laundry room shelf

Yesterday morning I went out and did some weeding, pulling a bunch of bermuda grass out of my beds. I also decided that the pansies just had to come out NOW as they probably should have come out a month ago and were looking terrible. I went to Country Boys and got some impatiens and I also decided that the snapdragons needed to leave as well. They had all pretty much fallen over and were barely blooming. Still, I felt terrible pulling them as they had such nice long roots. Oh well, I'll get some more this fall and put them in and stake them come spring... I think they did pretty well and I'm happy that the two I waited so long to plant survived and bloomed. Of course when I was putting in the impatiens, half of the area was getting more sun that I had counted on. I'm hoping they will last until frost, then it is back in with the pansies and snapdragons.

I had purchased the shelving to install a wire shelf in the laundry room the other day. I figured this would be another quick project like installing the shade. Boy was I wrong. I got all the holes drilled and of course ran into studs trying to drill the holes for the clips along the back, so then I was going to be 3 clips instead of 5. Then I measured and installed the support bars. This is where the problems started. I managed to drop on of the wall anchors behind the washing machine. I retrieved that and got the right side anchor installed. When it came to the left anchor, I could not get the shelf to stay up no matter how I positioned it. We finally got the shelf to seem like it was staying and installed the left bar. So far so good. I put soap on the shelf and the whole thing fell. Then I realized 2 things: 1) I was supposed to put the plastic part of the anchor OVER the metel support bar and 2) the bar system SUCKS.

So, at this point I started thinking more clearly. There is another way that involves attaching the shelf to both walls. In order to do this, I would need a custom cut shelf. So, called Home Depot to make sure they custom cut the stuff, which they do. Then, tried to get batteries in the stud finder, but it flat out would not open. So... off to Lowes to buy the wall anchors, which I figured I could use the existing piece of shelving, push it all the way to one side, mark the wall anchors, then push it to the other side. Got the wall anchors installed without too much trouble. Then back out to Home Depot to take back the shelf I had and get a custom shelf. Got that home and it installed just fine. It definitely makes the laundry room look neater. I do need a tool caddy or something to keep the few gardening tools I like to have at hand. Then we can totally clean off the dryer and the whole place should look really good. My goal for the 4th is to paint the laundry room trim. Again something that I have been planning to do for many months, but got side tracked.

Currently it is raining outside and has been raining for over an hour. I decided to sleep in this morning, and that was good choice as I was going to get up early to water, but now I don't need to do this. I would be happy if it rained all day. We could certainly use it as all our other promised rain lately has pretty much amounted to a few sprinkles that get the road damp but don't do a thing for the plants. Not much "rain" when your impatiens look wilted right afterwards.