First carpentry project

Sunday night, I completed my first carpentry project in my new house. It was a relatively simple objective: replace the sagging bottom shelf in a bathroom cabinet. Saturday I picked up the board at Lowes, and Sunday I measured and cut the board.

My first challenge was with my equipment. I had to cut two shelves out of a board, and had no sawhorses or clamps. I wound up holding the board with one hand on my folding camp table, and using a circular saw with the other hand. As you can imagine, the board shifted around. Also, I'm not sure how old the saw blade was (its borrowed), but it really made a mess of the edge.

I made a critical miscalculation in my measurements: I did measure for the shelf to fit into the groove on either side of the cabinet, but I also split the shelf down the middle to get it into the cabinet without removing the middle support piece. when I cut the shelf in two, I failed to adjust the size to account for what the saw would remove. As a result, it was not as good a fit as I would have liked. The split also required building a support underneath to hold up the shelf and keep it from moving around.

Although it did not come out as nice as I hoped, I was proud of myself for getting it as close to right as I did. I think I may regroup and try it a second time.