For some reason, the idea behind this post reminded me of those “If you give a mouse a cookie…” books. I guess that’s just the way my semi-crazy brain works sometimes.

So, to back up, last night Hubs went to the kitchen to see about getting a snack after dinner. We’d had leftover pasta for dinner and it wasn’t that filling. But, while he was looking around in the pantry, he noticed the top shelf peg had pulled out of the wall, which set him into action of fixing it, and totally forgetting about getting us a snack.

He’s been harping on me for awhile because he thought there was too much up there. (He’s the one who is usually worried about stuff like that. I’m the one usually stuffing things wherever they’ll fit to get them put away.) So, maybe the shelf had just broken that night. Or maybe it had been broken for awhile but I hadn’t noticed. Or maybe it wasn’t broken yet–Hubs just saw it starting to break and wanted to fix it ahead of time.

Either way, I don’t have a before shot for you all since I was on hold on the phone for the majority of this time. I also don’t have many action shots, but luckily, this was a pretty simple fix so hopefully you can follow along.

Basically, the shelf had warped because it had too much heavy stuff in the middle. As it bowed in the middle, it got a little shorter in length, which means it didn’t fit on the little pegs that support the shelf anymore.

Here’s the next shelf down, suffering a similar fate–see how the shelf is barely hanging onto the top of the peg?

So, he created four little blocks for the shelf to rest on. They’re bigger than the little pegs so they provide a lot more solid of a base.  He then screwed those blocks directly into the pantry to make the shelf extra stable.

Now for the part that reminded me of the book…

He went to the pantry to find a snack, which led him to discover the broken shelf.

Seeing the broken shelf led him to want to take everything out of the pantry that had been on the top shelf.

After he got everything out, he decided to just go ahead and fix the shelf.

As he started to put the shelf back in, he realized it was now higher than it had been, so there wasn’t enough room for some of the stuff we’d had standing up there.

Since things wouldn’t fit where they had been, he rearranged part of the pantry to make things work in their new locations.

And after he got everything back in the pantry, he decided he needed a drink (probably because he saw the soda in the bottom of the pantry as he was rearranging.

And then, as he sat down on the couch to relax with his drink, neither of us had a snack, which led me to get up and go to the pantry…where I found this addition that wasn’t purchased at the grocery store.

“Yes, please, I’ll have a side of hammer with the spaghetti tonight, honey!”

And that’s the way we spend our weeknights around here sometimes. (Don’t get me wrong, I’m very thankful he fixed the shelf. It would have been awful if the shelf had fallen down, spilling a mess of stuff all over the kitchen floor. He’s a handy guy, that husband of mine! So handy, in fact, that I bet I can get him to fix the other shelves, which are also pretty warped and nearly broken…)

Tell me what’s been going on in your neck of the woods this week! Anything breaking? Anything getting rearranged? Ever have a simple task, like getting a snack, that leads to a night of unexpected surprises?