A Weekend Project for the Whole (Monkey Wrench) Family

Normally, home improvement projects go pretty well for me. I mean, they might not look professional in the end, and definitely don't match up to the vision I had so carefully created in my mind (funny thing, how I'm so much more painstaking in my head than in actuality)--but I usually finish in the planned amount of time and end up with a functional and generally satisfactory product.

So you can see where this is going, right?

While I was playing in the lushly greening Southeast last month, I decided I wanted a patio/arbor/veranda/porch thing to provide similarly lush shade in our rather sun-drenched yard. (Monkey wrench chuckles from backstage) I announced my plan to Katie, and we drove off to the lumber yard together to gather supplies.

Enter Monkey wrench, stage right.

We chose the local place, for both ethical and sentimental reasons, and found everything we needed right at our fingertips. Couldn't really fit the boards in the car, though, because I'd decided my project needed to be so stinkin' big. This monkey wrench was defeated, however, with our clever use of bailing twine.

The only problem with local is that some things are, oh, at least twice as expensive, so we went to finish off our shopping at Lowe's.

Monkey wrench cartwheels across stage.

Here were the problems with this plan:

• Lowe's did not have 6' long 4x4s for the corner posts. And we did not want our arbor/porch/veranda thing to be 8' tall.
• We had no time to have the posts cut, since Katie had to go to work.
• When we asked if I could come back later to have the posts cut, we were informed that the in-store circular saw was only for boards. --But maybe someone would be willing to help us handsaw through 4 inches of solid wood.
• When I came back, as promised, for the handsawing help, the only Lowe's dude I could find was thoroughly unhelpful and told me that he didn't care who it was doing the sawing, that's too much wood to cut through by hand, and what was wrong with me that I didn't have a circular saw lying around at home anyway?
• I asked what the heck I was supposed to do, and he said to go back to the local place. Which I did. And spent nearly $50 on my 4x4s. (The happy thing here was that I made it back to the local lumber yard a scant 10 minutes before they closed. That makes one monkey wrench that I managed to dodge. . . )

This whole weekend, Katie was busy doing silly things like working during my free time, so I put most of the thing together by myself, but really couldn't manage to get it off the ground with just my own two hands. Since aforementioned roomie was headed out of town for the weekend, and I was really set on spending all my not-at-Starbucks hours perfecting our outdoor living situation, she graciously agreed to get up early and help me put the rather colossal structure up before I had to go to work and she drove off to the Front Range.

Monkey wrench invites family members--including in-laws.

Names of in-laws:

• Sleepy Katie + Impatient Rachel
• Grumpy Early Morning Woodworking
• Things Falling Over
• Things Breaking
• Crooked Screws
• Not Enough Time
• Partially-erected Structure + Strong Colorado Wind
• Things Falling Over, Jr.
• Things Breaking, III.
• Two-Person Job with Only One Person

Finally fed up, I gave those Monkey Wrenches a big old suffocating bear hug by getting up the gumption to ask my neighbor to give an extra pair of hands, and then my other neighbor volunteered to give me the proper drillbit, as he said mine was completely the wrong kind of Phillips Head (how many kinds are there, anyway?), so it worked out to be a nice community-building activity in the end.

And things went back to normal, and I painted things and planted things to my heart's content, ending up Sunday evening by finally enjoying my porch/veranda/arbor with a glass of iced tea and a good book. And the Monkey Wrench Gang headed back home after a busy weekend in Glenwood.