On Wednesday, I bought a new shower caddy to replace the rusted out one and decided to get a new shower head, too. I wanted one that was stationary and had a hand-held unit as well. It’s been a PITA to clean the shower since I moved into the house, and at times, I’ve even resorted to using my toothbrush cup to rinse cleaning solutions off the walls. Yeah, not too slick.
Both items claimed ten minute assembly. They lied.
We started with the shower head since it would be easier to maneuver without the caddy in the corner. And yes, you know my dad was over helping me. The old shower head came off easily, the new one went on relatively easily, but the adjustable spray functions on both heads wouldn’t work.
My dad suggested that maybe it took water pressure, and since that sounded logical, I pulled up my sleeve (It snowed here Wednesday morning, so we’re still wearing long sleeves in MN) and turned on the water. Then I reached up and over and tried to turn the ring to adjust the spray.
No go. And now I have water running down my arm.
After I turned off the water, I went online and did a search. No helpful information turned up. Apparently no one else in the world ever had trouble getting this shower unit’s sprayers to work. Sigh. I went to the company website, got a phone number, and called.
The woman I talked to said to force it. I finally got one to move, but not the other. She said to take the other head down and hold it. If I forced it and it broke, she’d send a new one. I had to pull off my socks and get in the wet shower to get the head down. It took a hell of a lot of force, but I did get it to move. As I went to tell the woman eureka! my wet feet slipped on the floor and I went down.
Since I’ve been a klutz all my life, this didn’t particularly faze me. I just went to the phone, thanked the woman and hung up. My dad, though, was all upset. Sigh. Guess he forgot all the bones I’ve broken, ankles I’ve sprained, and bruises I’ve acquired as I’ve fallen, walked into to stuff, tripped over stuff, etc. I wasn’t hurt, BTW.
Onto the next project. Assembly shower caddy with three baskets. This is where I really hurt myself.
It seemed like such a simple thing–use the scissors to cut off the tie wraps fastening the pieces to each other. Unfortunately, they were very sturdy tie wraps, and as I applied force (More force!), the pad of my index finger went between the scissor handles. I have a dark discoloration under the skin. I’m assuming it’s a small blood pool subsurface.
Adding the extension to the shower caddy was where we ran into problems on this project. It took a visit to this manufacturer’s website to find more detailed information that made everything clear. Also, my ceiling is marked up from the rubber foot. Some of it came off, but there’s more that I missed. Project for another day.
So basic breakdown: 2 projects each supposed to take 10 minutes for a total of 20 minutes. Actual assembly time: 2 projects, 1 hour per project for a total of 2 hours.
