I fought the wall and the wall won

That title could have gone either wall or lawn. Not only does the “pun effect” work both ways, but they both have an ounce of truth to them. But in this case, while the lawn was mildly tiring and involved a mowing, watering, trimming, shoveling, raking, and some shrubbery, the wall involved… well… a wall. Technically it was 2 walls, but neither was that big.

Yes, this is the story of a man, a hammer, a crowbar, several 2x4s, sheet rock, flying nails, falling tiles, and an almost complete lack of protective gear. It is a tale that invokes the age-old saying, “Give me a Wonder Bar and a place to stand and I’ll rip apart the world.” There was blood, sweat, tears and cursing at the former homeowner. But in the end, despite only wearing just a t-shirt, shorts and sandals, nothing of any real interest occurred. It was the perfect storm for AFV or ER material, yet no skin was punctured or gashed, bones broken, or heads jostled by falling debris. A rather sad day in the Slattery household when the removal of a closet results in nothing but 2 halves of a piece of sheet rock covered in tile being carried down to the basement.

At least I continue to have my suspicions confirmed that, however little I know about construction, the people who worked on this house knew less. Why would anyone possibly put a closet in the middle of a bathroom that does nothing but make the toilet a claustrophobic nightmare? Was it simply to cover that ghastly 4″ vent pipe that should have been 3″ and in the wall? How does someone manage to install 2x4s in the wrong direction? Who bought 7 inch nails to attach the molding but felt dry wall screws were enough to hold the wood together? Did anyone really think shims were a suitable structural support?

These are the questions that keep me up at night… a lot less than they used to. Perhaps in the near future we’ll even get to turn the toilet to face the right direction! For now I’ll just enjoy our less coffin-like restroom experience. The rest of this bathroom renovation should only take about 2 years…

Ouch

This weekend we (and since The Woman is 37 weeks pregnant, we really means I) had to get some painting done. That included:

  • Priming and painting the kitchen ceiling
  • Priming and painting the kitchen walls
  • Priming and painting the nursery ceiling
  • Priming the nursery walls
  • Priming the new linen closet
  • Pretending to prime and/or paint the kitchen trim

The Woman did, in fact, help out a lot. But she can’t be in the room when the primer is being used, and she can’t paint anything that’s lower than 3 feet or higher that 6 feet. Unfortunately our walls extend beyond both limits. The real shame is that she’s a better painter than I. But in the end it worked out – and for the first time in a while, I may actually be owed a tad more sympathy than she is. Holy crap does every square inch of my body ache.

To be fair, by now I’m already well on my way to recovery (until I paint the nursery walls tonight) while her feet are still ballooned to twice their usual size. And trust me, I’m smart enough not to try milking this for anything, anyway. Regardless, this was an incredibly rare weekend during which I was actually looking forward to returning to work on Monday in order to relax. Fool me once…

From the new digs

The move is complete… Wait a minute… I moved? Not me, but my company. Well, part of my company. And that part included me. So… uh… yeah… I guess I moved. This has been a long time coming and now finds me sitting in my glorious new office. A very nice place to be considering the sheer amount of stress that has been hitting me (and, to be honest, still is hitting me) as a result.

No details here. Maybe I’ll post a photo when my office is a tad cleaner. It’s a pretty sweet setup, but I probably shouldn’t be showing photos of our “data center” to the entire Innerweb. Let’s just say that the actually network/server room is probably twice the size of my previous closet… er… office. And right now I’m living proof that a good working environment goes a long way. So much more can be accomplished when you don’t have several servers and an A/C unit blowing noisely on you all day.

In case you couldn’t guess, this move would be one of the major reasons I’ve been such a bad blogger of late. One of the other reasons would be that I’m frantically working on the nursery. And yet another reason would be that I’m frantically working on the kitchen. And all of these things require me to run around from place to place in total ignorance of current gas prices. On top of all of that, I also have a shiny new toy to show off and haven’t even had time to demonstrate it’s awesomeness.

More to follow, including photos of me covered in plaster and breaking wooden boards with the power of my mind…