A repeat post cause I'm sick
This is a repeat post from Divine Caroline because I have a sinus thing and I'm finally going to the doctor tomorrow. Snot has blocked my thought process and I'm lazy.
Do-It-Yourself Home Improvement Advice
Run. Hide. Cry. You know what, just run.
I have an utter disdain for Do-It-Yourself Home Improvement. Let me sum
it up by telling you that I hate it, with the white hot intensity of a
1,000 suns. But most of us wives of the average Joe’s haven’t the funds
to hire someone to hang a drop ceiling in the bedroom that was made
downstairs. Or we don’t want to rob our husbands from the simple joys of
hammering and sawing stuff. Some of us are married to men that like to
rip down walls, reconstruct new walls and then paint them. I have that
kind of husband and he’s teaching our boys how to turn a house inside
out also. They bond while the dog and I hide in my office.
The problem with ripping down walls is that you need to have some basic
plumbing and electrical knowledge. These are learning as you go skills.
Basically it means they learn by their mistakes and so do I. Depending
on the Do It Yourself job my husband is undertaking determines whether I
stay in the house or head for the hills. Saturday I should have run.
Here’s what happened and remember it is all about me all the time.
Like I said the dog and I were hold up in my office, she is
uncomfortable with the loud noises coming from the basement so she
sticks to me like glue. Which is fine, having the dog curled up at my
feet while I write the next great American novel has always been a dream
of mine. I tuned out the hammering as the husband and Boy #3 were
installing the ceiling. All was well.
But not for long, the hammering and sawing stopped, there was a pause. I
lifted my head from the computer, my brow furrowed in a perplexed but
alert state. Something wasn’t right, I could feel it. That is about the
time I heard yelling, things dropping and more yelling. I couldn’t make
out what they were actually saying but I’m pretty sure it was something
my mom would get mad at if I wrote it down. I sprang from my office to
see what was the matter.
Down the hall, down the steps, turned the corner and was immediately met
with water that sprayed me right smack in the face. I ran right into a
chaotic situation. Water was spewing from the wall, they hit a water
pipe and water was shooting out of said pipe. The main water shut off
valve is in the closet, under our stairs, behind the winter coats, and
then behind the boxes of Christmas decorations. In other words, all the
way in the back of the closet behind everything. The husband started
grabbing winter coats and throwing them to the side, Boy #3, as I peered
around the corner, looked liked the little Dutch boy with his finger on
the hole in the dike but got there way too late and the town would be
lost or our new floor.
They both started to yell out to me for help at the same time, it was
like Sophie’s Choice. Do I save the drowning youngest of my three boys
or my husband trying to finding the shut off valve in the deep dark
closet? I sprang to action, ran back upstairs and grabbed the flashlight
I on my nightstand. The bucket was in the bathroom,
it was the one I swore I would never, ever let them use because they
ruin everyone I buy, I picked that up on my return to the stairs. Back
down I went, was met with another spray of water to my face as I threw
the bucket at my son, threw it right at him. The husband had now made
his way to the shut off valve, he was wedged between suitcases and the
boxes of Christmas decorations. He yelled again,
“I need a rag.”
And I produced one immediately after climbing over a few boxes. I shined
the flashlight in the general vicinity of the main water valve, I’m not
sure it helped. I couldn’t see anything back there but I did hear some
bells jingle. After a series of grunts the sound of water gushing into
the freshly painted, reconstructed bedroom stopped.
Once the husband and I squeezed ourselves out of the closet we stepped
into the bedroom and the three of us froze for just a moment, breathing
heavily with only our eyes moving, darting around wildly looking back
and forth at each other and the puddles of water where we stood. The
husband broke the silence,
“We have to get this water off the floor. Save the floor.”
We sprang into action with towels, buckets and the shop vac. You see the
ceiling was the last step in the basement bedroom make-over, if we lost
the flooring we were back to step one. Boy #3 has been impatiently
waiting behind two older brothers for this room. He wants his stuff down
there before one of them comes back. I call it the bachelor pad, the
transition room where they gain a little independence, pay a few bills
and free an extra room upstairs. I have such wonderful plans for my
office, I just need to get some of this junk out of here and into the
new empty room. The husband, I know this, has plans for a man cave when
we get the last of the birdies out of the nest. We all had our reasons
to save the floor and we worked swiftly.
Now it’s a waiting game to see if the floor buckles. The pipe, that shouldn’t even be there, what the hell is it doing there?
is fixed. It is now Wednesday and so far so good. There is a hole in
the wall that needs to be repaired and then they have to paint again.
So if you should see your husband with a hammer in his hand and it’s the weekend, grab your keys, check to see if your credit cards
are present and accounted for in your purse, make sure the dog has food
and water, then get the hell out of there. Stay away for hours and pray
that when you return you have running water and the lights switches work.
