One Step at a Time

Little by little, I'm getting this desk finished. Today, I managed to sand the desktop, put one coat of paint on it, and buy, cut, prime, and install the trim. Progress! And I didn't spend the whole day on it, either. In fact, it only took me a couple of hours off and on to get the job done, excluding paint drying time. (It really is true that watching paint dry is as boring as you can imagine.)

The only glitch was the Liquid Nails, which I used as an adhesive to glue the trim onto the desktop edges before clamping and nailing. (This time, I knew to drill my nail holes in the trim before installing it, thus avoiding wood splitting.) But since the LN was a previously opened tube, I had trouble getting it started once I put it in the caulk gun. There was about one inch of hardened LN in the end of the tube opening. I pried some of it out with a nail, but it there was just too much embedded too deeply. So I either had to toss the LN and open a new tube or cut the end of it off below the "clog." Knowing there was nearly a full can of LN inside, I opted to cut off the offending piece. Of course, that also meant my tip was now about 5 times bigger than I needed. So my LN went on a little thick. I can clean up the excess tomorrow when I sand.

The problem that I didn't foresee, however, was this: when I was trying to force the hardened plug out of the tip (before cutting it off), I squeezed the caulk gun handle so much that it popped off the bottom of the tube. I didn't know this until I was done with the job and tried to remove the tube from the caulk gun. It was a mess! Fortunately, I caught it quickly and moved to complete the task over the top of the garage garbage can. There's still some LN left in the gun, but I'll clean that up tomorrow with mineral spirits.

Long story short, I feel pretty good about what I accomplished today on the project. And I'm fairly certain that by Monday's end, the desktop will be installed, and Phase 2 of the left desk will be completed. Then, on to the shelves! But I think those will have to wait til I get back from Maine. No way I can do those in one weekend!