Marcus Sly - Furniture Making and Design

Have you ever had that sinking feeling in the middle of a piece that you've made a design mistake?  Sometimes as soon as you do something you know it's not as good as you hoped.  At other times the realisation sneaks up on you over a couple of days.  If you're anything like me you probably try to ignore that voice at first, or to rationalise it away.  "It's not that bad", you say to yourself or, "no one will notice once the doors are on". 

I know that whenever I have left a fixable mistake un-corrected I have regretted it.  So after a couple of weeks of pretending it's not there, and hoping it will go away, I have spent the last two days correcting a howler I made with the design of a cabinet back panel.  My original thinking was to have a simple, framed, tongue and groove back panel.  Then at the last minute - for reasons I can't now clearly remember - I decided to put an extra rail near the bottom of the panel.  I must have been having a bad day, because it looked dreadful, clashing with the drawers which are located just beneath it.  The peaceful feeling I was looking for was lost.

Fortunately I usually only attach back panels with pins, and I use hide glue, so I was able to remove the panel, take it to pieces, and make some new parts.  It took two days, but as I finished off this evening I have a happy feeling that it was worth it.  I now have the cabinet I was hoping for - what a relief!

The moral is: if you get that sinking feeling, and it's at all possible, make the changes you know in your heart are needed.  You will not regret it.  The alternative is that every time you see the piece, or remember it, or see a picture of it you will kick yourself - for the rest of your life!