Over the course of my life, I’ve had the privilege of working with two talented men – my father and my husband – on a variety of home repair and home remodeling projects. My dad taught me basic things such as how to paint and varnish, how to hammer a nail properly, and how to repair cracked wood with putty. By my teens, I could repair, sand, and paint all manner of things around the house.
My husband and I have painted every room in our home at least twice, learned to put up wallpaper together, and rebuilt a spring house. Actually, he did most of the work on that project, but I did hand him tools and materials, so I watched the whole thing take shape.
This week, it occurred to me that I’ve also learned a lot of things that help with home repair, but aren’t actually home repairs. For example, many years ago, I realized that it’s never a good idea to “eyeball” things to determine if they are straight.
This lesson was brought home about twenty years ago, when my husband and son were placing a large Christmas tree in the stand. One was lying on his stomach, securing the trunk to the stand and the other was halfway inserted into the tree, holding it up. My job was to tell them when the tree was straight and could be fully secured. I did this rather well, I thought, and the screws were tightened. Then they pulled out from their respective positions, looked at the tree, and then looked at me like I had grown a second head.
That was primarily because the tree was at about at 60 degree angle, tipping widely to the left. Our son even drew a picture of it to commemorate the occasion – after he wriggled back under the tree to loosen the stand.
It’s an important lesson, and one which is why some smart person invented a tool called the level. We used the level this week when we were attempting to find and create a chalk line on our living room ceiling. We used a pole to mark the center of the ceiling, and since all lines were going to come from that mark, it was important that the pole was level. I was looking at the pole from across the room, assuring my husband it was straight.
He wisely used the level to move it about an inch to the left, and then, it was straight. Lesson learned.
The reason we were being careful was because it is important that our chalk line is right down the middle. That’s the second lesson I learned this week – make sure that your chalk line tool has chalk in it.
We pulled the little string out and I thought it was going to be difficult to see the chalk line if it was white and the ceiling is white. It took several times of rewinding the string and pulling it out for us to realize that there was no chalk in the tool. So…off we went to the hardware store to buy blue chalk dust. We filled the tool, shut it tightly and voila! We were able to make a perfectly visible chalk line!
Putting a chalk line on the ceiling requires both of us to be on step ladders. These ladders weren’t terribly tall, but did the job for us. At least, they did when placed correctly. The third lesson I discovered is that when placing a step ladder, it’s critical to make sure the floor is flat and secure.
The floors in our living room are 210 years old and there’s one little piece that’s about 4 inches long by one inch wide that’s just wedged in between two other pieces. Naturally, that’s the tiny little area I placed the right front leg of my ladder.
Having not noticed this little wood chunk, I was surprised when the ladder leg slipped down several inches, toppling me off the first step. That poor little wood chunk wasn’t prepared to hold my weight at all!
Lessons learned: use a level, fill your chalk line reel with chalk, and place that ladder carefully. Also – not a good idea to use a ladder in flip-flops. This wasn’t a problem (this time), it’s just good advice.
lessons learned are not easily forgotten and should not be – really a hoot as usual keep up the great work
Susie, like you, I also enjoy working on home improvement projects or any project with my husband.
When it comes to work there is nothing my husband is afraid to try and, if possible, I try to help him.
About 25 years ago in August, one of the hottest days on record, we were putting on a new roof.
Hubby looked down at our next door neighbor’s lady friend and said, “Well, look at that, “Billy Bob” has himself a little slave girl. She’s digging a pond!” I glanced over the edge of the roof to see a lady at least 15 years my junior with a shovel in her hand. I cleared my throat, tapped my beloved on the shoulder and whispered, “She’s digging a hole in the ground! It’s 120 degrees up here on this black roof. I’ve carried all these shingles to you while you put them in place and I’ve matched you nail for nail. Now… I’ll go down there and dig that little hole in the ground if “slave girl” will come up here and do my job!” There was silence in heaven… and on the rooftop. Needless to say we tried to muffle our laughter and keep from rolling off the roof at the same time. I do believe that under the heading of “helpmate” comes a number of responsibilities – one of them being helping husband to keep things in perspective (at least in my case). Now that’s just my opinion.
One summer hubby told our daughter that he would repair the air conditioner on her Ford Taurus. He had never repaired an air conditioner in his life. It costs a lot to have an AC on your car fixed. That’s why you will see lots of drivers with their windows down in the summer.
“I’ll just buy a car manual and fix it,” he told me. He never reads instructions to anything, so I didn’t understand that. He did buy the manual and guess who gets to read it. Right! I’m almost yelling to him, “It seems like every page is telling you, “This is not for an amateur – take the car to a professional.” That just made it more of a challenge for my husband. He ignored the manual altogether.
While I went inside to make coffee, he began tearing the car apart. By the time I got back outside there were screws, nuts, bolts, and car parts laying everywhere. “What are you doing!?” I yelled. “You’ve got to bag and tag this stuff. You’ll never get this back together.” “Don’t worry, I know where most of it goes and the rest is self-explanatory,” he insisted.
I had a knee injury at the time, but I hobbled as fast as I could back into the house and got bags and tags. I began labeling and bagging. Then I came to two bolts that he didn’t know where they should go. “Fine,” I told him. “I’ll label these ‘self-explanatory’’.”
I began reading the manual again. “You know when you get to the air bags they have to be disengaged or you could be seriously injured,” I told him. “You worry too much. The air bags are already laying in the garage,” he answered. Well, duh. I tell you that was one heck of a job, but we did get everything back together and our daughter said the air conditioner had never worked so well. The next summer the project was installing new construction windows. I have to admit we are equally good at getting each other into some real dilemmas. We had all the windows in except the big picture window. We decided maybe we could use some lifting help with that one, so we called our son-in-law. As we waited for him, I asked, “If we had to, could you and I put this window in by ourselves?” Of course, that was nothing more than another challenge. “Sure,” he says. “Just take two 2×4’s, nail some blocks on them about a foot apart and walk the window up.” Viola! What an idea! We got the window out of the garage, walked it up the boards and tried getting it into the open space. It got stuck. “Okay, you hold the window while I go get a crowbar,” he tells me. Now I’m supposed to hold this big window up, but didn’t I ask for it? Thankfully, our son-in-law drove in about that time.
Our next big project was laying pavers behind our house to build a huge patio the whole length of our house. That’s where I learned about the chalk line. That’s a whole other story.