I built a garden obelisk for my partner last weekend. If you don’t know what a garden obelisk is, it is a trellis in three dimensions, looking a lot like a miniaturized, rural Washington’s Monument. I had looked up plans for this on the internet (as you know, you can find anything on the net) and found many of them were very precise with specific measurements for each piece, especially for the angles which call for using compound miter cuts to make sure everything is square.
I thought about this for a while and realizing my limitations both in equipment (a hacksaw and a portable circular saw for cutting) and in my woodworking capability I felt that there was no way I could make this object – at least to the specifications of the plans. Then I thought about the purpose of the obelisk. Its job will be to sit in the backyard, in the elements, covered eventually in some kind of viney greenery. In fact, the obelisk itself would eventually become a hidden framework. It would also be at least 20 feet from sight of the house.
Realizing now that the requirements for simple functionality outweighed the need for aesthetic complexity I created a design that required virtually no measuring and no calculation of angles or compound cuts, complete squareness or tight joints. I laid out two legs, nailed a crosspiece, arranged the angle to a pleasing-looking degree and screwed in the horizontal pieces. By measuring the length of each diagonal and making sure each length was the same I squared it up before adding extra screws to fix the framework angles. Then I just added the other two legs in turn, only measuring the crosspieces and cutting them to the same length to make sure the sides were the same, taking care to measure the diagonals for each face and squaring it up. I simply cut off the crosspieces to fit by marking them after I fit them in place and sawing them rather than trying to measure angles. This way I was able to construct the pyramid without using any complex carpentry cuts.
The top piece was a bit of a puzzle until I realized that again a flat space was unnecessary to attach it. Since the legs were all at a angle I installed crosspieces leaving a flat but inward-angled surface that I was able to just screw the flat top onto. It isn’t perfect. There are gaps and the angles are slightly off. But when you look at it from far enough away it looks just like it was purchased from a commercial dealer.
Sometimes you have to make sure all the Is are dotted and the Ts are crossed and everything is perfect. It takes time and effort and costs money to do this. Sometimes though all you are looking for is functionality and the appearance is an unnecessary effort. It is so easy to get lost in the minutiae of detail, making it all perfect. Sometimes this is an excuse to avoid unveiling the product to your audience, to your boss (or your girlfriend) in an unconscious attempt to avoid criticism.
Larry’s Garden Obelisk
When I was a quality manager living a Dilbert-esque existence getting my chemical plant reregistered to ISO 9001 standards we strove to get the system to DIRTFIT standard (Do It Right The First Time). We joked that instead we often settled for DIRE (Do It Right Eventually). DIRTFIT is really the way we want to do things – create systems and have everybody adhere to performance standards and have written procedures to follow. Life often forces us into DIRE situations where we make do as best we can and hope for the best. It is important to understand when we need DIRTFIT and when we can have DIRE.
Larry Earnhart
Alchemy Business Consulting
July 28, 2014
