With the bed out of the way, I was ready to try bigger and better things. The next thing on my list was a place to hang my dress shirts and pants. In a real-world setting, this would be called a "clothes rack". So I took another trip down to Home Depot, which is quickly becoming the most important place in my life, and I picked up some screws, a screwdriver, some clothes hangers, two mounting brackets, and a 6 foot long wooden rod. If I had done everything correctly, here is how the process should have gone:
- Screw in mounting brackets, approximately 6 feet apart.
- Place wooden rod on brackets, screw into place.
- Place hangers on wooden rod.
So right off the bat, I realized I bought the wrong screws. How did I realize this, you ask? Well for one, they were clearly marked "Sheet Metal Screws", and I was working with wood. I quickly learned that the difference between the two is the threading, which is far more dense on sheet metal screws and makes it really hard to put them in, especially without a drill. So after 15 minutes of painfully torquing one of these screws into the wooden railings of the box truck, I was sufficiently satisfied with how far into the wall it was. I put the mounting bracket on over it, tightened it a few more turns, and moved onto the next one.
That doesn't sound all that bad, right? Well that's because I haven't adequately set the scene for you. It's a beautiful, sunny 75 degree day in Santa Clara, and I'm in the back of a nearly ventilated box truck, trying with all my might to fit square pegs (sheet metal screws) into round holes (wood). So anyway, I exhaustingly put up the second mounting bracket (without measuring because that would be reasonable and take all of the fun out of it), only to find out that I've placed the two mounting brackets 6 feet and 1 inch apart, meaning that the wooden rod for hanging the clothes won't rest on the brackets. Tragic. Repeat the bracket mounting process, but now 6 inches over.
Throw in a couple extra screws, because a little over-engineering can't hurt, and the end result is pictured above. How well will it work? Who knows! Only time will tell, but in the mean time, I'm fairly pleased, and ready to take on some even more ambitious home improvement projects as I refine my newly-pioneered form of crazy.