How long does it take....

How long does it take two fairly intelligent, college educated women to install a door handle on a screen door? 3 hours. (That's 2 hours and 30 minutes longer than it would take anyone else.)

A couple of weeks ago some friends of ours (Ben and Vanessa Sanders) offered to come up and help for an evening on the house. We jumped at their offer so fast that it should have tipped them off. Ben and Trent started the back deck (see photo) while Vanessa and I were given the "girlie" job. Trent had installed the new front screen door the night before, but ran out of time to install the handle. It should have been a quick and easy job - especially given the fact that Vanessa is the most handy girl I know.

We set out all the parts, read through the instructions (well, Vanessa did....I'm more of a "wing it" kind of gal) and grabbed Trent's drill. After 10 minutes of me figuring out how to change the drill bits, we were off and running. The first few holes I drilled seemed to be pretty tough (the door IS metal). Vanessa suggested that I keep the drill running as I try to pull it out of the freshly created hole. She made the suggestion just as I broke the drill bit...and got it stuck in the hole. We then (while laughing hysterically) ran around trying to find a nail to push through the hole to get the drill bit out. Yes, you guessed it....the nail got stuck. That's basically how the entire task went down: mistake, laughter, attempted fix-it, more laughter, 2nd attempted fix-it, laughter until tears, done.

In the end the door handle is complete and looks like a pro did it. And I only owe my husband a few parts for his power tools.