Should have been planed down 1/8"

This past week I was working in a clients house on what had been a built-in mahogany china cabinet. Much of the cabinet had been removed and so the owner had wanted me to simply remove the remainder of the cabinet so the the space could be added to what was now a small bedroom. Once the work had been removed I needed to redo the interior of the hole in the wall with bead board. I took some measurements, cut wood for the opening up in my shop and then brought it out to the job for installation. When installing the wood I discover one of the upper left hand corners was too tight so I ended up planing down the wood an 1/8 of an inch. when I got done I remembered on of the piece of wood I removed from what was left of the old cabinet had something written on it. It said- "Should have been planed down 1/8 of an inch". Some how the carpenters that had installed the cabinet had to do some fudging somewhere to get their built-in installed. However, now that I was redoing the opening I was confronted with this 1/8" problem again.

Often, in old houses I have found myself confronted with these odds little bits of history. Sometimes is is just old newspapers, sometime old bits of clothes, or many times it is the notes of some earlier craftsman that has worked on the building. It is one of the enjoyable aspects of working on old buildings. I love the sense of history in these old building.