The day I stopped using a level on every single shelf install

I was putting up 12 shelves in a new build outside Austin and kept fighting with a bubble level for 45 minutes on each one. Then the GC walked by and said 'just use a laser line, man, these walls aren't even true.' He showed me the studs were off by a quarter inch in some spots, so my level was lying to me anyway. Switched to a $50 cross-line laser and finished all 12 shelves in under 2 hours. Has anyone else found tools they were overcomplicating for years?

3 comments

3 Comments

shane1702d ago

12 shelves and a bubble level? Man I woulda thrown that level into the drywall after the second one. Glad the GC saved you from pulling your hair out over crooked walls that were never your fault anyway.

davidshah2d ago

...and honestly you gotta wonder how many guys just quietly rage quit jobs like that. Props to Shane for sticking it out, that level would've been in orbit around Mars by shelf number six in my house. Glad the GC had his back, cause crooked walls make a man feel like he's losing his mind over nothing.

zarat372d ago

Wait, how did the GC actually figure out the walls were crooked? Did he just break out a four foot level and show you right there, or did he have one of those laser things that projects the line across the room? I'm always curious how guys who do this stuff for a living spot that kind of nonsense without making a big production out of it, lol.