Home Improvement or Bust?

Hi, I’m Tisha with Enchanted 3 Boutique. Why do projects always take longer than anticipated? You have instructions that say it should take 2 hours, or you watch a YouTube video and they can do it in 6 hours, but when you attempt at home it takes 2 days longer! Anyone else experience this? 

Let me tell you about my weekend...my husband, Mike, and I had a plan for the weekend. He was going to put together a swing set for our kids on Saturday, and I was going to get the deck prepped & stained. We watched the videos, did the research on what products to use, checked all of the instructions, and everything indicated these were 1 day jobs! Fabulous...we were ready to rock. We even started early and got all the repairs done for the deck so we thought we were ahead of the game! We were so wrong! 

We’ll start with the swing set. It took my husband 2 hours just to remove the lumber and hardware from the boxes. TWO HOURS! That seems like enough material to build a small house! Needless to say Mike was not impressed! There was definitely some cuss words, a board or two being thrown to the ground, and some very clear directions that I am never allowed to buy anything online again! 

Granted, I did buy a rather large one, but in my defense it was the first one that I could actually get thru the check out process before it was sold out. Swing sets are apparently a very hot commodity. The building instructions for this thing was so thick it could be considered a novel. The kicker for my hubby was that he needed to keep switching bits on the impact gun because nothing was the same size. 

It took 2 days, & 2 people but it was finally completed. Our 3 year old son loves it, mostly because it has a captains wheel in the second story of the “fort” and a rock climbing “wall.” Mike was thrilled to be done, and once it was he was happy with the results. However, the person that wrote it was a 8 hour job is a liar! 

On to our next project...the deck. I watched all of these YouTube videos, researched the products I needed to do the job in one day, and totally failed! Part of that was due to having to keep stopping to help with the swing set. The other part was because no one actually tells you that power washing is an true act of torture! My hands ache so bad from squeezing the trigger and my back aches from hunching over to make sure I got every last space of dirt. Then the drying time! I knew it would take a bit for it to dry but it seems like eons passed by while I was waiting! I did keep myself busy with power washing g all of the outdoor toys off for the summer. I did learn that patience is not a virtue I process. 

So here we are, on Sunday night...swing set up, but deck furniture still scattered around the yard because I need one more day to finish the deck staining. Oh well...at least I won’t have to do any of this again, at least this year...on to the next project. Does anyone know how long it takes to tear out some closets to make a laundry “center”? Asking for a friend...lol! 

What projects have you done that took longer than anticipated? Anyone have any upcoming projects? We love to hear all about them so just comment below! See you next time!