What If You Can’t Drive a Tape Measure?

Hey, Dwight Kopp here with Forgotten Mountain.

So every now and then we get a customer who is just not comfortable driving a tape measure. [There’s no shame.]

Can’t Drive a Tape Measure?

And I totally understand this because let’s face it, there are some spaces where I am just not qualified to drive.

Now I’m pretty comfortable with a tape measure, but if you were to put me in front of a sewing machine, I would be out of my depth. So I’m going to suggest three solutions to help you measure for your window grilles that will hopefully help you get the right measurement and not create really beautiful firewood.

(I hate making beautiful firewood, and if the measurements are wrong, you’re going to have a beautiful piece of work that you can’t use.)

Three Ways to NOT have to do the measuring

So here are the three suggestions.

Use Metric

Let’s just face it. It makes a lot of sense because metric is simply built on tens. Ten parts make up a whole, ten of those parts make up another whole. It’s really simple, but if you do measure in metric, please let me know because if you don’t tell me I won’t make the conversion. (And again, we’ll make really beautiful firewood. )

Make Husband Measure

So the second option is to ask your husband to do it because let’s face it, if he gets it wrong, it’s his fault. And if it’s his fault, then you don’t have to carry the burden of having created something really beautiful that you can’t use.

Hospitality

The third option, which I think works pretty well, is simple hospitality. If you know a contractor, and most people know somebody in their world who can drive a tape measure with reasonable accuracy, invite them over and perhaps sweeten the deal with an offer of his favorite beverage. Perhaps he likes an IPA and would work for IPA, I don’t know, maybe in my house.

Tea. We drink tea, we offer tea. Tea is like a thing we always have the teapot on. So if I need something, I can offer somebody tea. And while they’re here, we can have a conversation, and as part of that conversation, we can get some work done.

Now, you would be amazed at how much you can get done for a simple bottle of your favorite warming beverage. It’s amazing what people will do just for that kind of hospitality. So I would recommend those three solutions. Number one, use metric. But again, please let me know. Secondly, ask your husband because if he gets it wrong, his problem. Thirdly, find a friend who can drive a tape measure and invite them over and compensate them for helping you measure with some simple hospitality. Hope that helps. Still have questions? Feel free to contact us.