One of the main roadblocks to our domestic bliss is D and my excess of sports equipment, and trying to fit all of it into the beach shack- namely my 2 surfboards and his two bikes. Luckily my bike is a beach cruiser and can go into the storage room in the building, but D’s 2 bikes are a little too expensive to be in the open aired storage room, especially when beach air = lots and lots of rust on bikes. One of the drawbacks of dating an Ironman is the fact that he also comes with multiple, worth more than my car, racing bikes. And so the hunt began for the perfect storage place and way to hang those bikes.
There are 4 small rooms to our place: 1 kitchen that can barely fit a table and the fridge, an ok size living room, bedroom and bathroom. Now I was able to take the bedroom off the bike storage option list, after all no one wants bikes hanging over their beds! The bathroom was off limits due to the steam of the shower which left the kitchen and the living room. We tried to hang the bikes every way possible in the kitchen, but no matter how we turned or flipped those things not even one will fit in there… leaving only the living room. Now after countless discussions, multiple trips to Home Depot/target/bike shops and a million hours spent on the internet trying to find the perfect racks we finally agreed on just getting the cheapest one, since they really just all look alike, and hanging them on top of each other… mistake number 1- Cheap Rack =Cheap Screws…. Roughly 10 min into D hanging and banging on the wall I started to get a feeling that something was not going as planned so I poked my head into the living room and innocently asked if everything was all right. I’ve learned a lot in the last year and half so I was hiding in the bedroom just in case something went wrong, nothing like grumpy man trying to make broken things work! So mistake number 2 began- trying to help D with little “helpful” suggestions on how to not strip the screws and/or find new better screws. Turns out only thing better than grumpy man trying to make broken things work, is even grumpier man trying to make broken things work after girlfriend tries to help… so back to the bedroom I went… until I heard the uh oh and I popped my head back into the living room to innocently ask “Honey, is everything all right”… well looks like the screw is now stuck partway into the wall, it won’t go in and it won’t go out. Which wouldn’t be total disaster except that the screw is semi holding the bike rack in place… on our wall! So after some internet research off we go to Home Depot again, this time to get the screw extractor bit, because of course internet research can’t be wrong and all the websites say this extractor will make it simple and easy to remove the screw… mistake number 3- listening to people on the internet. Back at home, hiding in the bedroom again I hear more banging and banging, and then silence. I looked up hoping that D wasn’t dead when he sheepishly poked his head into the bedroom and tells me: Good news I won’t have to have the bikes on the wall because those screws aren’t coming out, bad news- although the bikes won’t be on the wall the ugly bike rack seems to be a permanent fixture. Oops…
There are 4 small rooms to our place: 1 kitchen that can barely fit a table and the fridge, an ok size living room, bedroom and bathroom. Now I was able to take the bedroom off the bike storage option list, after all no one wants bikes hanging over their beds! The bathroom was off limits due to the steam of the shower which left the kitchen and the living room. We tried to hang the bikes every way possible in the kitchen, but no matter how we turned or flipped those things not even one will fit in there… leaving only the living room. Now after countless discussions, multiple trips to Home Depot/target/bike shops and a million hours spent on the internet trying to find the perfect racks we finally agreed on just getting the cheapest one, since they really just all look alike, and hanging them on top of each other… mistake number 1- Cheap Rack =Cheap Screws…. Roughly 10 min into D hanging and banging on the wall I started to get a feeling that something was not going as planned so I poked my head into the living room and innocently asked if everything was all right. I’ve learned a lot in the last year and half so I was hiding in the bedroom just in case something went wrong, nothing like grumpy man trying to make broken things work! So mistake number 2 began- trying to help D with little “helpful” suggestions on how to not strip the screws and/or find new better screws. Turns out only thing better than grumpy man trying to make broken things work, is even grumpier man trying to make broken things work after girlfriend tries to help… so back to the bedroom I went… until I heard the uh oh and I popped my head back into the living room to innocently ask “Honey, is everything all right”… well looks like the screw is now stuck partway into the wall, it won’t go in and it won’t go out. Which wouldn’t be total disaster except that the screw is semi holding the bike rack in place… on our wall! So after some internet research off we go to Home Depot again, this time to get the screw extractor bit, because of course internet research can’t be wrong and all the websites say this extractor will make it simple and easy to remove the screw… mistake number 3- listening to people on the internet. Back at home, hiding in the bedroom again I hear more banging and banging, and then silence. I looked up hoping that D wasn’t dead when he sheepishly poked his head into the bedroom and tells me: Good news I won’t have to have the bikes on the wall because those screws aren’t coming out, bad news- although the bikes won’t be on the wall the ugly bike rack seems to be a permanent fixture. Oops…
Lessons learned today:
1) After researching products if you find 1 way cheaper than the others run, because it’s usually cheap for a reason.
2) Little Honey Do projects always take a bit longer than anticipated, so make sure you prepare snacks and beer for you honey when they don’t go as planned.
3) And most importantly research pretty plants, just in case you will be using a new bike rack to hold up your new plants, which really are just there to disguise the fact that your new bike rack is stuck in the wall.
