yeah I read something about that actually. there was this article about how changing the visual weight in a room makes the biggest impact, and it's not about spending money. @mason283 mentioned rearranging which is huge, but I also heard that swapping out stuff you're used to seeing like curtains or a mirror tricks your brain into thinking the whole room is different. for me it was moving a floor lamp into a corner that was totally dead before, and suddenly the whole layout made sense. all it cost was like ten seconds of bending over.

Factory coating messing with glue adhesion" is exactly it - most prefinished ply uses an acrylic or UV-cured topcoat that's slick as hell, so standard wood glue doesn't bond right. You gotta rough up the edge banding surface with sandpaper before applying it.

Yeah that Walgreens light getting a year is pretty solid honestly, but I think there's a difference between luck and build quality in these things. Maybe it's just me but a lot of those clip-on lights use cheap micro USB ports that wear out fast, that's usually what dies first. Worth checking if it's the port or the battery before you toss it.

Honestly I was the same way, I thought I was being clever by keeping the old shell and swapping the guts. But after seeing that Compaq rig I realized I'd rather have a clean fire-free build than worry about looking period correct.

Ngl, that's genuinely impressive for any tool, man.