Since becoming landed gentry (a house owner) I've surprised myself with my ability to actually do the odd handy-man task. I've installed toilets and dishwashers. I've sanded down, stripped and lacquered a pine floor. I've re-shingled the roof. I've even helped my wife patch up the odd stucco glitch.
My worst nightmare, however, is renovating the bathroom. And it can no longer be post-poned. We have a small bathroom on the main floor, next to the kitchen. The fella that put it in obviously thought keeping the original hardwood intact was a good idea, but I am here to testify it ain't necessarily so. No, in fact let me be plain: hardwood in bathrooms is a bad idea - as bad as shag rug in the kitchen (but not as bad as shag rug over hardwood in the bathroom).
I've watched the bathroom hardwood warp for the past year, and told myself all the lovely lies I had to just to live with my lazy-ass self. Today, for reasons I can't put my finger on, I finally rolled up my sleeves, dismantled the toilet, and took a quick peek at the warp and wobble of the hardwood. It wasn't pretty.
So now I'm looking at the house's original "sub-floor" (what was called, back in the day, tongue-and-groove pine) and wondering just how I'm going to yank out what needs to be yanked out, and replace what needs to be replaced, because I'm too bloody cheap to consult a professional!
Oh, maybe it's not too late to change my ways and pick up the phone. It is a bathroom, after all....(fade to sound of grown man weeping)
Being a penniless and cheap homeowner for o'er these many years, I have learned how to carpenter, plumb, paint and hammer with the best of 'um...
ReplyDeleteThanks for the encouragement, CP. Say, you won't be up near Central Ontario anytime soon, will you?
ReplyDeleteSteve Goodman wrote a song a ways back about the city of Chicago. One line of the osng, if I remember it correctly, goes something like..
ReplyDelete"Mayor Richard Dalry built McCormick Place twice, because once was noit good enough"
That pretty much summarizes my home repair philosophy. I gutted and re-did our bathroom a few years back, when idealism was still an option. I then re-did the bathrooms few years later, specifically the floor...which was gutted to the joists, re-built, ceramic tiled the first time. It looks fine...now. Sorry that I can't offer you advice if you just want to do that bathroom project once.
But if you have plans on doing it twice...I'm your man. At the worst, I can offer a tapestry of Croatian cursing, a necessary on the job tool that's quite effective at clearing out the "I-would-have-done-it-this-way" folks that will stalk you like vultures on road-kill.
The croatian cursing could come in handy. The plaut-dietsch I've been using sounds more and more like english.
ReplyDeleteWell, your capacity to even give it a shot inspires me, since I aspire to handihood someday despite an entire lack of training for it.
ReplyDeleteThese are grim times indeed if my efforts at handihood count for inspiration! (Thanks, Phil)
ReplyDelete'Fraid so, Darrell -- I agree with Phil!
ReplyDeleteI felt flush with pride putting up a shelf and a bathroom mirror from IKEA this month (sad, so sad...)