Category Archives: Handy Husband

A boring story about a bed

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I’ll spare you the (rather long & involved) backstory here, but we had a full size mattress with no bed to go with it. Just the mattress. It’s been on the floor in the basement with sheets on it (I’m willing to be “mattress on the floor” trashy but not “BARE mattress on the floor” trashy. Apparently that’s where I draw the line.) Anyway, it’s actually been used quite a bit- for company, for Kalena when we’re trying to sleep train Lydia and there is much crying, for an extra bed for “quiet time” when all the kids are home. I’ve thought several times that we should get some kind of frame for it, since that seemed like the responsible adult thing to do, but thinking that was as far as I’d gotten. 

Then this week my parents came to visit and my dad asked what I thought about getting a frame for that mattress. Obviously I thought this was a great idea. (Previous visits he’s slept on one of our couches, because apparently he thinks he’s too old for a floor bed.) And when my mom and I were at IKEA we picked out a bed frame that seemed like just what we were looking for. Plus, BONUS, no need to buy a box spring! So the next day we sent my dad and Brian to IKEA to pick up the bed. They were confounded by IKEA and the trip involved one phone call (my dad, reading product names to me, “all these words sound Scandinavian”) and multiple texts (Brian: this place is hard) but in the end they got home with all the right pieces. They got everything set up in a jiffy (and with no swearing! That I heard anyway.) And TADA! Beautiful new basement bed. 

 Except after all that? My dad decided that the couch is so comfortable that he’ll just continue sleeping there😂😂😂

But I’m pleased, because now it’s an actual BED and it looks so much nicer than it did. Also, come visit me! We don’t have a guest bedroom, but we do have a guest bed😊

DIY disaster

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Is that the name of a show on HGTV? Because it seems like a good one. Anyway! On to my point. Short version: Somebody did some DIY light replacement here and it ended poorly. Also, glad I’m married to someone handy.

Long version:

Yesterday I was eating lunch and feeding the kids when I heard a crash behind me in the kitchen. My first thought was that it sounded like a giant bowl of ice slid off the counter onto the floor, but at the same instant I realized that was impossible, since there was no giant bowl of ice on the counter. And when I turned around I saw that the whole light fixture had fallen from the ceiling, crashing to the floor and shattering into a bazillion pieces. Seriously, some of that glass looked like sand, it smashed so small. Nobody was in the kitchen when it happened, THANKFULLY

When he got home, Brian looked it at and realized a couple things: A) the place this fixture was is set up for a canister light. This fixture was NOT a canister light. B) The whole thing was being held up by 2 screws, which were screwed straight into the ceiling. No anchors. Nothing attaching it to the box. Just 2 screws into drywall.

Y’all. This thing might as well have been thumbtacked up there. I’m surprised it took this long to fall. Anyway, that meant today went from “relaxing Saturday” to “project we didn’t plan on doing, nor do we really have money for right now Saturday.” Brian replaced the canister light thing with the appropriate kind of light box, and even installed it properly, with a 2X4 anchoring it to the studs in the ceiling. What kind of fun is THAT, right? No more falling fixtures for these party poopers. And then put up the new fixture I bought. At Ikea because holy crap light fixtures are expensive. And then he checked the other light fixtures because WOW I would like to never repeat this.

How was your weekend?