SideQuest 05: Q&A - Perfectionism, RTA Cabinets, and Finding Your Flaws

Check out the episode: Podcast

Welcome back to the SideQuest!

If you are new here, the SideQuest is our midweek mini-episode where we step away from the heavy curriculum to answer your questions, correct our own mistakes, and generally go down the rabbit holes we usually try to avoid.

This week, we opened the listener mailbag and found three questions that cover the entire emotional spectrum of home renovation: Anxiety, Shock, and Confusion.

Here is the recap of what we learned.

1. How to Beat "Renovation Paralysis"

The Question: Listener Julie N. wrote in about a struggle we know all too well: Perfectionism. She gets derailed by seeing every tiny flaw in her work, and the resulting anxiety stops her from starting the next step.

The Answer: We have a motto in the workshop: "Make it exist, then make it good later."

When you are learning a trade, you cannot expect master-level results on your first try. If you wait until you can do it perfectly, you will literally never build anything.

• The "Couch Test": If you are overwhelmed by flaws in a room, sit in your favorite spot (like the couch). Look around. What imperfections can you actually see from there? Fix those first.

• The Reality Check: We admitted on the show that our own bedroom drywall is… questionable. But we hung a picture over the worst spot, and now we sleep just fine.

2. The $204,000 Cabinet Quote 😱

The Question: Denise R. sent us a quote she received for kitchen cabinets in a new build. The price? $204,000.

The Answer: Unless those cabinets are made of solid gold and install themselves, run away. You can build a beautiful, high-end kitchen for a fraction of that price.

Our Recommendations:

• Check out RTA (Ready-To-Assemble) Cabinets: We love RTA Cabinet Store (specifically their White Oak line). They are a family business, the quality is fantastic, and they actually send you extra screws (a miracle).

• Avoid the "Smarties": Arly coined a new phrase in this episode: "MDF is the Smarties of Cabinets." Just like Smarties are compressed sugar dust, MDF is compressed sawdust. It hates water. In a kitchen (the wettest room in the house), invest in plywood boxes and solid wood faces. They last longer and hold screws better.

3. The "Pink Wall" Disaster

The Question: Johnny Crash asked for a tip on how to see white spackle on a white wall so he doesn't miss a spot when sanding.

The Answer: We wish we could tell you to mix food coloring into your spackle to make it stand out. We really do. But Emily tried that once with red food coloring… and let's just say the wall looked like a crime scene that would not cover with paint.

The Real Tip: Use the Flashlight Trick. Take a bright flashlight and shine it sideways (parallel) against the wall. The harsh angle will cast a shadow on even the tiniest ridge or bump of spackle, showing you exactly where to sand.

Corrections Corner 📝

We also issued a formal apology to Emerald Urethane Trim Enamel. In a previous episode, we called it an "Oil-Based" product. The Truth: It is a Water-Based product that is chemically engineered to act like an oil (hard cure, great flow). The Good News: This means you get the durability of oil, but you can clean your brushes with soap and water.

Got a question for the team? Slide into our DMs on Instagram @HowToHandymaam or email us at hthm@myhandymaam.com.

Transcript: SideQuest 05

Welcome to the SideQuest.

Welcome to the SideQuest theme song, which might make people not want to listen.

I don't care, they love it.

They do love it. Hey guys, welcome back to How to Handyma'am, the podcast where we do a SideQuest.

Because we can never stay on topic. But these are places for us to actually be off-topic.

Yeah, we've taken our little bunny trails off to the side.

That's just gonna say bunny trail. We're on the same brain wave.

That's what this is. And if you don't remember, I'm Samantha.

I'm also Samantha because she tried to steal my identity last time. So...

Three Samanthas in a room. Just kidding, I'm Emily.

I'm Arly.

Yeah, and I actually am Samantha.

So, we're going to use today's SideQuest to talk about some listener questions. But before we start that, we're going to call this like the "Correction Area."

The Correction Cove... molding.

The Correction Toolbox.

The Correction Shelf.

Well, today we're going to do a little correction. In one of our painting episodes, we talked about Emerald Urethane, which we still love so much. And that episode we talked a lot about the difference between water-based and oil-based paints. And we said that Emerald Urethane is an oil-based product. Which it's not.

What we meant to say is it is a water-based product that is engineered so that when it cures, it behaves like an oil-based product.

Yes. While Sherwin Williams did such a good job with having it behave like an oil paint that we got confused.

We thought it was an oil paint. Yeah. The important thing to remember is not only is it awesome and performs like oil paint, but it can be cleaned up with water.

That's the important part.

So, sorry about my brain stroke because I apparently forgot how to do any brain things.

No, you didn't. Mistakes happen. But if you're like, "What kind of paint is this?" or "How do I clean it up?" the back of your can will tell you.

Okay, so we have listener questions. So I'm going to give you these questions and then hopefully you guys can give the listeners answers. All right?

So this one is from Julie N. And she said: "The search for perfection is something that derails me for weeks at a time. So I get something done, but then I see all the imperfections and the resulting anxiety keeps me from tackling the next step. What do I do?"

Oh my goodness. Same, girl.

Well, let's just keep talking about how it doesn't need to be perfect to be beautiful. It's hard sometimes to keep going when you see things that are wrong. But... it doesn't need to be perfect to be beautiful, especially if you just need to get it done.

We actually have kind of a motto: "Make it exist, and then make it perfect later."

"Make it good later."

Make it good later. And so if you can just keep doing little bits at a time... and every time you can be like, "Yes, there's imperfections," and maybe just keep telling yourself that it is fine because it can still be beautiful.

If you're not happy with it because you don't think it's beautiful, then maybe you can change it a little bit to make it fit your idea of making it beautiful.

I think that "change it a little bit" is a good point. So in our bedroom, you both know we have a lot of imperfections in our drywall. And we did the drywall... that was one of the first projects we did when we were just learning what to do. So it is not a good drywall job.

We drywalled an entire floor of this house, which was very ambitious.

We did. So what I wanted to say is: It would be really difficult for me to fix—like laborious and more time than I want to invest—to fix all of the problems on the walls. But what I focused on when I had some time to do some fixing were the places I could see.

So there's a pretty big imperfection right above our headboard, but there's a picture that hangs there. So I was like, "You know what? I'm not going to worry about that one right now. I'll get back to that later." So something that might help you, Julie, is if—let's say it's your living room—when you sit on your sofa and you're watching TV and you look around, what are the areas that you see? So maybe put some energy into tackling the areas that you see the most, and then let the other ones kind of wait until you have more time or energy to do it.

One thing that helps me... like sometimes I look around at projects I've done in my house and I'm like, "Ugh, like that could have gone better." I look at the before photo. And I'm like, "Ooh, it looks so much better!"

So take your before and afters. Because it's really hard, especially with so many of our listeners who are so busy, to do everything perfectly. But you can always go back and wood fill another time. Or you can go back and fix what you've done. Or you can go back and replace a little piece of trim. But progress is progress, baby.

All right. Denise R. "I just received a quote for cabinets for my new build home. And it's $204,000 for the cabinets."

For cabinets?!

So she says, "Needless to say, I think I'm just gonna go with Ready-to-Assemble cabinets. Are there any I should stay away from? Or do you have any other recommendations for a way to get cabinets into my kitchen affordably?"

Well, let's see. This is a company to install them?

It includes install, but... how else? You don't need to spend $204,000 on cabinets.

That's more than my house is worth.

You could buy a house... maybe even two houses with that kind of money. I think we spent $5,000 on cabinets in our kitchen and we have 26 cabinets.

Yeah. That's a lot.

With Ready-to-Assemble cabinets, I'd be careful. Because some of them are hard... We should link that one brand that we really like. They don't always come with instructions in the box. Sometimes you have to look them up. But they are almost all assembled exactly the same way. And we've assembled a lot of them. They have very little imperfections, if any. They always have the right amount of screws—and they give you extra. And they always have the right pieces. And they almost never send like, wrong things.

Plus they're great. They look amazing. They're beautiful.

It's RTA Wholesale, but we'll find it and put it in the link.

Yeah. And they're a small family business. And we really like them. They have this beautiful White Oak cabinetry that... it looks like real White Oak.

Yeah. I will say, the cabinet fronts are real oak.

One other thing: If you buy wood cabinets—like finished, stained wood cabinets—and you buy cheap ones, it's usually pretty obvious. But you can buy... if you're getting painted cabinets, there are some really nice options. Menards, Lowes, and Home Depot each of them has like one cabinet line that I recommend for that middle ground where you want them to look really nice.

They're called the Langston Series at Menards... All three of them are Shaker style. So if you want something different than that, something with a more complicated profile, you might need to look elsewhere. But you can get very reasonably priced cabinets in a lot of different sizes.

I have a quick tip. So when you order cabinets, whether they're ready-to-assemble or they come assembled, there's a lot of parts everywhere. All the time. It's very stressful. Usually they come with a packing slip. Go through as soon as they arrive. Detailed. And I mean open them all the way. Don't just peek in the box. Because a lot of times the face frame—which is the part that the door connects to—is damaged. Or just these little things. And it really holds up the process, even if you have someone installing them, if they have little broken bits and you have to order replacements.

My other tip is: Invest in real wood cabinets. Some of them are MDF, which is basically like compressed sawdust. They're like the Smarties of cabinets.

The reason why I say this is because first of all, in a kitchen, they will get wet and dirty. And you're going to need to scrub them. And MDF does not react well with water. And then also, the cabinet screws... if you screw into MDF, if you unscrew and try to screw it back in, it doesn't always hold up the same way. It gets damaged easily.

All right. The next question came on TikTok. This is Johnny Crash. The question is: "Are there any tips on remembering... like when you've gone over your walls and you have spackled a bunch of places... Do you have any tips for remembering where that spackle is so that you make sure you go back and get them all sanded before you paint?"

Well I have one tip I know is problematic. We tried at one point... when we were fixing up some drywall... we tried putting food coloring into our mud so that it would be a different color. And so mud on top of mud dries the same color and we don't remember where to sand. Well... it stained some things. And that was not great. We had like pink stain everywhere.

This is honestly, I have to confess, this is my fault. The blue worked just fine. The pink was me.

What was different about the pink?

I don't know, but the blue cleaned up fine. The red food coloring did not go well.

Well, I don't want to go too far off track because this is a SideQuest where we only have 10-ish minutes. So... painter's tape where you did it. Or if you have a wall that's like gray, do your spackling before you prime. And so you'll be able to see where your spackle is.

Another quick tip just when you think you've gotten it all: Take a flashlight and put your head against the wall and shine it sideways along your wall because it's going to point out anything that is different than the rest of the wall.

Yeah. All right. Well, that's it for today. We've got three listener questions. We've got some more we're gonna pick up in the next SideQuest. And we'll see you this Friday on the next regular episode.

If you want to leave us a question, you can leave us that at hthm@myhandymaam.com or you can go to our socials @HowToHandymaam. Anywhere.

All right. Thanks. Bye.