Even the most careful and competent among us occasionally mess up. We confronted impeccable craftsman Sean Ledoux, all-round expert Steve Maxwell, and the man who taught cottagers to build, Wayne Lennox. Here are the biggest fails they’ll confess to.
Weight watching
Digging a greenhouse foundation, I hit soggy clay. After lifting about 300 pounds of the stuff into my wheelbarrow, I rolled it to the hill edge. As I hoisted the handles up to dump the clay, it refused to let go and the wheelbarrow rotated forward. I launched right over the barrow and down the hill! Luckily, I landed on brush, with only an injured ego, and none of my neighbours saw.—Sean Ledoux
A case of shingles
Once, I was installing cedar shingles on a cottage using a staple gun when I heard a hissing sound from inside. My staple had penetrated the plywood and pierced a can of spray foam, which was rapidly expanding into a blossoming ball of sticky foam.—Steve Maxwell
Could be the router
While I was changing a bit in my table router, a buddy stopped by. I set down my tools, and we chatted for a while before I got back to routing. I turned on the switch and instantly received a flying collet wrench to my shoulder. It hurt, but not as much as if it had hit my head. To this day, I never start a router without checking that it’s clear.—S.L.
Take counter measures
My friend Brian needed help installing a custom maple countertop. He was on his back underneath it; the last step was to screw through a cleat to secure the countertop. I handed Brian the wrong screw, a 1½” instead of a 1¼”. That extra ¼” pierced the top surface! Many expletives were heard.—Wayne Lennox
Walk and dock
I was tying up a boat in November, walking backwards while pulling the bow line, and I went too far, right off the end of the dock into some very cold, cottage-country water—coat, hat, boots, mitts, and all.—S.M.
Roofline update
Brian was shingling the roof of a shed we built. There was a dormer in the middle of one side. He shingled one half and then the other, only to discover that the pattern on that side did not line up with the pattern he’d started on the other. We ripped off all the shingles and started over.—W.L.
This article was originally published in the August 2025 issue of Cottage Life.
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