Having a D'Oh Day.

In preparing for our first house guests (James' parents), one of the most important and necessary repairs involved installing a hand rail on our open stairs. I read up about how to install, and went to the home improvement store to buy the parts. Unfortunately, I didn't think about how I would haul two 12 foot hand rails home. When I got to the van, I put them in at an angle, and they fit "perfectly", with no room to spare. Smugly I shut the back hatch and went to drive home. That was my first d'oh moment.

I drove home and made an appointment with the Glass Doctor (their real name) for a new windshield (sigh).

The second very needed item was a bed for them to sleep in. Because I waited until the last moment, that meant a trip to Sam's so I could haul the bed home myself rather than wait for a store to take their sweet time to deliver. I maneuvered through the store with my full mattress, box spring and other necessities and paid, then went out to the car and had my second d'oh moment. It didn't fit!

Mind you, I'm the sort of person who MAKES things fit. I fit a family of 5 in a 1080 square foot house for way too many years. I even carry a tape measure in my purse--fat lot of good it did me today since I didn't use it!

Luckily, the mattress bent into the bed of the van, but I had to tie the box spring on top using rope I keep in my emergency kit, and luckily I paid attention to the knot certificiation courses I took at girls' camp years ago, since the stock guys who "helped" me load this didn't know the first thing about how to tie it on.

The 20-mile drive home from Sam's took me nearly an hour. I had this horrible mental image of the box spring flying off the top of the van and striking the car behind me, so I didn't dare drive faster than 40 the whole way. I was probably a traffic menace--on the back roads here, even tractors would have passed me (luckily, I didn't encounter any).

Fortunately, the day ended well. My in-laws will have a place to sleep and won't fall down the stairs. I have to post a picture of my (not quite finished) stair well, as I'm so pleased with the way it turned out. It previously had the typical ugly fake wood paneling on the wall. I primed and applied knock-down texture to it, then painted it a dark orange. In this picture, you can see the primed, but not yet textured and painted wall below the stairs, where the kids have their "cave".