Dear Diary,

This past weekend I toiled away all day every day putting up crown molding in Brody’s soon to be nursery.  Diary, I must be honest with you (am I ever not?), it was not a lot of fun.  Where should I begin as I tell you about it?   Was it my woefully inadequate tools that made this seemingly simple task so difficult?  My serious lack of any carpentering experience?  My ‘I do it my own self’ attitude?  Perhaps it was all three.

Regardless of WHY, lets just say that I was barely up to the task of getting this job done (and even that remains to be seen once it is painted – Leah is skeptical).  Out of concern for you my dearest Diary I wanted to give you some tips should you ever need to install crown molding.

What to do when your wife asks you to install crown molding:

1. Refuse.
2. Seriously, you do not want to take this on.
3. Divorce is easier than crown molding.

What to do if you cannot convince your wife that you don’t need crown molding:

1. Cutting:
   • If you do not have a power miter saw, RENT one.  If you do have one, its probably not nice enough anyway, rent a more expensive one.  Only the mentally challenged attempt to use a hand saw.  Also, hire someone to operate said power saw.
   • Do not use your child’s changing table as a work bench.  Shockingly, a 3ft wide table doesn’t work well for cutting 8ft long pieces of wood.  Instead, hire someone who has a workbench.
   • Wood?  Yes, do not buy wood ‘composite’ crown molding.  Cheaper?  Sure! Huge headache?  Abso-freaking-lutely!  If you are concerned about cost, stop now.  You will only succeed in taking 10 years off your life expectancy.  Instead, hire someone to buy your wood for you.
2. Attaching to the wall:
   • Do not fit inside corners with 2 45 degree angled pieces.  No corner in your house is angled at 90 degrees.  None.  Instead, fit one piece flush and cope the other fitting piece.  Coping is a very simple process (they would have you believe) sure to only take you 4 hours per corner.  Hire someone.
   • Do not attempt to use a nail set to get your nails below the wood surface.  Instead of holding a tiny nail set and trying to hit the center of a nail head that is < 1/8 of an inch wide, rent or buy a nail gun.   Also, hire someone to use the nail gun.
   • Do not attempt to attach the wood to the wall without someone helping you hold it.  Instead, hire 2 people.  One to hold and one to nail (gun).
3. Fixing your mistakes:
   • If you have taken my advice so far, you won’t have any mistakes.  If you haven’t, hire someone to fix your mistakes.

So my dear diary, in summation, installing crown molding is as simple as hiring 7 men, renting/buying hundreds of $$ of power tools and buying the most expensive material you can find.  But don’t worry, I’m sure it will increase the value of your home by at LEAST $50.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 17th, 2007 at 11:33 am and is filed under diary, humor attempt, info, music, tools. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.