Home improvement... sort of

Let me just say this. My husband and I are not gifted when it comes to home improvement projects.

And that's putting it mildly. A more truthful statement would be: We are AWFUL at home improvement projects.

Case in point: When we moved into our townhouse, there was no ceiling fan in the master bedroom. That was simply not going to fly, since I despise sleeping when it's hot. And my husband knew he'd probably be pretty miserable if I couldn't sleep, so off to Lowe's we went.

Since we had no clue what we needed to purchase, we came home with the cheapest ceiling fan we could find. It was a little rinky-dink $15 fan, but I figured, hey, aren't all ceiling fans the same? We didn't need a super-posh one with metal accents, or stained glass, or cool-looking leaf-shaped propellers. We just needed something basic that would do the trick.

We looked at hooking it up for about five minutes, and quickly realized we were screwed.

Luckily, a college friend of his, who by himself gutted his own kitchen and built new cabinets, came to the rescue.

I think it took Bob about five seconds to look at our purchase and announce we had gotten the wrong kind of fan. I couldn't tell you why; I think it had something to do with the fact that our bedroom has an angled ceiling.

I wasn't home during the installation, but once the correct fan was purchased, I think he had it operating in 20 minutes.

We haven't done any other projects like that (and you can probably see why) until I decided we HAD to have a mail rack with hooks next to our front door. See, we both lose our keys daily, and we can't ever find that one piece of mail, or the dog leash. So I thought that would be the answer.

Problem was, we had to hang it.

I decided to tackle this one on my own, and in hindsight, I don't know what I was thinking. I can't even hang a picture without either denting the wall or ending up with a very crooked piece of decor.

So I went at it.

Of course, I hit a stud. And then, that little plastic piece you're supposed to insert before the screw broke in half. IN THE WALL.

After digging it out with a screwdriver (and pieces of wall falling to the floor), I started a new hole for the screw, and said heck with the plastic thing. My husband did intervene, especially when I started threatening to chuck the hammer through the front window.

I think it's crooked, but it's up, and surprisingly functional.

And at least now we know where our keys are.