Projects

Since we are going to put our house on the market, Kristie suggested a couple projects to entice buyers: repaint and get new fixtures for the upstairs bathroom and repaint and get new runners for the basement steps.

Kristie - despite being 9 months pregnant - is a dynamo. When it comes to painting or projects like this, Kristie is in her element.

But that usually means I'm out of mine.

For the most part, I handled the basement steps while Kristie and KoKo worked on the bathroom.

This was fine for me. I usually work better alone - no one can see my screwups! So I grabbed my iPod and set about working.

One of the first things I had to do was trim the bottom of the bathroom door half an inch. This task called for the one thing I am not meant to do - work with tools.

But I bit the bullet and carried the door downstairs and set up my work table and set up my skill saw (I know, dear reads, you are in utter amazement that I have those). However, when I would get about half way through, the blade would stop.

I'd start over, and the blasted thing would grind to a halt.

I was about to saw the thing by hand when I thought I'd give it on more try.

Sure enough, the blade stopped again. The urge to bash the skill saw all over the basement floor passed through me, but I resisted.

Why does this always happen? I thought. If this were my brother-in-law, he'd have the door trimmed and the basement done and would probably be working on adding an addition!

Not me though. If I can strip I screw, I will. If I can hit my thumb with the hammer, I will. If I can drop something right when I am about to put it in the perfect spot, I will.

And apparently, when I am about to get halfway through cutting something with my skill saw, it stops working!

Why, I thought again. Here I am listening to Simon Schama's epidsode on Rembrandt from his classic The Power of Art while trying to get my skill saw to work.

At least, I had to chuckle, there probably aren't too many guys in the country doing that!

So I marched out to our garage to grab my socket set (yes, I have one of those two) and took the blade off and put it back on.

It worked perfectly after that.

I don't know what I did, but the problem was solved. The door was trimmed and that task was over. So was my episode on Rembrandt. I moved on to the next one on Picasso and started working on the stairs.

After roughly 18 hours of work, the projects are almost all done. Kristie was right. They make a world of difference.

Now, we just need to sell this place!