poplar road

It wasn't until February, when we were in Vancouver for my mom's birthday, that we went shopping. We came home with piles of flat-pack boxes, and I was ready to get started, but Richard took one look at the height compared to our existing closet, which has a front overhang, hung with standard closet doors, and said no, these are not going to fit!

That was not a fun conversation. He thought he was going to have to take them all back. But I took some more measurements, spent Friday night plotting, and on Saturday the 16th, a work day for Richard, I got started. Within minutes I confirmed yes, I could do this - and all by myself - without having to trim a single piece of wood. The only cutting I'd have to do to accommodate the beams was score and snap the flimsy laminate sheets that form the backing of each cupboard. That was the easy part, actually.

I was so proud of myself that afternoon. By the time Richard got home form work I was on a roll, putting the first section (mine) together all by myself with ingenuity and a little bit of string, and doing an excellent job. I couldn't wait to get it done, but Richard made me stop after I prepped the next section for the following day. I could hardly sleep I was so busy thinking about how everything was going to fit. Unfortunately my success on Saturday made me a little cocky on Sunday morning.

Richard left early in the morning for a day out with friends and I started planning how the next phase was going to work to a) get around the beams in the ceiling and b) squeeze the last section in with only 8cm to spare, since due to height every cupboard had to be assembled standing, inside the closet. (Ideally you assemble flat on the floor and tip up. That would have been nice.)

I began by assembling the first half of what would be the final middle section, starting from the top rather than the bottom, so I could hang it in an inverted L-shape over the finished cupboard to the right, with the backing already nailed to it by the left edge. That made all the difference when we finally finished the job. Brilliant. But after that, my cunning plan fell apart.

Admittedly, I was a bit tired and impatient. I tidied up the mounds of cardboard, styrofoam, and torn plastic from the entry hall, brought all the remaining pieces into the bedroom, and pre-nailed the left edge of the backing to go on the metre-wide leftmost cupboard, which would become my linen closet. Eventually. I probably should have spent a little more time sweeping up and planning. Or even waited for Richard. Instead I propped up the left and right panels to begin the next section, not expecting problems because it was the mirror of the first one I did on Saturday morning. But it got ugly.

I got one side and the base attached, an 'L' 58cm deep and 100cm wide. I moved that from where it rested against the left wall, out to the middle of the closet floor space, so I could attach the backing to the left side, and tack it into place along the bottom piece. Putting the backing on midway instead of last was a new brainwave I thought would improve on my method from the day before. Hah. Then, as I had done on my first section the previous morning, I went to bring it in close to the other side piece and position the top piece to slot in. Not an easy job, and I couldn't at that point really remember how I accomplished it the morning before (there'd been string involved). Whatever I did right on Saturday, I didn't do on Sunday.

I stood balanced on top of a stepladder, my head wedged against the interior of the overhang behind me, and both hands busy holding up the top piece. When I got my three pegs into the three holes on the left edge, the backing helped hold that heavy metre-wide top piece in place, temporarily. What I should have done, in retrospect, was insert at least one of the nifty little round tightening bolts to lock that side in place... But the backing that was holding it up wouldn't let me get low enough for a proper fit. It was in the way. No problem, I thought. I decided I had to bring the right side in and get that pegged. Here's where I should have stepped back and waited the hour for Richard to get back. But he'd grumbled on and on when it looked like he might have sawing to do, so I was determined to do it all by myself. As I sit here with my foot aching, I really, really wish I'd waited.

What I did - I know, I'm an idiot - was hold the top with one hand, grab the side from where it rested to my right against a beam, and walk it vertical to get its pegs to insert in the top piece. Again, they didn't meet because the damn backing I'd so brilliantly tacked on was bending inward in my way, rather than staying in the slight ridge on the back rim of the top shelf. I remember it in slow motion - in my right hand I was levering the eight foot tall right side into position from the top, struggling to get the bottom aligned as well. With the metal pegs not lining up, I couldn't get the side closer than an inch and a half from my top and bottom edges. In my left I lightly held up the top, seemingly pegged to one corner of the left side, and balancing on that wobbly backing. Obviously the backing was the problem, so in frustration I let go of the top with my left, and pushed on the back. Simultaneously, I cranked on the right side panel with my right hand, hoping to get the back corner in the right spot. Instead, it twisted in the opposite direction.

The gap between the top and the side panel increased just as I pushed the backing outward. The metre-wide top panel shifted and hit my head. Had I USED my head, I could have held it up that way, but I instinctively shrugged away from the smack to the skull, grabbed fruitlessly with my right hand, and just managed to tilt the shelf vertical in time for the corner to align itself to fall point down on the top of my right foot.

The shelf continued downward, tilting past the stepladder to fall neatly between it and the door with minimal damage. The right side panel fell just as far as the beam a few inches away. I truly had a moment of relief at that, before the pain kicked in. Then I stepped carefully backward off the ladder and ran across the room to lie on my bed, knowing I had to get there before it REALLY began to hurt. I was sure there was a danger it was broken. But I didn't go pale and dizzy, the way I would have if there'd been a lot of blood. I just lay there and swore for a full ten minutes at the top of my lungs and then sat up to peel off my shoe and sock and take a look at the top of my foot. (No, I was NOT wearing my steel-toed boots. Enough said.)

It hurt like hell, but at that point the hole in the top of my foot was barely bleeding, thankfully, and I was able to wrap my foot in a spare pair of sweatpants, padding under the heel, lower myself to the floor (thank goodness for laminate flooring!) and haul myself on my butt to the kitchen where I grabbed the phone. My first call was to my neighbour Sandra, a nurse, but she wasn't home. Jonathan answered and convinced me that if I could somewhat move my toes and hadn't passed out from the pain - wimp that I usually am - it must not be broken. Ice it, he said. I hung up the phone, wiggled to the freezer where the ice pack was thankfully stored on the bottom shelf, and then made my way back to the couch. I was just levering myself up off the floor when the phone rang. I couldn't keep the pain out of my voice when I answered, and RIchard on the other end freaked. I can just imagine how fast he drove home after I told him what happened. About 15 minutes later he was there. He handed me the Advil and arnica, and insisted on unwrapping the layer of sock and towel and ice to take a look. That's when I quailed at all the blood and the black hole on top of my foot, and shock kicked in. Then he gave me shit. Pardon my language. But I never passed out, so the verdict was I'd only bruised it, until the x-ray the following Wednesday proved it was actually broken. The project was on hold after that for a month, and for the first few nights as I lay in bed chock full of painkillers, all I could think about was that I hadn't got it done.

Then, as I spent weeks recuperating (am STILL recuperating), Easter rolled around, and Chris and Dagny decided to come up for a visit to celebrate her birthday.

I wasn't particularly mobile yet - still had to wear the air cast and take the crutches when we went into town - but I knew exactly what I wanted to do with Dagny while Chris and Richard were working outside. Dagny's no stranger to IKEA knock-together furniture, so with her doing most of the work up on the ladder and me safely on the ground (and taking enforced rest periods every hour) we assembled the rest of the closet, starting at the left end with the section that had fallen apart on me. She couldn't believe I'd got that far alone. As it turned out, even with two of us handling the pieces, the tight space remaining once we got the leftmost section done posed quite a challenge and I was really grateful to have Dagny's (and Chris's) help. She probably wishes she'd gone somewhere else for her birthday long weekend!

We scored the backings, tacked them on as best we could with a hands breadth of room to swing the hammer (all that great knock-together technology and they still resort to piddly little nails to get the backs on, why???), and I explained how my inverted 'L' needed to get the right panel and base attached within the remaining centre space, with only three inches of wiggle room. If you look at the photos above, you can see how things had to jog around the beams, but that was actually a benefit, because we could lean the sides against the beams for extra support as we were pushing ends together. The amount of space was perfect, actually: I got the full eight feet of height I wanted, the lamps we'd installed two years ago were never in the way, and although tight during assembly, I'm glad we ended up with less than 3" of wasted space left over across the 17' length.

We stopped for dinner Saturday night - a decadent birthday/Easter prime rib and crab - and then Chris finished the last section off by gorilla-glueing the right and bottom edge of the backing on, since there was no space to reach in with a hammer. We had to leave the leftmost section - what is now the linen closet - out of the picture because it needed some shims and the fall had left a crack at the top. But everything else was ready to install the important stuff on Sunday morning - shelves, wire baskets, rods, and these great Komplement pull-out pant hangers (which unfortunately can't be pulled out entirely in my section because they overlap the closet doors, but they work great all the same.) And then all our clothes, shoes, luggage, storage bags full of off-season stuff... I had to re-arrange the shelves a few times to make it all fit.

One of these days I'll fix the cracked top on the linen closet and shift Richard's section around so the topmost shelf is usable. The linen closet itself wasn't finished that weekend - I had to catch Richard the following Sunday to get screw it to the other sections to level it off. He refused to shim it, impatient to get outside to the barn where he has his own project on the go (more on that after this weekend.) And just filling the closet with the clothes and linens from the other room took hours with me not walking well yet. That's what delayed this post, actually - I wanted it to be done. But now as far as daily use is concerned it's finished, it functions well, and looks fantastic!

Perhaps it's sad how much I value my closet - particularly since I'm not much of a clothes fiend nor do I have collections of handbags and shoes - but I love to be organized, and look good doing it, and this looks really, really good. Of course, now that the closet is done, I'm thinking about bedroom furniture (like a little bench to sit on across from the closet) and looking through the open door to the plywood and insulation-swathed cave where my luxurious ensuite bathroom will one day be. I've waited two years for that, too. And that's one project I wouldn't dream of tackling by myself. But first, now that the good outdoor weather is upon us, comes the next stage in transforming the barn into a shop. For those of you bored to tears by closet photos, you might like Richard's project better, coming up next.