Handyman genes were there, waiting to be used

My handyman genes may have only been dormant, contrary to my belief that I never inherited any from a long line of blue collar do-it-yourselfers.

Growing up, I avoided anything requiring mechanical skills, mainly because my dad was an electrician by profession and a jack-of-all-trades by skill. If I ever needed anything built or something, like a 1979 Pontiac Sunbird, fixed, I relied on him to do it for me. “Why try something I know he can do better?” I thought.

And then he died when I was 21.

Since then it’s been a slow learning experience. I couldn’t turn to him when I had a problem. If my car broke down, I looked at it myself to formulate a little something about what the problem might be so when I took it to the shop I could sound reasonably intelligent. If I needed to assemble a furniture item I bought, I carefully studied the confusing instructions and then painstakingly tried to figure it out. For the most part I’ve been successful in that endeavor, although my wife likes to point to the upside down shelf in my son’s bookcase whenever I try to brag about my “assembly” skills.

I’ve managed to avoid any home projects requiring a major power tool, though, until this past weekend.

With the upcoming arrival of a new addition to the household, my wife developed a vision for the baby’s room. This vision did not just involve paint, which is something that I don’t get along with well. It involved refinishing an antique dresser and hanging chair rail, two projects I would never have fathomed tackling if given an option. My wife’s vision doesn’t come with options, as any married man probably understands.

I started the dresser project more than a month ago. After watching some YouTube videos, which I declare to be the greatest thing to happen to the home project industry since duct tape, I bought the supplies I needed and then started sanding the finish off the dresser.

It was time consuming but fun. The person at the hardware store recommended me to try some chemical that could strip it for me. I should have known that getting an outer layer off is never that easy. It requires patience, time and some sweet talk, all of which I was able to do and have while using a sander.

After it was completely sanded, I put on several coats of stain and several coats of some polyurethane to finish it. For the most part, I was successful. There are some spots where the stain was darker than it should have been, and in a few spots some dripping spots are noticeable, but I was happy to get it done. It’s also a little rougher than it probably could be, but both my wife and I thought it was good enough for a first time. Next time I won’t get this leniency.

The chair rail project was the one I feared more. Leniency wasn’t an option, and goofing up could mean spending more money than I wanted to spend.

I got some advice from a friend who also lent me his miter saw. When he explained how to use the saw, I just kept envisioning it removing one of my thumbs or fingers. “Doctors can sew them back on,” I kept thinking.

I could have asked him to help me with the project, but I knew I wanted to learn on my own. I carefully measured, thought out my cuts and then determined where to place the board and where to nail it so I hit the studs in the wall. When all this was done, with my wife’s help, I hung my first board – successfully.

Doing so inspired a victory dance. Fortunately my home project skills were better than my dancing abilities in this case.

My wife kept all her MacGyveresque friends and relatives informed about progress throughout the day by texting them. They were greatly amused. I didn’t mind, though, because it wasn’t a disaster.

My next project, a basement pantry, may be, though. I’ll have to remember to take the battery out of her phone.

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Originally published in The Portage County Gazette on Friday, June 8, 2012.

House painting may lead some spouses to ‘fire’ their partner

I’ve never been fired from a job, but I kind of got the boot from one this past weekend.


Heartland Homes of Plover, which is constructing a new home for my wife, Jenny, and I in Stevens Point, gave us the opportunity to paint the interior rooms of our home over the Easter weekend, before flooring, doors, light fixtures and outlets are installed. Translation: take advantage of this now, or spend a lot of time later taping around these things.

We were sort of ready for this endeavor. We spent months looking at color samples, and we debated the merits and pitfalls of each color until we had our choices. At one point, Jenny even taped nearly 100 color samples on the wall of our apartment so we could have conversations about colors at any given moment’s notice.

Purchasing these colors got off to a rocky start, as I left the store soon after we got there. The teenager working there asked if we planned on purchasing a lot of paint, because the paint store was closing in 45 minutes. Yes, we planned on purchasing a lot of paint, and if that was going to inconvenience him, I didn’t want his store to get any of our money.

Fortunately, the next store was much better and within an hour we had all seven gallons of paint we thought we needed. The lady who helped us was super nice and definitely knowledgeable about her department. She even helped me convince Jenny to go with a color for the office my wife wasn’t really feeling. Any married man would probably agree with me that that’s quite an accomplishment.

After Jenny was done working the next day, we went to the house with Jenny’s sister, Raechel, to begin the painting task. Although I knew I wasn’t much of a painter, I was looking forward to the experience because it meant I got to spend time in my future home.

We started with the master bathroom. Using a purple color, we had painted half the room by the time Jenny’s dad, Brad, arrived to inspect our work. A plumber by trade, but truly a McGyver with his vast knowledge of pretty much everything involving construction and even nonconstruction, he was there to make sure we were painting properly.

He took one look at my work and just shook his head. I was getting paint on the ceiling and leaving paint lines everywhere.

Jenny and Raechel were also leaving some lines, but not to the extent I was leaving them. They quickly learned from their mistakes and were soon perfectionists.

I tried to learn from my mistakes, but I think I made it worse in going back over my work.

Later, Raechel worked with me some and I got to the point where I was a C- painter, rather than an F one – and “F” could stand for a word other than “failed” as an adverb for such words as “awful” and “horrible” – but with only one weekend to paint all the rooms in the entire house, they didn’t have time to watch and guide me, so I was effectively fired from the job.

They did it nicely, though. I was relegated to other duties, such as the guy who ran to the store to get more paint and supplies, the guy who picked up food, the guy who watched the kid and the guy who assembled the closet organizers for the master closet.

Later, I became the guy who got to go around and touch up spots on the ceiling, which they accidentally painted. Even that was a learning curve for me, as I got white paint on areas they had painted different colors.

I’m proud of teaming up with the lady at the store to convince Jenny of a dark gray-blue color for the office. It turns out that color is her favorite one in the house. At least I can take pride in one thing when it came to painting.

People who want to see how well I painted, excuse me, how well I didn’t paint, will have the opportunity to do so Friday through Monday, June 3-7, during the Golden Sands Home Builders Association Parade of Homes. Our modest house is one of 16 homes on the annual tour.
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Orginally published in The Portage County Gazette on Friday, April 29, 2011.