without a manual assist.
Yesterday, after the errand to pick up the handles, I resumed the struggle of getting the frame mounted into the imperfect dimensioned opening so that the door would swing and close without obstruction. Minor modifications were required. I also needed to ad-lib a seal along the width at the bottom.
It was a massive effort of suspending my perfectionistic urges and allowing for “good enough” to carry the day.
The best reward came to me from hearing Cyndie report being happy with the way it looks. Now, if I can adjust things so it requires no assistance to close completely and also seal tightly, I’ll have achieved the jackpot of having it both work well and look good! Double bonus!
Too bad I will still remember the steps in the instructions that I couldn’t get to work as they intended. I’m going to try reframing my creative workarounds as icing on the cake of simply having a door that works.
Figuring out how to dispose of the old door and all its worn parts will become a project for another day.
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It’ll Do
I have seen perfection. This is not it. I have witnessed the results of master craftsmanship next door at the lake place. First you flawlessly prepare the logs, then you apply coat after coat of tung oil to get a beautiful finish that will protect your logs from the elements.
I don’t have it in me.
Currently distracted with trying to do the necessary lumberjack work around here, tend to the all-too-frequent lawn mowing requirements, manage the unending supply of manure to be composted, fix fences, maintain trails, replace the ATV winch, cut the over growing pastures, rake the round pen, fill in the growing ravines in the paddocks, and work the day-job, I have elected to try getting away with doing an almost embarrassingly perfunctory job of patching the most needy bad spots on the house and shop garage.
If I actually execute this plan, it will be a big accomplishment of overcoming my perfectionistic tendencies.
Yesterday after work I ran a little test to see if putting the least amount of effort toward the task will produce a passable result. We have the advantage of already having plenty of cans of stain that were left by the previous owners, but I have no idea about the shelf life of this stuff, so the advantage comes without providing much in the way of confidence.
I followed up on a tip to use compressed air to help remove the old flaking finish, but quickly found my tank isn’t designed for the task. The pressure drops rather quickly, greatly reducing the effectiveness. After testing a few other methods, I settled on doing a rather superficial job of surface cleaning.
I was excited to find a stirring apparatus stored with the stain that I can connect to my drill for thoroughly mixing the product. The one half-filled can I opened looked fine to my untrained eye, so after a good stir, I dipped in a brush and started painting the stuff on the siding.
It may not look ideal and it probably isn’t going to provide maximum protection, but it is better than doing nothing at all, which was the option we went with last fall.
All things considered, I’m hopeful this effort will suffice for getting through another winter, at the very least.
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Relative Something 