Thursday, July 19, 2012

No job is ever too small

So, yesterday, my honey says to me "You want a project for today?".  Sure.  I'm game.  I can do anything.

He proceeds to ask me to put together the wooden clothes drying rack, that we are going to take camping with us in a couple of weeks.  (See the link and picture at right.)

Really?  I mean, okay, I know I have a bruise on my foot from tripping on the boat and stepping on a cracker box; and oh yeah, a cut on my ankle because I slipped while using a pumice stone in the shower - but this is what I'm reduced to?  I am only trusted with the "important" job of putting the clothes rack together?  Guess he's not going to teach me how to use the chainsaw any time soon...

But then I thought, I need an attitude adjustment!  No job is ever too small.  It takes a village.  One step at a time.  (Whatever! I will show him and put this baby together in record time!)

So I open up the box and here are the parts - as you can see this is a cinch!



 

 

 

 

I read through the whole 5 steps on the instruction sheet, even though I don't need to.  In several places the instructions use these little *** and command: "note latch position".  In fact, the instructions make this note three times.  Yeah, yeah.  I got it.

So I go to town.  I spread out the 2 side frames, and start putting the long dowels into the little holes in one of the frames.



 

 

 

 

 

 

Not so fast.  The dowels are kinda hard to push in and so I move from the carpet (squishy) to the hard wood (not squishy).  Still impossible to push in. So I grab a hammer, cuz the instructions say I can "tap lightly with a hammer" to put the dowels in place.  And you can do that, for a fun diversion.  Or, you can use all of your body weight and wrestle them in, like I had to.  It's up to you.

Okay, so once the dowels are in one side of the frame, I go ahead and spread out the other side of the frame on top of the dowl rod tips.  He he he, ha ha!  That was fun!  Here's why:  Every time I got one dowel in a hole another one popped out!  Like me, you may find this process takes 25 minutes before you get them all wedged in, but who's keeping time?



Finally, I wrangle all of the dowels in, and there we have it!  Take that honey those who doubt me!  But wait... just one tiny problem.  I didn't ***note latch position!!!  Darn it!  So I pull it all apart, ***note latch position, and put it together again.  Not that I'm keeping time, but this tiny project took me the better part of an afternoon!

Here is the finished product. What an accomplishment!



Just so you know, I am NEVER telling this story to my husband, or he will never let me use power tools!  Furthermore, I wager if he gets wind of this, I will be subjected to endless smirks and eye-rolls.  Regardless, I'm pretty pleased with myself.  Tomorrow I may even weild a spray paint can!

If anyone out there would like to spend a fun-filled afternoon wrestling a wooden clothes rack into submission - just click the link above right, and you too can sleep tonight with DIY satisfaction!  Let me know how it goes!