Home Sweet Home

Home Sweet Home

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

The Impossible Becomes Possible


I changed my mind. I decided I absolutely did not want to do the drywall in K's room. I really wanted professionals to do this job. I didn't want to screw it up, and I knew I would. I again put her room on the back burner, for a month or two.
Then one day, Tee talked me into putting up one piece. Just one. I put it up, and hated it. I took it down. I put it up again, and took it down again. I hated the whole thing. I hated the weight, I hated the feel of it. I hated cutting it. I hated the way it crumbled if you looked at it wrong. I was primitively cutting the drywall with a box knife and a yardstick. It was backbreaking. I had wanted to use quarter inch Sheetrock but Tee made a shopping excursion without me one day, and had come home with half inch Sheetrock instead. I was more than a little ticked off about that, since I would have to be doing most of the work, that he didn't consult me before he changed the plan. Our budget, being constrained, as of late, he talked me into not hiring professionals. I reluctantly agreed that we would have to do it ourselves if we wanted it done.
Every day I would go in there and cut a piece and put it up. Sometimes Tee would come in and help me screw it into place. Every day it got a little harder for me to do. Mentally I was shot. Every time I would put up a piece I would worry that it wasn't exactly right. I would go to bed thinking about how I would change it in the morning. First thing the next morning I would take it down and start over. Tee began to make comments about how we never progressed because we kept putting up the same pieces over and over. I couldn't help it, I just wanted it to be RIGHT. Half arsed just wasn't good enough for me.
Then I started sneaking. I would wait for him to leave the room and sneak a piece down and try to replace it before he came back. It would be OK if it was done when he came back, and done better than when he left. Inevitably, however, he always seemed to catch me in the act. "What are you DOING?? Taking down ANOTHER piece?"
And there was the aggravating fact that as long as I was working alone I could do OK measuring. But if he came in and watched or tried to help I mismeasured every single piece and had to recut it. This began to really boil my blood. I would say "trust me, honey, I know what I'm doing. I know this doesn't look right, but it will come out right in the end." And then I would go to put it up and the outlet hole would be three inches too high or two inches too far to the right. EVERY SINGLE TIME!! I started to develop a complex. Every time I would hear him coming, I would start muttering to myself and be angry with him before he would even get in the room. He would come in and start to work, and after a few chilly minutes he would ask "are you mad at me?" "No." I would growl back. The person I was really angry at was myself, for being so incompetent.
But it got better. We made a trip to Lowe's and bought a whole bunch of new tools to work with. One of these tools was a SAWZALL. I had never seen one of these until Dad came to do the framing. I decided right away that I HAD to have one. What I didn't know, as I took it out of it's box and snapped the blade on is that it would cut drywall like butter. (said in a whispered voice, with much amazement).
The other thing that finally got us moving was the laser level. I had always wanted one, and now it made making the measurements on the drywall a dream. The room was not square so each piece had to be measured independently of each other, and each side of each piece had to be measured, as well, since one wall would be 88 inches tall on one side and 87 and a half on the other side of the wall. The numbers were mind boggling, and I am no math genius. But the laser level changed all that. I could make a mark on one side of the drywall and make the corresponding mark on the other side, use the level to line up the two marks and cut it with the SAWZALL in a matter of a couple of minutes. I finally stopped taking down the pieces because they were finally right. The room really started to come together.
Yesterday, I put in the final piece of drywall, and began mudding and taping. I stood looking around the room in amazement that the impossible had become possible. I could not believe that WE had made this happen. Then K came in and looked around and got the happiest grin on her face. She's finally going to get her room back. That makes me happy too.

So that's where we are at in our home renovation. Of course I realize that my other daughter (A's room) is going to have to go through the exact same thing. (later, MUCH later) The two rooms are exactly alike, running along one side of the house. They used to be one room, the old garage, when the house was built. So since they share that horrible green wall, we will have to remove the paneling we worked so hard to smooth out in there, back when we first moved in. We will have to do this whole drywall thing AGAIN!!

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