By now, you’re probably pretty familiar with our 36 square foot kitchen remodel that we were busy doing last year at this time.  (If you aren’t, we’ve got a slew of before and after shots on Our Kitchen Remodel Page.)  The kitchen is our pride and joy.  But there was a time when the whole project almost went up in smoke.

We were almost finished when our countertops didn’t fit!

By taking such a serious DIY approach to our remodel by making our own cabinets and installing everything ourselves, we were able to save a chunk of change.  We were also able to budget a granite countertop.  (Thank goodness our space was small!)

We made a critical mistake and didn’t check to see if our wall that we tore down half way was perfectly perpendicular to our exterior walls.  It was off by about one degree.  The other problem was our counters weren’t cut perfectly square either.  They were off by one degree, too.  All of that’s not a problem in the beginning.  But by the time you get to the end of the counter, one degree of difference means our countertops hung over one side by an extra 3/4 of an inch and didn’t cover all our cabinets on the other side.

These little mistakes are so easy to do.  It’s even easier to beat ourselves up over them and feel discouraged or angry.  But we need to try not to do that.  I think Martin and I probably spent about eight hours trying to tweak the countertop and make it fit.  (The worst is when the flaws are partly your own fault.)

We had to do everything from cutting off pieces with the table saw to sanding to filling gaps with a little extra caulking.

When you look at your home, try not to look at the faults or the bits you changed to best correct those faults.  Try to see the beauty.  Try to find inspiration and joy from your home because ultimately, if you are always thinking about the flaws in your space or pointing them out to other people, those flaws will always be there. When you stop fretting about them, faults have this way of just disappearing.

Today our countertop is much better.  It’s still not completely perfect, but I don’t say anything – not to my husband, to our guests, or to myself.  And if it weren’t for Houseblogs’s little contest all about DIY drama, I’m not sure I would have remembered it at all.  Isn’t that how home should be?