There comes a time during nearly every one of my projects when I have to make a decision: Is it good enough yet? It’s not a slack-off moment, or a time for me to shove aside a boring project, but a time for me to realistically consider what I expect to get out of a project, how I expect it to function, and most importantly, to consider what return I’ll get on investing additional time. Sometimes an idea or technique just needs to percolate in my brain for a while before I figure out what I really want or how best to accomplish my goal.

In the case of my sewing desk, I’m just not sure what finish I want to put on the table top yet. Rather than let everything lanquish in the dark spider-infested back of the garage, I decided to assemble it as-is in my sewing room, get some use out of it, and let time tell me what to do next.

Before screwing the bookcases onto the top, I added big casters to the bottom of the cases, so I’ll be able to roll the whole thing away from the wall. Look, it only took me a couple hours to start adding clutter: