Well, time marches on, memories fade and, knowing how to read an organization chart, when my wife said for the thousandth time - her count, not mine - that she was tired of not being able to reach the clothes rods in her closet, I agreed to install new ones.
The problem with the closet was that the original owners were towering specimens of humanity, and the hanger rod was nearly 80 inches, or more than six and a half feet from the floor. We, on the other hand, are of the pigmy variety, and reaching that height is not terribly convenient.
First came a plan of action. I cautiously ventured into the closet, that haunt of haute couture, the grotto of garb, the vault of vestments, not knowing what manner of satin scalawag, what frockish fiend waited therein to shanghai me and deliver me to some polyester perdition.
Step one was removing those awful, vinyl-coated wire contraptions that were anchored helter-skelter to the walls with a variety of drywall attachment devices. That meant removing the ton or so of clothes from the closet. Someone PLEASE invent hangers that don't tangle and overlap each other.
The removal of the old system yielded walls that looked like the aftermath of a Baghdad firefight with some 50 holes the size of pencils to be filled and smoothed. The inside of the walls must look like the candy buttons we bought as kids - you know, the dollops of sugar stuck to the paper in rows that, with each bit of candy you ate some wood pulp.
My design was simple, much like the days of old: a rod, (chromed metal in this case) supports anchored into the studs in the walls and a wooden shelf above the rod. No problem. Most of us grew up with this setup.
What I didn't grow up with is the pocket door that leads into the closet. Nor did I understand in detail what construction, or lack of same, existed behind the wall where the pocket for the door lives.
Some testing with my magic, battery-powered divining tool for finding wall studs yielded a number of hits to which I could attach the rod supports for that wall. There was one area, very near the door, that offered only drywall for attachment. No problem. I went to Lowe's and bought some of those skookum anchors I'd just removed that offered 90 pounds of pull from the wall and nearly 160 pounds of shear strength, more than enough since the other two supports for this 6-foot-long rod would be anchored to the studs. Wrong again.
I installed the rod, loaded it with clothes and retired for the day. Sitting at the computer in the office on the other side of the wall, I heard a crash. I knew what it had to be and was going to ignore it until it occurred to me that my wife could be under the pile. She wasn't, but the newly installed rod had failed at that weakest point by the door, and the twisting motion had wrenched the lag bolt out of the studs at the other locations.
I decided a crash course in pocket doors was in order, going on-line to understand their construction. OK, ladies, all at once now: "Why didn't you read about pocket doors before you began?" You know we men never read instructions first.
I took the door out, added support to the weak area and, as an added measure, I installed a vertical support to the floor on that end of clothes rod and some suspension chains from above the rods - sort of a belt-and-suspenders approach. I re-hung the clothes and waited somewhat anxiously on the other side of the wall.
By the next day, the thing was still solidly in place. I finished installing the rods with no surprises since I was able to lag them into two-by-four studs. It's been a couple of weeks, and all is well. Eat your heart out, Bob Villa.
Always one for trying to take a lesson away from such an experience, I've renewed my vow to never enter that inner sanctum of style again . . . unless, of course, my wife tells me to.[[In-content Ad]]