Heard a guy at the lumber yard say 'good enough' and it made me cringe

I was picking up some maple for a built-in last week and overheard another guy talking to the yard guy. He was buying some pretty rough ply for a cabinet box and said, 'It's fine, it's just the inside, good enough.' I get it, we all cut corners sometimes to save a buck or time. But it hit me that 'good enough' for the stuff nobody sees is how you end up with a drawer that sticks in five years because the box racked. My old boss in Seattle drilled into me that the unseen work is what holds up the show piece. That plywood is the skeleton. If you wouldn't put your name on the face of it, why put it in the guts? Has anyone else had a project fail because the 'good enough' hidden part gave out?

2 comments

2 Comments

paul_thompson672d ago

My neighbor's deck collapsed last summer because the ledger board was just nailed, not bolted. You see it everywhere, the stuff you don't see is the first thing to go. Makes you wonder how many other shortcuts are hiding in plain sight.

the_eva2d ago

Oh man, that's scary. I used to think a nail was fine for stuff like that, it just holds wood together right? But hearing about your neighbor's deck, @paul_thompson67, really flipped a switch for me. It's all the hidden stuff that matters most, and now I notice bad details everywhere. Makes you second guess every porch you walk on.