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My Saturday plan, in theory: I’m going to attach these bookshelves to the wall, with 10 screws. Shouldn’t take more than an hour, most likely less than 30 minutes.
My plan, in action: I order the screws, but when they arrive, I find out they’re too big for the pre-drilled holes in the bookshelves. I have no other choice but to buy new screws. I then find out the thinner screws need a thinner drill bit too, and the exact drill bit I need I loaned out to a friend and forgot to ask for it back.
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After my second trip to the hardware store, I’m ready for the actual drilling. Then I realize those old boxes I never unpacked after we moved here are right below where I need to drill holes, so I spend an hour opening them, going through stuff, then closing and moving them.
No matter, now it’s time to drill. I drill the first hole and find out the wall is actually a drywall. I keep on drilling and then come to a part where there’s a steel beam behind the drywall. It breaks my drill bit.
The broken drill bit is now firmly lodged in the wall, so no screw will fit in there. I decide to buy two new drill bits at the hardware store, just in case. I now have 8 holes in the wall. The first won’t hold on account of the drywall, and one other has the broken drill bit in it, blocking the hole. The other screws are able to go in as needed.
I hang up the plank, and it’s crooked. Turns out, I straightened it adjacent to a line in the wall that now turns out to be crooked itself. I’ll have to redo the whole thing. 7 hours have passed. I decide to cancel the entire project and make a new plan for next weekend to fix the shelves to another wall that looks more solid.
My guess is it shouldn’t take more than an hour, most likely less than 30 minutes.
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