sunshine0221's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bite Me Trading Spaces Bite Me, Trading Spaces Okay, I know, missed another entry. I had absolutely nothing to say, so rather than besmirch the reputation of the entire online journaling community by publishing a 100% content-free entry, I decided to wait until something happened. I built a table today. I love home improvement shows. I'm definitely TiVo'ing the Hildi feather wall Trading Spaces episode. I think that House Rules rocks. Ordinary couples completely redoing a whole house by themselves. And they all make it look so easy. Sure there is the occasional problem, but overall, tearing down a room and putting it back together better, on TV anyway, looks like a piece of cake. And on Trading Spaces Ty, and Amy Wynn, and Carter whip out rooms full of furniture, and renovations, and make it look pretty darn easy. Last week Mom went to the lumber yard and had them make her a table. They cut the top and legs, and attached them. With bookcase brackets. Which were so flimsy and poorly attached the table fell apart between the house and the car. Not sure what the three guys at the lumber yard who designed and built the table were thinking? That as long as it could hold a small feather, and would kind of stand up as long as it was propped against the wall with someone holding it up that the table was good to go? I have a whole pile of home improvement projects waiting to be completed. The gates on both sides of the yard kinda fell apart. The drywall in my living room has seen better days, and needs a crown molding upgrade.My gutters aren't guttering right, the bathrom sink needs a new faucet, and the shower thingie I bought doesn't fit right and flies off at inopportune moments. Money is way tight at the moment, so the only help I can (almost) afford is the cheap kind. The $10 hour might show up or might not kinda guys. And I'm tired of the not showing up. So, I went to Wal Mart and bought a big ass cordless drill, and today I put the mom's table together. My hand is bleeding, my back hurts, but it's a TABLE! Now before you get to thinking that this was easy, I better share the details. I went to Ace Hardware, and they really are the Helpful Hardware Folks. The guys said to glue the legs on, then drill through the top into the legs. He suggested I predrill the top, but not the legs. Back to Project Table. First of all I had to remove all of the screws from the crappy brackets. Didn't go so good. Finally I was down to the last won't-come-out-stripped-out screw. I tried to just pull the bracket off, which I suspect is how I cut my hand. Finally Mom got it out with pliers. Then I drilled holes in the table top. That went good. I'm good at drilling. I glopped Liquid Nails on to the ends of the legs, jammed the first one under the table and tried to screw the screw in. First I had the drill going backwards. Then I got the screw halfway in before it totally stripped out. Mom tried to hammer it in, and it turned into a deformed Dr. Suess kind of screw, but refused to go in. The second screw went almost all the way in before it stripped, and hammering did get it in the rest of the way. I astutely realized that something was not working here, so I pre-drilled down through the leg, and the next screw went in like a charm. Okay, now I know, predrilling is my friend. After a quick trip to TSC to replace the Dr. Suess screw, the table is complete. One of the legs is not sqaured up, and it's fortunate that mom will be covering the top, but it's a TABLE. Tomorrow I think I'll fix the gates. 10:20 p.m. - December 07, 2003 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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