I tend to be a slight perfectionist when it comes to certain things — the alignment on a resume, the phrasing of a sentence, or how I like my coffee — but when it comes to upcycling furniture for personal use, I’m learning to be okay with things being a little less perfect.
It wasn’t always this easy to simply be okay with a napkin stitch that wasn’t quite straight or a bookcase shelf that I failed to cover with a second coat of paint. Making mistakes like that once made me feel like a failure. I’d get frustrated and either need to redo the project or quit entirely.
Now, however, I’m learning to cut myself a little slack. I’m realizing that things don’t need to be perfect.
It would be a different story if I were trying to sell these upcycled items. I’d want to provide my customers with something I would want to buy, and I wouldn’t buy something that was comprised of shoddy work and a slap-dash coat of paint.
But I’m not creating these things for others. I’m creating them for me. And, as it turns out, I don’t live in the pages of an HGTV magazine.
Major projects don’t have to be completed in a day, nor do they have to be perfect. If I wanted to have a perfect product, I should just go buy that item. Instead, I’m upcycling furniture and other items because I enjoy the process. If they turn out well, then that’s great! But if they aren’t exactly perfect, then that’s okay, too.