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p22 weekender december 181993 from where luve bruce stapley i dont do anymore one skinned knee a near- sprained foot and countless hours later i have a whole new respect for carpenters youd think a guy who once built custom pine furniture for a living would be able to tackle a three and a half by seven foot closet after all theres really not much to it draw up a plan order your materi als and get up early on a saturday morning and get the job done gerry ratenffand the boys down at schell lumber in stouffville were more than helpful in fact it must have looked like a take for one of those yes you can building centre tv commercials as they politely arid patiently led me through the steps which type of bifold door to use how big to make the opening the different sizes of nails and screws to use for the studs the door frame the dry wall etc i checked and rechecked the plan i had scratched out on a page in my steno pad after correcting some measurements and making a few preparations i finally started to work about an hour or so into the job i leaned over from my position on the step ladder to reach for a two by four which was destined to become part of the outside wall frame but the stud eluded my grasp and began what seemed like an interminable slide down the side of the wall towards the brand new french door i had painstak ingly installed two days earlier as a preamble to beginning the closet my desperation lunge to inter cept what seemed surely to be a glassshattering disaster resulted in the upsetting of the step ladder i began to tumble floorwards the two by four miraculously some how managed to engage the door without coming in contact with any of its 15 inviting miniwin dows in fact it ended up skidding innocently to the ground the same couldnt be said for me undaunted i arose to hammer again things went relatively smoothly though my progress was greatly hampered by the frequent distractions of every day household duties my workday ended some what abruptly when my mother- inlaw arrived at the door with her 91yearold mother a full 15 min utes earlier than planned for a chanukkah celebration so much for my one day wonder over the next few days i man aged to put in a half hour here and an hour at night there but my truly spectacular pratfall was saved for monday evening i was perched on the arm of the loveseatlike a tight rope walker i shifted my feet to prepare for a descent but my left foot suddenly slipped causing a sudden and unnatural twist and now a full week and a half after starting out on this zippy lit tle task im still not finished the next time i feel overcome by the urge to prove my worth as a home handy man im going to go into debt and hire a contractor after all i bet the guys who build homes for oreenpark dont try to write columns in their spare time i