@PopularMechanics _ April 2019 35marks and a few minutes with an impact driver, and the job would
be done. The pull-ups would begin.
We measured off the corner and started probing through the
drywall. We found nothing solid. We kept prospecting. Nothing.
By now the little holes in the ceiling stretched in a line longer
than the bracket. We kept going. Still nothing. Was our home
framed on air?
We did not find the first joist until we were 25 inches off the cor-
ner. The next was 15 inches beyond that. Then they started at 16.
More than an hour had passed. There was no way to match the
bar brackets to joists—unless we hung the bar across the entrance
to the room. That was not a plan we were going to take to their mom.
We considered a work-around. We could shape and fasten wooden
plates between existing joists—thick enough to withstand the stress
exerted on them by teenagers—and anchor the pull-up bar to them.
But who wants a pair of crude wooden plates on their ceiling? Not
Mick and Willie.
Our quick holiday project was demanding more material and
labor, and promising to be an eyesore to boot. Maybe the bar should go
in the basement? It was time for dinner. We put bar and tools aside.
For months. We joined the ranks of people who step around par-
tially assembled Christmas presents deep into the next year.
In the spring, Mick had an idea. Rather than two plates, one for
each bracket, how about we fashion one massive plate roughly in
the shape of a surfboard? Here was a proposal with merit. Not only
would such a fix be sturdy, it would match the boys’ beach-rat ethos.
I was busy with work but put the project on the household list. In
early summer, after meeting a work deadline, I visited a local hard-
wood supplier and bought a sturdy plank of sapele—almost seven
feet long, 19 inches wide, and more than an inch thick. Now it was
the boys’ turn.
Mick traced the rough shape of a surfboard, clamped the board
to a worktable and followed his pencil marks with a jigsaw, then
went back over the cut with a router.
Out came the rulers and tape to create a wide center stripe on the
board to be painted in blue. Joey, our eight-year-old, applied a coat
of primer, and over the next two days followed up with bright boat
paint. Last came a coat of linseed oil.
Just before Independence Day—a holiday as distant from the
Christmas season as you can get—the mounting-plate-masquer-
ading-as-a-surf board was ready. We carried it upstairs, drilled
holes for bolts, and fastened the bar to its new bracket with nyloc
nuts. We had marked the funky joist locations on the ceiling, and
drilled pilot holes.
The board and pull-up bar frame were heavy—maybe 70 pounds—
so three people held the whole contraption aloft, lined up the pilot
holes with the pencil marks, and pressed the sapele to the ceiling.
With an impact driver and a few lag screws the bar was soon securely
anchored to joists.
More than six months had passed. My son’s Christmas present
had arrived. Next year, I vowed, I’ll buy them music.C.J. CHIVERS is the author of The Fighters, a correspondent for
The New York Times, and a winner of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize.We kept prospecting.
N o t h i n g. B y n o w t h e
little holes in the ceiling
stretched in a line longer
than the bracket. We kept
going. Still nothing. Was
our home framed on air?