Home Improvement

Or, perhaps this should be titled, 'why I avoid home improvement like the plague'.

Fixing up one's home always seems like such a great idea. Grab a little paint, throw up some pictures, make a fixture tweak here or there and instantly your home is more beautiful, more light, more valuable. You are to feel productive and accomplished and a better person. There are blogs detailing the joys and how tos of this. There are infinite books and websites and stores devoted to this very theme. And maybe this is some people's life, but it just doesn't work for me.

Since I moved into my house the shower rod has been falling apart. The place in the middle where the two parts of the rod connect was broken. With each passing year, the risk of them separating grew exponentially. In the last year or two, duct tape was all that kept my shower curtain off the ground. So, after the success of the kitchen (work I did not do, mind you), I decided to do a little bathroom make-over. All fired up, I ordered a new shower rod (a curved one that magically creates extra space), a new shower head and a new plastic liner.

Part 1, installing the shower head was as a house make over dream, old one off, new one screws in place. Works. Happy. Done. I'm a great person! Why didn't I do this years ago.

Unfortunately, Part 2, the shower rod proved a bit more challenging. It seems to install a shower rod you need a drill. It also seems that you need to take a couple extra trips to the hardware store to 1st get a different shower rod because the first one you bought wasn't expandable and didn't fit and 2nd to get screws because the 2nd rod you bought  that said on the package 'all hardware included' ONLY CAME WITH DRY WALL SCREWS. Then you need to borrow a drill from a friend. THEN when you try to install the shower rod you figure out it is virtually impossible for one person to hold the shower rod and drill over one's head while simultaneously holding (and drilling) a screw. Not to mention you realize you have never actually used a drill before.

What do I do?

SO, you have to invite a friend over and promise him dinner so he can help install your shower rod. (Now a necessity because the old one is off and you can't take a shower). Then as your friend is helping install the shower rod at 7:30 pm on a Sunday evening, you figure out that a. the batteries on the drill are almost dead and b. the screws you were given by the hardware store guy are too long and the 100+ year old wood in your house is too solid - particularly for a dead battery drill.

So, long story not so short, in the end you get the new rod installed - but not on Sunday night and the screws still aren't in the wall all the way and the pretty cups that fit on the end of the rod either a. (one side) don't snap in as the directions say they will or

Unsnapped

b. (other side) doesn't go in at all because you had to flip the rod in another direction so all the hardware is sticking out.

Still waiting for the solution to this mess.

But, you can now take a shower and the new shower head is nice and your elbows no longer hit the shower curtain, so it's a winnish. But, of course, now you remember why you didn't do this years ago!