In praise of planks on a wall

Every time Jeff says that he's going to build something rather than buy it I always tell him that I don't want it to turn out looking like planks on a wall. (I would much rather buy things, don't you know.) So, when he built our bathroom mirrors I was very clear that I did NOT want planks on a wall. Look how he inset our bathroom accent tiles to make it all match... so clever.



Then he said he thought he had enough wood in the scrap pile to build a medicine cabinet, instead of buying the nice one I had picked out at Home Depot. Once again, I made it clear that the finished product should not look like planks on a wall. He did this:



Then he rebuilt the linen cupboards. I said my line again. He did these doors out of scrap once again.



And then, he went and did this:



It is supposed to be only temporary. It has been hard for him being home all these months with all this time to do projects but no money to actually start anything. I think he's reached his limit. He re-did the downstairs bathroom last week, re-tiled the floor, re-textured the walls, new paint, new toilet (re-cycled from the upstairs bathroom) everything that we could possibly do for under $150. I was quite prepared to live without a sink for a while, but after about three days of that he built this frame and put the sink back in the bathroom.

This truly is planks on a wall, and I wonder how long we will be looking at it. Given that when he pulled the carpet up in our bedroom and told me it would be six months before we replaced it, and that was 18 months ago, my best bet is 2yrs before we replace this perfectly good working plank sink.

Under current circumstances I'm actually quite happy with planks on a wall! I never thought I'd be grateful for that dreadful wood scrap pile that takes up so much room in our garage, but I'm grateful that Jeff can think of ways to use it!