My parents got a tanning bed when I was a kid. The two main purposes were getting a base tan before we went to the beach (the concept being that the base tan would prevent you from getting a sunburn, which according to science has only a modest benefit at best; sorry mom) and maintaining a sun tan throughout the year. While I believed the pseudo-science as a child and even used the tanning bed a few times myself, I’ve always thought this concept was fraught with folly.

Every spring, my parents would tough out the urge to wear shorts until they got a tan on their legs. The concept of being “pale” was an absolute abomination under god and to be avoided at all costs. I couldn’t quite grasp why it was so important for residents of East Tennessee to look as though they lived at the beach. When I’d hear my mom talk about the urge to get a tan despite having no vacation plans, I’d often rib her about how unholy it would be for her to be seen in public and have random people she didn’t even know think she maybe didn’t just get back from the Atlantic coast.

I have a tendency to be a little jerk when it comes to things I do not conceptually understand: the tanning bed, people in Tennessee with Salt Life stickers on their vehicles, Avril Lavigne, etc. And despite the many times I’ve been shown the light and changed my tune, I still opt for the path of the righteous smart-ass when I deem it necessary.

A recent example is when Katie began discussing the desire to beautify the side of our house where the driveway comes in from the road. Our home is definitely a little awkward; the front of the house faces a cross street, not our road, forcing every visitor we receive to both pull in and park at the side of our house. This isn’t a big deal, but that side has no windows or anything else that could be deemed interesting. Over the years, we’ve had the brick painted, put out flowers, rearranged various forms of outdoor furniture and even had a pergola built over the garage door.

This was all well and good until she mentioned the desire to also “hide” our rollaway trash can.

To my proletariat sensibilities, I felt like hiding the trash can was terribly unnecessary. Every household that pays for trash pickup has an admittedly ugly brown (or sometimes green) rollaway can somewhere near the house when it isn’t rolled to the curb on pickup day, why should we be ashamed of ours? Mister Tanning Bed Critic came out when I asked Katie if we were supposed to pretend that we don’t have garbage.

Regardless of how I felt about such a feature, when my wife wants something, I’ll do whatever I can to make it happen. I did some research and saw you can buy a good-looking screen for a couple hundred bucks, but I also thought it should be pretty easy to build. Constructing the garden bed last year raised my confidence quite a bit, so I was sure I could dig up some plans that would help guide me through making what we needed.

And I was right! I found these plans over on Woodshop Diaries and I thought they seemed simple enough to follow and modify. Since we would have two trash cans to cover (one for trash, one for recycling), I would simply build an additional side with braces and a second door — basically a mirror reflection of the original plan, all connected to a single frame in the middle. I would also not include a roof on the top since we still wanted easy access to lift the trash can lid. I read through the plans, drew out my own, read through the plans again and painstakingly mapped out every measurement and every cut of wood I’d need to complete the project.

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I went to Home Depot to pick up the lumber and various screw types I needed that Saturday morning and was still feeling at the top of my game despite always feeling like an alien in hardware stores. I was wearing my dirty trail runners, old shorts, a cut-off muscle shirt and a backward camo hat, meaning I definitely looked the part of a weekend warrior if not a certified contractor. It was enough to convince a middle-aged redneck with an extremely thick southern accent because he got my attention and pointed out that I was buying the more expensive, pressure-treated lumber.

“These bawrds o’er here [gestures to the cheaper boards across the aisle] is about four bucks apiece cheaper than these’uns! But all those look like shit, don’ they?”

With wide eyes and the reddest of neck accents I could muster, I replied “Wull hell yeah, they is! Y’all have a good ‘un!” I nodded toward the man, never letting him know I hadn’t even looked at the other boards, before pushing my cart toward the register.

Back home, I was off to the races. Armed with a colored pencil shoved into my hat, a tape measure clipped to my belt and a circular saw glued to my hand, I made about 30 cuts in relatively short order. I had my planks sorted into various stacks based on which step I’d need them and had successfully executed my first pocket hole with a jig I received for Christmas. By mid-afternoon, I’d assembled the three primary panels that would make my two-sided trash can screen.

This, dear readers, is when things went to the deepest pits of hell.

Katie came out as I was preparing to get to the next step with intentions of asking me to help her with something. “When you get to a stopping point …” she started before I interrupted with the utmost confidence, “I’m not stopping until this is done!”

It’s here that I’ll point out that while I had all the necessary tools to do this job, I do not have a proper workshop or even a workbench to speak of. In lieu of this, I was using the bed of my truck with the tailgate lowered. While I believe the comedy of errors that follow is largely due to my lack of experience, I also believe I would have had greater success with a proper place to work. 

Alas.

My next step was attaching the four 2×4 braces that would connect the three panels along the backside. As I attempted to screw in the first brace, my panel tilted and fell. Not hard, mind you, but enough to rip the pocket hole screws out of one side of the wood. I was annoyed and said a few choice words but remained calm. Fortunately, my pocket hole jig has three holes on its template and I’d only used the first and third. I didn’t have scrap lumber at this point, so I decided to drill a pocket hole right in the center, which I did, and honestly think the frame was more secure than it was initially as a result.

Back on the tailgate, I balanced the frame and successfully got the two braces attached. From there, I reached over to grab a second frame and while lining it up with the braces, the first frame fell yet again, not only ripping out the screws from the wood in two places but also the screw along the newly attached brace board.

I flipped out.

In an expletive-filled rage, I snatched up the broken frame – which at this point was useless – raised it high over my head and spiked it onto the driveway, breaking it into its individual pieces. I then marched inside to cool off and like a 225-pound baby shouted at Katie that I’d wasted my time and our money, that I’d messed up the project beyond belief and I was just going to set every bit of our lumber on fire and just buy a premade screen.

Katie knows I’m more-or-less unreachable when I’m in this state so she kept her distance, though she did implore me to not set the wood on fire and I obliged, though silently. After a few minutes in a living room chair, I slowly walked back out into the driveway and considered what, if anything, could be done.

After a few more minutes of irritation, I became logical again and surmised that without the third panel, I could still pull off a single-stall panel, so that’s what I did. I spent the next two hours or so lining up boards, drilling pilot holes, attaching hinges and rigging the gravity lock in a way so as to hide the fact that my door is slightly askew. My driveway was covered in sawdust and I had a surprise sunburn, but I’d done it. We have a rollaway trash can screen.

It’s janky and it’s hella-flawed, but dammit I’m proud of it.

Once I brought Katie out to reveal the final product and explained to her why it was just a single, she heaped on many compliments and made me feel like not-a-loser, which was the biggest win of my day. She reminded me that it’s ME who’s always telling her to give herself some grace when you make mistakes doing something you’ve never done before, and she’s right. I do tell her that all the time and I definitely needed to take my own advice here. I have always been my own worst client.

She then told me that one of her best contractors called and mentioned he’d seen her husband outside “building a box or something,” which was odd to her because she’d assumed I was out there destroying every last ounce of the “four bucks apiece more” expensive lumber I’d bought earlier in the day.

I’m just glad he drove by when I had an actual box and not when I was going all Conor McGregor on an inanimate object.

As always, Katie was right. The side of our house looks wonderful now that the rollaway trash can is hidden. I now also have what I think may be enough scrap lumber to assemble a small firewood shed. Let’s hope I can do that with no casualties.

Expect a spin-off of this story over on my Substack! Subscribe while you’re there – it’s free!