Friday, June 09, 2006

buggin...

[i've had a picture to accompany this post for two days, but have been unable to upload pics to blogger. but after crying about low reader numbers and not posting for days, i couldn't leave the faithful high and dry so i'll go ahead and post without a pic. promise, it will be forthcoming.]

i took a 1/2 day off yesterday to complete a small re-deco project that had been nagging at me all week. as with most "small" projects, this one took an entire afternoon to complete and was replete with expletives, sweating and tears.

it all began with a $6 thrift store shelf.

the shelf is about three feet long had four little pegs underneath the book shelf part. on the sides were, what i assumed, decorative scroll pieces. the scroll pieces extended about 4 inches underneath the pegs on either side of the shelf. the scrolls were, in my opinion, too long. on wednesday night i asked nathaniel to saw them off so i could hang the shelf directly over the kitchen bulletin board. nathaniel explained how the scroll pieces were not just pretty, but functional as they served as a counterbalance for the shelf and whatever weight was placed upon it. without the scroll pieces, the shelf was in danger of pulling out of the wall. i poo-poo-d him...he is, after all, only 16 years old. i am older and wiser and assured him that i would not place anything too heavy on the shelf and incur the wrath of no counterbalance. let me tell you, i fly in the face of the laws of physics.

fast forward to yesterday afternoon. picture this. freshly painted shelf holding roughly three years worth of everyday food, six vintage cookbooks, an antique recipe tin, and a tin tray painted with clovers. then imagine me on a kitchen chair holding the fully loaded shelf that has JUST pulled out from the plaster wall. follow this with much cursing, stinky sweating and then the tears. of course i was the only one home. but rest assured i would not be discouraged.

by 4:30 p.m. the shelf was securely attached to the wall and sporting some, but not ALL of the contents previously listed. all the plaster dust was vacuumed up. the only thing left to do was to admire the destruction, errrr, i mean handywork.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

So, did you tell Nathaniel or are you just going to let him read about it here???

Karyl

MB Shaw said...

Hahahahaha. I am not laughing at you my dear, but with you. This sounds sooooo like something I would have done.
And those kids, what do they know anyway!?!?

heidi said...

i DID tell nathaniel, but i think he could have figured it out when he saw the awesome [cough] cover-up job i did on the GIGANTIC hole in the wall!