CHECKLIST ORGANIZER: HOW MANY BOXES GET CROSSED OFF DURING QUARANTINE

A checklist organizer makes a checklist.

If you’re not much of a list-maker, keep it short.

Susan Orlean tweeted that she’s taken a shower every day for a hygiene flex.

Is that checklist organizer worthy?

Maybe you’re not the list person in the house? A follower instead of a leader?

Then be a useful follower.

Read the list, prioritize the work, and don’t be a bitch.

How To Not Be A Bitch About It

Make that list and read it twice. If someone else makes your list, check it three times.

When you hear: “These are the things I want done.”

Answer with: “That’s incredible, these are the same jobs I put on my list.”

If you hear: “Right, you’ve never made a list in your life.”

Respond with: “It’s all up here.” And point to your head while you check their list.

If you see furniture repairs on the list, don’t blink, and don’t say: “How did everything break at once?”

Furniture Repair On Checklist Organizer List?

Everything going on during covid-19 quarantine is directed to problem solving. Wooden drawers sagging in old dressers and chests are no different.

Pull a drawer out and take a look inside. What you’ll see is a history of furniture. Old chests and dressers carry traits and traditions of past cabinet making, and it looks like a mess of little wood pieces all fastened together.

Tricky.

A cheap modern piece made of veneer covered pressboard with a metal tracking rail in the center is a bare drawer hole without the confusion.

Once the center rail breaks, the drawer falls out when pulled halfway.

Install side rails if you see a half inch to spare on each side of the drawer.

If you don’t get the rails level, the drawers might bind, but they’ll eventually loose up. The main thing is whether or not the drawer faces match in front and don’t fall out when you pull them open.

This Old Cabinet

I helped a guy move years back. Part of the move was a dump run. One of the throwaways was a beat to hell dresser refinished about nine times.

The top had a chip that revealed a promising base. Could it be Birdseye maple?

I moved it to my van instead of the dump, took it home, and stripped it.

The Birdseye maple underneath was preserved by coats of paint. The beauty shined through.

After I shined it up, I fixed the drawers. They had small dowel stops in the front frame to keep the drawers from pushing too far in and creating an uneven front.

All of the little wooden pieces inside the chest were cute and timely, but those ‘distance dowels’ in front broke over and over until droopy drawers were a fact of life.

Right up until the coronavirus quarantine. Now was the time for the final fix, but I knew anything from the front would break again.

My able assistant, aka son, took a hard look inside. I expected a teaching moment to happen from me to him, but things got turned around.

“These little sticks get broken when you push the drawer in hard?” he said.

“Yes.”

“How much room is in the back?” he asked.

“Let’s take a look.”

Part of the teaching moment is personal discovery, right?

The dresser had about a half inch between the back of the drawers and the back of the case.

“That’s why the pegs in front break. Too much play in back,” he said.

“Yes, there is.”

I was scheming on how to put more permanent pegs in front, knowing they would eventually break and send me back to the drawing board.

Then this happened:

“What if you put a drawer block in back that stops the drawers in the right place?” he said. “A strip of wood behind the drawers would never break.”

The sun broke through, the music started, and I felt like dancing. There I was following the path an old timer took when they made the dresser, and a new idea broke with tradition.

Put in back stops, not front stops? Damn, boy, that’s some magical thinking. And I had just the right piece of wood for the job.

I’ve been snarkily criticized for my wood collection. It’s not an overwhelming pile, not a fire hazard, and it’s not in the house. Some in the garage, some in a crawler, but none masquerading as home decor.

A professional would look at my selection of hard and soft wood and order a dumpster.

I left the room with the dresser, went to the exact spot for the piece of wood I remembered, took it up and slid it into the back of the dresser cabinet.

Against all odds, and the Gods of Wood, the drawers closed to the perfect distance to create a flat front. I slammed them and they didn’t go in any further. It was a touching moment of accidental craftsmanship.

I’ll take credit here on my blog, but my kid was the visionary.

Make The Ordinary Checklist Organizer Extraordinary

Adults working with adults comes with conflict.

I had a guy explain what happens at his job when someone comes to him with a new idea for saving time and money.

“I tell them they’ve got a great idea that sounds like it would work. But it’s not how we do things, and they should start their own company if they feel so strongly.”

Somebody is the boss, which rubs others the wrong way if they’re a bad boss.

Who’s the boss during quarantine? Apparently the virus is the boss, so the rest of us get a breather.

During this moment in time, open up to new ideas and solutions to old problems. The Birdseye maple chest was screwed up for thirty years; I started using the veneer chest in 8th grade.

Now they are better than new after a proper going-over. Slam a drawer? No problem. Open a drawer on metal side rails? Pull hard.

If you feel quarantine is a hard pull, you may need a checklist organizer.

Mark it off, Boss.

If you feel like complaining, review Rule #1 at the top.