Monday, October 03, 2011

Why I am not a professional handyman

We are in the middle of taking care of some house repairs that we've kind of let go for a while now. The fence is starting to fall down in places. The stucco on the foundation was cracked and you could remove big hunks with your hands. Our house is elderly and some of the windows are original single pane sash-hung. And the paint is peeling in places since the lovely people who owned this house before decided they would only paint *2* of the 4 exterior walls. WTF? Oh yes, it's the 2 most visible ones.

So I've been going through this parade of contractors, and getting in the house-painting queue (extremely tight this year, and there wasn't much sunny summer weather).

I am not entirely helpless. I can strip and paint a wall. I know how an electrical circuit works. But I have this curse; when I try to do even the most simple things, it doesn't work. This morning I tried to unscrew the bathroom sink aerator to clean it. Now how hard could that be? Pliers wrapped in masking tape, then electrical tape, then a bunch of scratches to the metal later and I still have not managed to budge the thing. Bah. The Love Monkey gets to cope with this one, because I am NOT calling a plumber just to clean out a stupid aerator. Or better yet my OH SO HANDY father-in-law can fix it when he next comes through town. Grump.

6 comments:

kitten said...

I tried to replace a faucet recently, and broke the old one trying to get it off, but the couldn't get the rest of it out to out in the new one. Temple had to do it and we had to use pliers to turn it on or off until he was able to finish it. Good.to know we are still finding similarities...

Cookie said...

Oh, honey, I feel ya.

fillyjonk said...

Is it just getting the limescale out of the aerator? One thing you can do, if it's that, is to fill a plastic baggie with vinegar, slip it over the faucet with the aerator in place, and tape/twist-tie it on there for an hour or so. I've done that when I couldn't remove the aerator. (Bonus: sometimes it's limescale that's "sticking" it on and you can remove it after soaking)

Carrie K said...

And now you know why only two walls were painted.

Knittripps said...

Guh. Sometimes house projects are fun and other times they are a drag. We've been working on some fairly large projects around my house. Five out of the last eight weekends my in-laws have been visiting to help out. I love them but the process has been exhausting! Best of luck with your projects!

Anonymous said...

My pet peeve in the DIY/fix-it-myself arena is when I struggle with something, try anything and everything I can think of, and the whatever-it-is still doesn't work. Then DH picks it up, blinks his eyes twice, and walla! done to perfection! I cannot tell you how many times this little scenario has been repeated in the 34 years of our marriage. Grrr.