Hit 500 cabinet doors last week and my hands still hurt

I never really kept count of how many doors I've made over the years. But last Thursday I was finishing up a set of shaker doors for a kitchen remodel in Portland and I decided to tally them up from my job logs. Turns out I crossed the 500 door mark on that job. It threw me off because I don't think of myself as that experienced. I started making cabinets part time about 4 years ago after I got laid off from my warehouse job. 500 doors sounds like a lot but I still mess up the grain matching sometimes. My wife laughed when I told her and said 'that's only 250 kitchens worth of doors.' Has anyone else hit a random milestone like this and felt weird about it?

2 comments

2 Comments

keith_henderson12d ago

Honestly that's a solid milestone man, 500 doors is no joke even if you still mess up once in a while. Your hands definitely earned that pain.

thomas_johnson3511d ago

500 doors and only 4 years in means you're averaging like 2-3 doors a day which is actually pretty solid for a part timer. The weird part about milestones like that is how they sneak up on you - one day you're just trying not to screw up a panel gap and the next you realize you've done enough work to fill a small house. Grain matching is tricky because it's more art than math, I've seen guys with 20 years experience still screw it up on dark walnut. Your wife's math is funny but also kind of brutal, 250 kitchens means you've probably seen every type of customer request from basic white to some wild custom grain patterns. The hand pain is real though, I switched to a pneumatic sander last year and it saved my knuckles.

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