So my daughter decided she wanted to paint the hall bath. Despite my being a pretty useless cripple, I persuaded her to at least allow me to patch the holes in the drywall. Our house is like 30 years old, and it had been a rental for a while, so it’s seen better days. The cheapo towel rack had eventually ripped out of the wall, and the toilet paper holder wasn’t far behind.
I could hardly begrudge her a little paint, the whole house is painted eggshell, with bright white ceilings. It’s probably been the same coat of paint for about 10 years. Well, except the kitchen. The kitchen is a lovely shade of dark brown cheap ass 1965 panelling. That’s another story which has yet to be written.
Ok, so I can’t do much at a time. I’m a cripple. I’m taking my time, doing a little patching one day, a little sanding a few days later when I recover, yada yada yada. Two weeks ago, my wife and daughter head to Kentucky and I plan on spending the whole weekend writing. Yeah, shoulda known that wasn’t gonna happen.
James comes to me and says, “Dad, can we host the cast party for the musical at school?”
“Sure, when is it?”
“Next weekend.”
“Fuck.”
The kids have all their toiletries all down the hall carpet, because I’ve got the bathroom torn up.
So I have to get into what is for me now, overdrive. What should take me a day or two takes me weeks now. But as long as I’m patching the holes in the drywall, I might as well do the tape joint where the walls meet the ceiling, because the 30 year old tape job is coming apart and needs attention. And as long as I’m at it, I might as well replace the $2 rental home bathroom light. Found a really nice one at the Depot, chrome with white porcelain accents. And the goddamned fart fan is the size of a matchbox, and doesn’t do squat but run up the electric bill, so I might as well replace that rusty old piece of crap.
300 cfm of pure sucking pleasure, baby! (That’s “cubic feet per minute”, for those of you non-construction bums.) That sonuvabitch will out suck most cheap hookers.
Before they left, the girls picked out the paint for the walls. Lime fucking green. What the hell am I gonna do to match that paint? It looks even worse on the walls than it does on the can. Fuckin’ women.
Might as well replace that $1.50 plastic medicine cabinet with the fake brass trim that’s been peeling off since before I was born. It’s only about big enough for a tube of chapstick and a condom anyway.
I rip it out of the wall, and whatya know? The wet wall is 8″ deep and no pipes behind the medicine cabinet. I love when that happens. Daddy gonna build a medicine cabinet to take advantage of all the space.
Long as I’ve got the wall open, there’s no receptacle in the bathroom, so I might as well install a GFI.
But what about the lime fucking green paint? Banana yellow. Yep. Banana fucking yellow. I rock. I am a genius. It is the only shade of any color in the world which will salvage this fucking can of Lime fucking green paint. I’ll trim around the door and the baseboard with banana yellow. Might as well replace the light and fan switches and the cheap ass plastic plate. Got good metal ones and painted them yellow to match the trim.
Nice medicine cabinet. All red oak, with a golden oak stain. No one will ever see them, but it’s all dovetailed together, dado and rabbit joints for the shelves, not a nail or screw in it, ‘cept for the hinges and the handle. I rock.
Y’know what would be cool, and would help tie things together? That glass shelf and toilet paper holder at the Depot that sort of match the light. I’ll mount them on oak blocks to tie in with the medicine cabinet. Oh, and the hooks on that coat rack? They match the rest, but the mount is cheap ass crap. I’ll dismount them, and mount them on matching oak blocks.
Wife and daughter bought some cheap white cabinets for the bath. I’ll hang them for now, but replace them later. I like the idea of the wall cabinet and the etagere, but they’re cheap particle board snap together things. I’ll copy the style and build nice ones down the road.
Wife and daughter picked up a jungle themed shower curtain at my direction, and I added a paint transfer bush behind the new door. It was one of those crappy brown fake wood hollow core P.O.S. doors that run through the whole house. I put in a new masonite door (Pop did the mortising and knob hole drilling, he’s got the stuff to hang doors, being a carpenter and all.) I put new brass hinges and a decent little handle on it, instead of a regular knob. It’s much dressier.
Long as I’m at it: Yep, matching faucet. Sweet.
11:30 PM on the eve of the cast party, I’m still slinging yellow paint on the door trim. It’ll have to do.
My blogs are all but cobwebby, but as long as I can move, I have to be doing stuff.
I’m joking with the family. “I should start my own reality TV show: ‘Pimp my toilet’.
It turned out pretty well for having started with a cripple and some lime green paint, I think. Of course, now the entire rest of the house looks even worse, next to the pimped out banya.
I got it all done in time, and while I was still mobile, I figured I’d try to work on the freeze board project I started a few months ago. I managed to make it all the way across the back of the house. I still have to fill the screw holes and do the touch up paint, then I can hang some crown mould and stuff.
See, when they built the house, they just slapped in some skank 2X6s, just barely hanging on the wall, then slapped on some 1/4″ plywood and cheap ass metal trim. It’s the cheapest way to do it. (The freeze board is the part of the house that comes down from the roof to lap over the top of the brick wall, so the rain doesn’t run behind it.) I don’t blame them, their job is to slap up as many houses as they can in the shortest amount of time with the least amount of money. But after 30 years, it rotting and crappy and now that the house is mine, I want to fix things right. It’s a construction bum thing.
So I took some 2X4s, built a little wall on top of the brick (deck screws, no way in hell I can drive 16 penny nails), and put some 3/4” pine board up with finishing screws. It’s painted Sidesaddle (brown), and I’m thinking I’ll go with some Family Legacy (tan) to trim other parts of the house. Before I started, it was all the same eggshell that’s inside the house, except the gutters which are the most godawful red-brown. It’s horrendous. Anyway, so what should have taken a day took me several months to be able to do. And it’s just the back of the house. I still have both ends and the front to do.
There’s a homeless woodpecker out back now, and some pissed off European Starlings, but they’ll get over it. At least I’ll be able to shower in peace now. (The “master bath” sticks out on the back of the house, and was open at the freezeboard for a while now.) Goddamn woodpecker trying to see my pecker wood. I ain’t shy, but I’m choosy, y’know?
Anyways, that’s the long and the short of my emergency disappearence. I’ll try to get pictures up tomorrow, because I have a feeling that that’s about all I’m going to be able to do. I’ve used up my quota of good days for quite some time, I think.
I hurt like hell, and I’m going to go shower now. In fact, I think I’ll take a bath. I’m a little afraid of falling, my legs have been acting up bad today. Meds and spinning blades don’t mix, and I had to use the spinning blades. I’ve been a terror, but not as bad as last time I was without meds. Knowing what was going on helped me to mitigate the collateral damage, I think, though I’ve had my moments. Kay was pretty pissed at me for a couple days there. God only knows what horrible things I may have said in my insanity.
Anyways again, I’m taking my meds in the morning. Dr. Jeckyl should replace Mr. Hyde shortly thereafter.
Thanks for all of your concern. There was just no way I could do any blogging at the end of the day. The only thing I could manage was to crawl into bed and hope I didn’t have to pee until morning.
‘Til tomorrow.