A Box of Donuts 🍩

Covered in primer, and back in your inbox.

September Favorites

Someone told me not to start with the part where my “ultimate IKEA hack” fell apart.

“Bad for your brand,” apparently.

But if you’ve been here a while, you already know this was never meant to be a highlight reel. It’s just us, showing up real. Like me at 2 AM, sitting on the floor with a backwards shelf in my lap and leftover birthday cake as dinner.

Honestly, maybe if we all admitted that the perfect “after” photo usually comes with a minimum of three breakdowns and at least one bad decision, we’d all breathe a little easier.

So here it is: the fail, the mess, the story.

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The plan was simple: surprise my mom with an entire wall of bedroom built-ins… in just one weekend. Forty-eight hours. I’d crammed fifteen YouTube tutorials (which obviously qualified me as a professional carpenter) and even took a stab at sketching the whole thing out, like I knew what I was doing.

What actually happened:

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Day one: Confident optimism and a trip to IKEA that took three hours because I kept second-guessing my measurements.

Day two: Seventeen Allen wrenches scattered across the floor, primer in my hair, and the growing realization that YouTube makes everything look way easier than it is.

Day three: Full pivot to “maybe just the laundry room” after Craig gently suggested that maybe, possibly, we were in over our heads.

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Somewhere between coat two of primer and questioning my entire identity as a functional adult, I heard my dad’s voice:

“Peyton, if you’re going to show up late, you better bring donuts.”

Since I can’t deliver you actual donuts, here’s my mom’s recipe that makes everything feel a little better:

The Donut Recipe

Fluffy, golden, and perfect for Sunday mornings

Ingredients

• 2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour

• 3 tablespoons sugar

• ½ teaspoon salt

• ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

• 1 large egg

• ½ cup milk

• 3 tablespoons melted butter

• 1 packet active dry yeast (about 2 ¼ teaspoons)

Method

1. Mix everything together, knead the dough, and let it rise until it's puffy.

2. Cut into rounds, fry until golden, and glaze with a mix of powdered sugar, butter, milk, and vanilla.

3. Eat at least three immediately…

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• This is not a weekend project. Not unless your weekend is actually ten days long.

• IKEA isn’t always cheaper. By the time you add primer, caulk, extra trips to Home Depot, and therapy, you might’ve just paid for custom cabinets.

• You need backup. Preferably someone who reads instructions and doesn’t throw them aside with a cheerful, “Let’s wing it!”

• The prep work takes forever. Longer than the actual building. Nobody mentions this, but it pays for itself.

Here’s the thing: Despite all the chaos, despite pivoting from the bedroom to the laundry room, despite Craig having to talk me down from several minor breakdowns, it’s actually working.

The cabinets are up. The paint is almost done. And it’s going to completely change how this space functions.

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Would I do it again?

Ask me next month when/if the trauma fades.

But probably yes. Because when something works, really works, in your space, when it makes your daily life even slightly easier, it’s worth the temporary chaos of getting there.

I spent the last few days obsessively researching what I should’ve done instead. Like, obsessively. Craig found me at 1 AM with seventeen browser tabs open, taking notes on IKEA hack forums, as if I were studying for finals.

And honestly? This research would’ve prevented my breakdown.

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All the Ways I Should’ve Done This Instead

I found 14 different approaches that would’ve been faster, cheaper, and required zero existential crises. Here’s everything I wish someone had just handed me a week ago.