Wooden Ice Chest Plans of the Dummy Variety

wooden cooler plans

Back in the wild and woolly early days of eHow.com, "contributors" (as the freelancers called themselves) apparently believed they could get away with just about anything. Based on some of the work they did that survives to this day, they could. A trick that a lot liked to pull was to pretend to have "plans" for a DIY project, usually based on a catalog photograph, and publish them as if they were real. Take, for example, "How to Make a Wooden Ice Chest"¹ at OurPastimes.com, which Ezmeralda Lee published at eHow back in 2009 when she still used the name Civita Dyer.

Based on Lee's / Dyer's original (found using the Wayback Machine at archive.org), all she did was look at a picture of some wooden coolers sold by Cowboy Country Coolers and write up some MSU² plans using that darling of the mommyblogger set, pallet wood. Apparently, Civita / Ezmeralda didn't read the description, which included a galvanized steel chest with foam insulation.
No, Lee decided that all you had to do was create a wooden box to surround an existing Styrofoam® or metal cooler. No kidding: here is a sample of her instructions:

"Measure the dimensions of the ice chest that you want to cover. Cut the top of the chest loose from the bottom, so that it fits better. You will have to design the wood cover so that it completely covers the old chest, as well as fit together snugly. Basically you are making a cover for the old chest."

Ummm, yeah... "fit together snugly" sounds like a good idea to us! And then there are these fine instructions:

"Once you know what design you need, cut the wood according to your plans. Sand the wood before placing around the chest."

Oh, wow: now those are some specific instructions! Or how about,

"Attach the wood around the chest. This can be done by using glue, screws or nails. The best arrangement would be a combination of glue, and nails or screws."

Yeah, that's special. And perhaps you'd like these exacting instructions:

"The top should be constructed so that the two halves of the old chest can still fit snugly inside of each other, creating the sealed top."

We have a notion of what this idiot means here, but would your average weekend warrior? We think not. Maybe this  passage will make more sense (but probably not):

"Screw the hinges into the top and bottom of the box."

We dunno, we give up. Hell, this isn't even what the pictures Civita / Ezmeralda cited showed to begin with. All we know is that we will most certainly never try to follow any "instructions" our Dumbass of the Day published, here or anywhere!

¹ The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   ehow.com/how_4475187_make-wooden-ice-chest.html
² MSU: Making Shit Up.

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