Construction Challenged - Part 1:
"Home Depot"

 

The whole world is held together with these little parts and each has a name. They can all be found at Home Depot. I find it interesting that many of these parts are actually named for body parts and some of them sound erotic. There are rods, studs, screws, male and female parts, elbows, sleeves, and nipples to name a few. You would almost expect to see people ripping off their clothes in excitement. Since this is the first time I've ever owned my own home I'm finding out that I'm responsible to keep this thing fixed and running. Today I ventured into Home Depot. I walked through that whole store and couldn't find one thing I really wanted to buy. I'm guessing a higher level of testosterone would make it more enjoyable. I told the guy I needed a kitchen thingy and a bathroom thingy. I then explained exactly where I needed this thingy to go and he helped me find what I needed. I asked him what the exact name of this thingy was and to my surprise, he said, "I'm not sure. It's a kitchen thingy"! I was feeling better already. I've got my toolbox stocked and ready to go. Wish me luck. Please call if you can come help me paint.

-Linda Abby

 

 

Construction Challenged - Part 2: "Spackle"

 

As many of you now know, I am having some construction challenges in my life. This past week I wrote to R___ the following email:

R___, you are the supreme painting authority. Tell me what I need to do about
my bathroom walls. All the old paint is peeling off. Under that are several
more coats also peeling. Do I need to scrape and sand? Should I get an
electric sander? Is there a possibility I could sand through the wall into
the next room? Or into Metuchen [the next town]? Love, Linda

R___ wrote back:

sanding shmanding...

yes... it sounds like there is moisture under there somewhere... typical for
bathrooms. I would suggest stripping and/or sanding, definitely. and then,
prime the wallboard with special paint. i'm not sure what it's called [ask
the guy at the paint store], but its moisture resistant and it should keep
the same thing from happening again. it might be that two coats of good
latex paint will do the job [after sanding], but see what the paint store
guy says.

and no, you don't have to worry about sanding into Metuchen... it is a funny
thought though.

here is the theory on sanding. any paint that is actually still stuck, and
hard to get off, should remain. any flaky paint should be peeled up with a
sharp putty knife or something similar. the idea is that if you can't scrape
it off, it will help hold the new stuff on. the drawback is that if you take
some, but not all, of the paint off, that the wall will look "lumpy".

you'll have to experiment, but i think you should use the putty knife to get off the loose stuff, and then use some sandpaper to even out the area between the stuff that was chipped off and the stuff that remains. you might have to spackle a little bit to get the desired smoothness.

isn't if *fun* being a home owner!

love, r___

Not to pick on R___, but I'm pretty sure I didn't need quite this much information. The one word I did hear was SPACKLE. I was excited to hear that word because I actually know what it is!

So it's back to Home Depot I go. I was pretty sure I could even buy some spackle without needing help from some TSM [testosterone saturated man]. But of course, you know how it is. When you actually need a sales person to help, you can't find one. I swear this guy materialized out of nowhere as if by magic. This is the conversation as follows:

ME: I need some spackle.

TSM: What kind?

ME: [sounding alarmed] You mean there's more than one kind????!!!!!

TSM: WE have two kinds. [he hands me two different kinds] Feel that? One is much heavier than the other one. If you are using it on your own home I would use the heavier [more expensive] one. It takes a little longer to dry but works much better.

So of course I said I would like the heavy [expensive one.] I picked up a pint and off to work I go. Now the key word here is pint.

I scraped and scraped and scraped. Now I want to even out all the lumpy parts as R___ promised me there would be. I'm thinking, wait a minute, this pint of Spackle will take care of maybe one square centimeter of wall! This won't be enough spackle!!!

I went Back to Home Depot and I skipped right over the quart size and picked up a Gallon of Spackle. Of course again, I wanted the best so I picked out the heaviest kind, which gets pretty heavy. With muscles straining I got the gallon of spackle into the trunk of the car. The tail pipe only hit the ground once on the way home. Rachel was kind enough to carry it up the flight of stairs for me.

It pays to have great relatives! I'm one lucky woman!!!

-Linda Abby

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