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This is a question DIY disasters

I just can't do power tools. They always fly out of control and end up embedded somewhere they shouldn't. I've no idea how I've still got all the appendages I was born with.

Add to that the fact that nothing ends up square, able to support weight or free of sticking-out sharp bits and you can see why I try to avoid DIY.

Tell us of your own DIY disasters.

(, Thu 3 Apr 2008, 17:19)
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She Who Must Be Ignored
Has, horror of horrors, read this thread.

I am under strict instructions to relay how, in her words, I attepted to kill our first born son. To death, to coin a phrase.

Now, being a chronic book addict and packrat, I have accumulated a lot of books, so I need bookcases. When we moved in, the previous owner had left a sort of cupboardy thing wedged between wall and fireplace (and their DIY skills would fill a thread on there own, it took me two years to realise is had been bashed into place not actually attached to the wall in any way, but I digress). On top of this cupboard I slung up a couple of generic DIY store bookcases, which filled the gap nicely and make it look like I have money and had proper built in bookcases done by someone with skill.

All assembled with my normal speed and efficiency, except at some point one of the little sticky-out bits that the shelf rests on had gone AWOL. The cat underwent a body cavity check after the floor and furniture proved sticky-out bit free zones. And so, in the great tradition of laziness and improvisation, I just left it. After all, if you position the books right, everything balances, Ja?

Time Passes.

We breed. (Help help help I have to be responsible and stuff).

Junior grows at a speed unheard of except in science fiction. An appetite like a velociraptor and the energy to match. And what does he like to do? Climb. We ended up with more gates, locks and so forth than a fairly strict prison, but he still crawls for danger like a very large lemming in a romper suit.

Now, Daddy has been left in full command of Junior (ohshit). Quite rare, as naturally I am cack-handed at all things child-related. In fact it has been made quite clear that after the conception (all 2 glorious minutes of it, oops) my role is now chocolate provision, nappy removal services and heavy lifting.

Junior is crawling around with the speed and determination of a gundog on a scent on the search for weapons of baby destruction, but I'm ahead of him for once and the room is free of razor blades, venomous snakes and the like. Aahh, I can relax.

Next moment, clatter thump thud fwump fwumpfwumpfwumpfwumpWAAAAAAAH. Sherpa Junior has ascended the sofa, and attepted to climb the bookcase. That's right, the one with dodgy shelf. Which has tilted, raining books in a tsunami of tatty paperbacks, knocking him to the floor. Luckily the shelf itself missed him, but approximately fifty books didn't, thankfully all paperbacks.

He was not amused. Emergency issue of chocolate buttons was required.

SHE was very not amused.

I mended the shelf.
(, Wed 9 Apr 2008, 11:25, 4 replies)
Solution!
Get him a helmet, and put some fixed rope on the bookshelves!
(, Wed 9 Apr 2008, 11:31, closed)
*click*
Nicely told :)
(, Wed 9 Apr 2008, 17:02, closed)
You'll never keep a kid free from hurting itself...
Just make sure you've got a speedy car for quick getaways to accident and emergency at the hospital.
(, Wed 9 Apr 2008, 18:06, closed)
My favourite bit
was the emergency issue of chocolate buttons.

I feel this should be incorporated into my workplace health and safety documentation.
(, Wed 9 Apr 2008, 18:21, closed)

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