It’s been a long time since we’ve had a proper disaster confessional post here on the blog. We’ve been distracted by shiny new features, like our truth behind the photo posts and the great amount of joy that we get from doing fake craft projects and writing about them sarcastically.
But the disaster confessional was one of our first series ideas, and it is one that we love. Quite simply it is where we get to tell you all about things that are messed up about our houses or that went wrong with our projects and then not have to do anything to fix them. That’s right, we just confess it is a disaster and move along with our lives. It is freeing and therapeutic, and hopefully makes you feel superior (or at least better about the disasters that you are ignoring, as well).
In the past we’ve shared the whole truth about holes in our homes, we’ve minded the gaps that lurk in old houses, and we’ve caused you to shed your preconceptions about what sheds should actually look like. Today, we’re going tell you about things that fall apart or don’t work out.
“My tiny house leaks” – Naomi
Yeah, I was pretty pleased with myself when I made a planter that looked like an adobe house. I worked on the plans for a while, and when it was done I was so excited to display it in my house!
And I did for a while. However, over time, the wood dowels which were in contact with the damp soil, expanded and contracted enough to crack the clay and cause a piece to break off.
Bummer!
I called out this issue in my original post (there were a few cracks showing by the time I wrote it up, so I proposed the solution of making the holes bigger and setting dowels in with a bit of caulk so they would have some give.). I still think that would work, but if I were making this project again, I would probably just waterproof the whole inside so the wood wouldn’t touch the soil at all. But as it is, the cool look I was going for is sort of ruined.
I may get around to gluing it back together to see if it can look alright. Or I may give up and trash the whole thing. But I haven’t felt like repotting those little plants (who still seem to think it is a fine place to live) so I’ve just been ignoring it.
“Now they’re just tiny shelves” – Sage
Okay so I’m going to cheat a little and not share a project that has actually physically fallen apart. But this is a project that definitely didn’t turn out the way I’d hope, and I have pretty much declared a failure at this point. *cue temper tantrum*
The project in question is my impossibly adorable cat shelves:
So cute, right? But the reality is that Cat #1 (Owen) has only set foot on these once in the six months we’ve had them, the day I put them up.
Cat #2 (Murphy) is a bit more adventurous, and he does spend some time on the top shelf. It melts my heart when I see him up there.
It’s helped that I put a scrap piece of carpet on that shelf — at first, he would go flying off every time he jumped up there. It was hilarious but also a little terrifying….
But the only time he ever goes on the other shelves is if we put cat toys or catnip on them.
Catnip:
Toys:
Please ignore the very dead plant….
These are the only two times I have ever seen him on anything but the top shelf.
The reality is that the shelves are too small and closely staggered for the cats to really navigate. I was working with the space we have, and with our low ceilings (7′) we really don’t have room for a cool ledge or something along the ceiling of a single wall like I know the cats would love. Instead of the shelves I so lovingly built them, they would rather sit here:
And here:
And here and here and here:
I get it, you don’t like the &*$%ing shelves.
So now they’re just strange, small, useless shelves. We can’t put plants on them because they get terrible light, and putting anything else there for display purposes is a recipe for disaster — the one surefire way to get Murphy to go on them briefly is to put something there that he wants to knock down.
One of these days I will probably remove them, but I don’t feel like patching the walls so I’ve been procrastinating. Why can’t my cats just appreciate what I’ve made for them?!?!?
Have you had projects fall apart or not work out after you made them? What did you do — re-do it better, or give up on the whole thing?
Cats are terribly fickle but I’m sure there’s a way to make that little bit of wall useful. How about building a custom bookshelf that fills the whole space, floor to ceiling? it wouldn’t be deep but builtins are such good uses of space. You could even paint the wall a brilliant colour and then it would peek out a bit in between whatever’s on the shelves.
I love your problem-solving! Unfortunately nothing deeper than 3″ could go there without blocking the doorway. The shelves protrude into it a little but since there are only a few of them it doesn’t feel problematic — but sadly a whole bookshelf wouldn’t work.
When I saw the original post I thought “I bet my cats would ignore them” because though there is a comfy cat bed, and floor cushions they prefer the top of a gym bag or suitcase. Go figure. Sorry it didn’t work out but I would have tried too. Those cat tree/condo things aren’t the prettiest. :/
I think cats live just to remind us they don’t care at all how much trouble we’ve gone to on their behalf.
Cats. Yes. If you put things on the shelves you want to have stay there, then the cats would be on the shelves All The Time.
The leaking tiny house seems sadly realistic. 🙂
I do love when he gets on the top shelf because I can totally tell he thinks he’s being mischievous and he doesn’t realize he’s playing along with my plan.
I love the cat photos. I have two cats myself, and all the pictures of them sleeping on other objects rings really true to me. But the wall – it’s small, so it could probably just be blank right? But it might be cool to put a really tall piece of artwork up there. Or I suppose several smaller canvas’s stacked on top of one another. Then – no patching!
Agreed, the wall could totally be blank! I’m just being lazy because now I don’t want to patch and paint it, so I like the canvass idea 🙂
I made a lovely cave with tshirt yarn for my cat and he has never never never used it, not once, he won’t even get near it! It took me so many hours to crochet it, so cozy and nice… and it will never beat the ugliest cardboard boxes. I think I blame pinterest on this disaster 🙂
It’s totally all pinterest’s fault. I hope people pin from this post rather than my original one so I’m not perpetuating the problem!
Although you worked hard to make the shelves, think from the cats perspective, there is no view to the window, the old cat tree you had let the cats look out the window. The shelves are way small, you can see the cats body is condensed sitting on it, …
i think what you would like is this….http://www.wohnblock.com/retro-en.html ….
it is a combination of either artwork and a cat tree, or they also do a book shelf that has dedicated areas for the cat to climb…. cold go in front of part of the window and be visually pleasing….. there are also cat shelves that have suction to glass windows to let the cats have a view that you can get on ebay…