Bolts...

Things in life can - sometimes - be so hard, you wonder if you are in fact banging your head against a brick wall.

Now, you might wonder what I am prattling on about - world peace, solving hunger, curing plagues...  No, No, and No.  I am, instead, moaning about bolts.

Several weeks back, the 0dd sister gave us a very nice headboard, thank-you-very-much.  Metal and swirly and.. Stuff. I'm a man, that's the description, move on.  What she didn't have was the bolts for said-headboard.  However, being that I am still a man, I figured "How hard can it be to get bolts..."

Talk about wrong.

First port of call, obviously, was the bed shop.  You know, the place they sell beds and, also, headboards.  It therefore stood to reason that in a place they sell headboards, they would also sell headboard bolts.

Wrong.

So, to the hardware stuff shop. Now I am gradually slipping from my comfort zone.  I don't do hardware, I am not a Do-It-Myself kinda guy.  "Headboard bolts?" I ask pleasantly of the cretin serving.  "Uuuuh..." was about the limit of the reply.

OK, so I can now retreat to my safe-zone, that of the Intarwebz.  THIS I can do.  One Google search, and the world of headboard bolts is opened up before my very eyes.

*click* first result, Ebay
*click* buy it now, £1.99
*click* paypal stuff
*click* confirm

So, being the marvelous person that I am, everything is done. Just have to wait for delivery.

Cue much thumb-twiddling, patience and waiting... An email to the ebay person, no answer. And another, still no answer. And on and on... So I escalate it to the help desk and two weeks later, I am refunded.

Still zero in the way of bolts.

Back to Google, back to Ebay, skip around the first result, find another Ebayer selling the bolts, clickity click, back to waiting.

Two days later, the bolts arrive.  Woohoo.  I skip up the stairs merrily like a little girl, pull the bed out, man-handle the very large, heavy metal (rock-on!) headboard into place, attach the bol.... Oh.

Would you believe the sodding things didn't fit?  I put them in, gave them a twist, they wedged into place.  Tried a different bolt in a different hole, still nothing.  Cue much bitching and moaning on my part, but none the less, there's not a lot I can do about it...

Now, I mentioned back up there that I am out of my element in DIY-Hardware-Type places, but it was back there we had to go to look at bolts.  I had it on good authority (ie, the packaging) that the bolts we owned were M8 50, or, Metric Thread 8mm wide, 50mm long.  They didn't fit in the hole - too big - so it stood to reason that the size down would be better.

We got a bag of M6's of varying lengths, headed back and... They fell through the hole.  Too small.  Now, in the shop, there were M2, M4, M6, M8, M10... Er... One too big, one too small.

Back in my happy place (that is, not rage-induced bolt-mania) I ran around on Google and found someone on Ebay that sells "the hard-to-buy" M7's.  If a six is too small, an eight is too big, even a genius can figure out that in between those two is a seven.

So, Google, Ebay, click-click-cry, wait wait wait... And a while later, they arrive.

Clutching my M7s in hand, I ran up stairs giggling maniacally, bed out, board up, bolts in....

They were too small.  Slid straight through the hole.

So NOW I am completely at a loss.  I have no idea what to do next.  Kellie is of the opinion we either attach a nut on either side of the bolt and lock it into place that way, or get a mounting kit and attach the headboard to the wall.

Personally, I'm just about ready to lob it out the window.  If, however, any of you have any ideas, please feel free to share. 

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One Response to “Bolts...”

Kim said...

The nuts sound like the best idea Dan, that's probably how it was fixed in first place (according to the hubby)