Leaving My Mark

Tyler and I made the decision to construct the headboard at home.  All of the items we needed for the project were in the apartment, and keeping everything within the confines of our abode would mean less schlepping up and down the stairs and in and out of cars.

We laid out the boards on the office floor - the most convenient spot in our apartment. It is carpeted, meaning no scratching our floors, and it sees the least foot traffic on a daily basis. I also figured that if wood shavings end up in the carpet we'd vacuum them up, or they would blend in! No big deal.

Laying down the boards required that I actually placed them "face-down" on the floor. Tyler and I happened to be very interested in the texture and grain of the wood that we would be seeing, but if you're not too finicky about it, you can simply slap the boards on the ground without a thought. Unfortunately for me, I actually forgot that Tyler and I had a particular design in mind and I failed to check that my boards were "face-down". I ended up screwing the top two boards into the support beams before realizing my mistake. There goes things going perfectly!

Once the boards were laid out, I marked the placement for each of my three 2x4 supports. All three beams would lie 2" from the top edge of the headboard. Leaving space between the top of the headboard and the actual support beams creates a gap that allows the support beams to go unseen (Petersik and Petersik, 89).

The position of the two side supports had to be measured carefully. I had to ensure that the beams would line up exactly with frame of my bed, where they would eventually be attached. Once this was done, I eye-balled the placement of the third support beam - about center on the "back" of the boards. Then, I prepared to drill! As with the dining room table, I had to create pilot holes to ensure that my screws would take to the wood easily.

Fortunately, I had my handy dandy countersink bit.

With this tool, I was able to simultaneously drill both a pilot hole and the necessary space for my countersink screw. All I had to do afterwards was change out the countersink attachment, replace it with my screwdriver head, and drill the screws. Unfortunately, my handy dandy countersink bit turned out to be not so handy-dandy! On the third hole, into my FIRST support beam, the drill bit snapped, leaving behind the thin, metal portin of the bit stuck inside my 2x4!

Clearly, I was not going to buy a second one, because the first one did such a good job. Consequently, I had to resort to a more laborious process:

1)Place in appropriately sized drill bit.
2) Drill pilot hole.
3a) Remember not to touch drill bit - it's hot!
3b) Remove drill bit.
4) Replace with countersink top.
5) Create countersink hole.
5) Remove countersink top.
6) Insert screwdriver top.
7) Drill in screw.
8) Repeat process for remaining 25+ screws.

Although the actual completion of this step probably didn't exceed 30 minutes, it felt like an eternity. Nonethless, when it was all said and done, I felt as though I had accomplished a great feat, and I'd done it all on my own! Ok, well maybe 80% on my own. Given the problems I'd had, I figured things could only get better from there. Little did I know...