I'm sure I'm not the only one guilty of this. I get really, really close to the end of a project and then I simply peter out, often leaving a bit of touching up to be done later. Sometimes that later comes around pretty quickly and other times it can take months (or even years!) to swing back around for completion…
Chalk it up to impatience, a short attention span, or the fact that most of my projects are camera-ready but may show some flaws in real life. Whatever the reason, most of my projects end up almost finished, if not for a few finishing touches. Take the Rope Wrapped Hanging Clothes Bar, for instance. When I was working on the project I was a bit crunched for time so I didn't bother filling in the extra hole I had drilled into the ceiling and I also didn't bother to patch the holes and peeled paint caused by the drawers hanging on the wall.
It was fine to have the hole in the ceiling when I was just photographing the project to write about — I could simply Photoshop the mistakes out of the image. Oh, if only there was a Photoshop for everyday life! Since there's not, I finally went back and properly finished the project over the long weekend. I filled in the holes and then sanded and painted both the ceiling and the wall.
Now the project finally looks really finished — whether seen online or in real life. Surprisingly, it took me less than a month to come back to this project. Now I just have those other projects that have been sitting mostly finished for the past year (or two).
(Images: Jason Loper)
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I'm definitely guilty of doing the same thing. Just yesterday I fixed a botched paint job from about three months ago.
But there IS a "Photoshop" for real life -- as you learned, it's called "patch and paint"! (Another variation is the Honey Do List...) ;^)
i think everyone is guilty of this in one way or another. my fix (though not practical in most situations) is to simply move (which i did this last weekend) and start completely fresh. sure, it was a pain and every muscle in my body aches...but i started with a clean slate...had all of my diy projects COMPLETE before heading to the new place...got all of our painting done BEFORE we brought a single piece of furniture inside and now i'm hoping i can keep up the momentum throughout the year, should any diy creations arise that i just can't live without *fingers crossed*
I still have multiple holes in my living room ceiling from when I drilled holes to install a swing. I keep meaning to patch it, but there are dozens of similar examples of little things I need to do, and it may take awhile to get around to them all! But this post inspires me to write a list so I can check them off one by one.
Ugh! that's the worst! I just finished retiling our kitchen floor a couple of weekends ago. The floor came out beautifully and all of the base board has been put back. A couple of days after I finished, I notice one of the tiles had a bit of a gap (this is glue down VCT tile we're talking about). The next day it was even worse. By the end of the week, the tile had slide so much that there was a 1/4" gap. It's driving me crazy but I'm so burnt out on that project that I can't bring myself to pulling it up, cutting a new tile to fit better, and then re-gluing. It would probably only take me a half hour to do. I'll get to it eventually I guess.
I have a list of about thirty tiny things that need doing, it works really well if I don't stress out and just scratch them out one by one no matter how long it takes. Half an hour every weekend and soon you have a satisfying list of thick black strikethroughs.
Well this weekend I finally got around to repainting the patched holes in our kitchen from a year ago. Since they were above the window I hardly ever saw them, so I kept forgetting about it.
One of my new year's resolutions is exactly this: Start and finish my project.The year began poorly and I already have two to wait ...Without guilt!
You must be an Aries!
I do this all the time. I love photographing the evolution of my workstation, because it is a very personal space for me. The thing is, when I show it off I always see some stray cable you never see in normal use or any other number of things that just RUINS the picture. "Oh god I never painted those patches from when I move the shelf. Oh my wire management thing I never finished" so I always end up photoshopping it and doing the actual work a month later.
This is worse for any DIY where you need functionality ASAP. I have so many small, half finished projects because I needed the thing I was building NOW and couldn't wait to completely do the surfacing.