Don’t rush the planning stages when you’re building something, regardless of whether or not it’s as simple as a bookshelf or as big and complex as a house.
You aren’t merely making sure your measurements are correct, you’re also making sure you’re using the right materials in the first place. If your project involves wood that’s going to be exposed to the elements, you might want to consider treated wood. My neighbor a few houses down, Martin, lives with his wife, Robyn, and their two children, Patrick and Emma. Martin and Robyn have wanted a new deck behind their house ever since they moved in. The old one was showing signs of rotting and decay, leaving it up to question how long it would remain structurally safe. Unless you have a professional inspect the support beams, it’s a guessing game. When he made plans to create a deck by hand using whatever wood he could find affordably, Martin almost made the mistake of buying untreated wood for his new deck. I told him he could end up with another unstable deck in the future. While concrete is different from wood, I told him I went through the same pattern with a concrete porch that I tried to make without using rebar tie wire to give it structural support. After two years of heavy rains, the porch simply fell apart under extreme weight stress when we had furniture at the front door to move. Not only did I use rebar tie wire this time around, I made sure I had the proper gauge for the job. I used 16 gauge rod wire with double loop ties.