Lazy, or just too busy

Is there ever an excuse for taking the easy – read: lazy – way out on a project?

Here’s the scenario. There’s a certain woodworking task to do. You know the proper way to do it, the way it will turn out the strongest and most attractive. You have the skills and tools to do it correctly, but what you don’t have is the time.

So, do you postpone it till you can do it properly, or go ahead and do a half-baked job on it with the thought that it’s only temporary? Let me further note that this isn’t for a paying customer, but for yourself.

Hope you’re not tired of hearing about my shop cabinets, because I have to talk about them one more time. They’re inexpensive ready-made cabinets, but look great and are perfect for my shop. However, I wanted to divide the narrow end cabinets with tall frame-and-panel doors into two sections. The lower sections would remain open for Bluetooth speakers, and the top sections enclosed by shorter doors.

But I have a hundred other things taking precedence right now and don’t have time to make them. Later, sure; but not for at least a couple months. So, I took the lazy approach by just cutting off the lower rail right through the stiles, cutting out a middle section to make it the height I needed, and then just gluing and clamping it back together. Once sanded and varnished, you can barely see the joint where I cut through the stiles, and you can’t see the cut in the panel at all since I cut it right at the top edge of the lower rail.

That’s a terrible way to make cabinet doors, but it was fast, the doors are up and doing their thing, and I can tackle that list of a hundred things. I don’t like to work that way and I should feel guilty about. But you know what? It doesn’t bother me at all.