Nothing is Ever Easy!

There are some basic tenants about home repairs. One is the title of this blog. Another is that these projects can be quantified by the number of Home Depot trips needed to complete the project. Still another is that you cannot fix one thing without it leading into another project, and then another. All of these things are true.

It all started when the maid service people ripped up the carpet in the bonus room. Evidently their vacuum cleaner was faulty because it snagged the Berber carpet and pulled out long strings of fiber, leaving 7 or 8 gashes in the carpet. Not good. We noticed the gashes the next day and couldn’t think of any cause except the service, so Mom called, thinking they would surely deny any involvement. To our surprise, they admitted that they were aware when it happened and took responsibility (after we called them on it).

So, project one was to get the carpet repaired or replaced. Folks came and looked at the gashes and said repair was not possible, so after several phone calls and trips to the carpet place the guys came last Friday and replaced the carpet. Oh, did I mention emptying all the shelves and disassembling the computer, etc. to get to the point where they could move the furniture?

Okay, the carpet is good and everything is back in place, but the lower hinged part of the panel that covers the water heater space won’t completely close now because of the carpet. This is the industrial strength panel that Rob crafted out of railroad ties and left-over 4x12s. Okay, maybe it only seemed that heavy. I’m thinking that maybe the thing to do is replace that heavy panel with some lattice-work or filigreed paneling of some sort. So Home Depot trip One was to determine that they didn’t have anything like what I had in mind.

Next idea is to cut a little of the panel off the top, so I took the panel down and here’s where the whole thing spiraled out of control. Not only would Rob’s careful and thorough craftsmanship make this a near impossible task, I found that the water heater stove pipe was not in place and the heater had been filling that little space with hot gasses since probably the last time we had the roof repaired (See? Everything is linked.) Grateful that the house had not burned down or we had not been asphyxiated, I examined the situation and noticed that the hole in the sheet rock where the flue passed into the attic on the way to the roof was gaping; any critter in the attic could pass through that gap and shinny down that now-cool pipe and come right in the house, thank you very much.

Now we do not at the moment have critters in the attic, but I could write about times that we have had. Nevertheless, the gap needed to be plugged and my standard remedy for gaps into the attic is hardware cloth, of which I just happened to have a roll in the garage. Oh, that’s right. We cleaned out the garage. Trip number Two. Except this time we went to Lowe’s and I found some plastic lattice work that could be made to work. All we needed was to saw a 4x8 sheet down the middle and offset the two halves a little so that the holes were appropriately small. If you don’t get the picture here, just trust me on this. Over to the lumber aisle and get the friendly Lowe’s staff to rip that panel on their humongous saw that has a big “out of Order” sign on it. Oh well, surely I can saw it at home. All we have to do is get the 4x8 panel in our 3x6 vehicle. Have I ever mentioned that the loading docks of places like Home Depot and Lowe’s are prime locations for marriage counseling services? There’s a real ministry just waiting to happen right outside those big doors!

We did get it home because we found that because it was a thin sheet of plastic material it would bend and curl. The bad news is: have you ever tried to saw a big sheet of thin plastic material in half? You can’t put it on saw horses; it just bows down between them. You can’t put it on the Workmate because whatever portion is not clamped just flops to the ground. This is like sawing a sheet of Jell-O. About all you can do is lay it flat on the garage floor, but that’s sure going to be hard on the circular saw. Oh, wait. Someone who shall remain nameless borrowed the circular saw and “lost” it.

While I’m thinking about how to saw this panel, I’ll cleverly craft a hardware cloth patch and cover the hole in the ceiling. The hole that’s in the back of a two-foot square closet space that I can’t get to without standing on the water heater, never mind that there is nothing substantial there I can staple this patch to. And did you know that while you are snipping and trimming the patch you can easily jab yourself with the sharp wires. Do you have any idea how hard it is to do this with a Band-Aid on every single finger? And if you cut the hole for the flue in the wrong place, you have to start over?

Once the hole was plugged, I focused on sawing the panel and found that I could raise it up just a little and hand saw one lattice connection at a time. Success! Now I have two panels that I’m going to overlap and connect…. How? I, know, Liquid Nails! Trip Three. Oops, too messy. Now what? Drill holes and bolt it together? Yes! At last – a doubled panel 8 feet long by 2 feet wide that should just fit the 8 foot by 23 ½ inch opening!! Argggh! How much are circular saws? That much? Mom saved the day by suggesting the saber saw. The doubled panel was somewhat less floppy, so with two sawhorses, the Workmate and many clamps, I got the panel in place, and here’s the finished project!

Now, does returning the unused glue count as Trip Four?