Over the course of my working career, I earned my living
sitting behind a desk. I worked for a
few years as a county bureaucrat, spent three years in law school, and then 31
years reading, writing and advising clients on various aspects of environmental
and commercial law. Now, having just
turned 60, it seems that I am spending less time as a desk jockey and more time
doing hard labor. How did this happen? I got married and we decided to have kids. Those kids grew up, got homes or apartments of
their own, and decided “Hey, Dad’s retired now.
Let’s invite him to visit us and then work his butt off!”
Yes, a few weeks ago, my beautiful daughter and brand new
son-in-law invited us out to see the home they had just moved into. It’s one half of a duplex, but much larger
than the townhouse where they had been living.
In contrast to the townhouse, however, this “new” place is about 100
years old. Not that old is bad. My own house is approaching the century
mark. I've found that older homes are
usually built more solidly with much better craftsmanship and have much more
character than many of today’s modern homes.
But my daughter had an agenda in asking us out to see her new digs. There were some “minor things” that she
wanted us to look at and help to repair.
Well, I had learned some home repair skills in my youth
by helping my dear old father work around the house. In return, he helped to expand my vocabulary,
particularly when helping him with plumbing repairs. So I was eager to ride into town on my white
horse to show off my home repair skills. Besides, my youngest son had worked last
summer as a carpenter for a summer theater company, and he would be bringing
his skills (and tools) along for the ride.
We also brought my classic copy of The Reader’s Digest Complete
Do-It-Yourself Manual – the do-it-yourselfer’s bible for repairing virtually
anything inside or outside the home.
My wife, son and I spent the first day just assessing
what we needed to do and what materials we needed. As promised, there were a number of small
repair jobs that needed to be done.
These included patching some holes in her plaster walls, installing a new
lock on the front door, and replacing shelf paper in the kitchen cabinets. And then there was the front porch. “Some of the floor boards look a little
rotten,” my daughter told us. “And some
spots seem a little bouncy, which we hadn't noticed when we inspected the
house.” On further inspection, we found
that a lot of the floor boards were
weathered and rotten. And after tearing
away a few floorboards, we discovered that some of the supporting joists were
rotten or severely cracked.
So the real fun started on our second day of work. With hammers and a crowbar we tore up all the
flooring to get a clear picture of the structure underneath. This was no easy task. Those boards had been nailed down to stay. We struggled to get the boards up, and then
had hundreds of nails to pull out of the joists. We tossed the old boards in the front yard
until we could decide what to do with them. As we were evaluating what we needed to do to rebuild the porch, a
neighbor stopped by. He happened to be a
contractor and offered us some great advice on how we should strengthen the
structure of the porch before putting on new floorboards. “And oh by the way,” he said, “did you happen
to get a building permit?” OOPS! We forgot about that little detail. Well, do you think a pile of old lumber in
the front yard might attract an inspector’s attention? And then there was the optic yellow caution
tape my wife put around the porch so unsuspecting visitors wouldn't step onto a
porch that has no floor. We decided to
get rid of the lumber by tossing it into a couple of nearby dumpsters. But the
caution tape would have to stay. A fine
for having no permit is not nearly as bad as a personal injury lawsuit.
Since it was the weekend and municipal offices were
closed, we decided we would just work fast to get it done before an inspector
came snooping around. So on day 3, we
bought our materials and got to work. My
son cut lumber to replace the rotten joists and patch the cracked ones. I mixed concrete to set a support post to add
stability to the structure. My wife and
daughter primed the new floorboards so they would be ready to put down as soon
as we repaired the underlying framework.
My son-in-law pitched in wherever he was needed. At the end of the day, the neighbor stopped
by again, looked over our work, and opined that it looked like we knew what we
were doing.
On day 4 I mixed mortar to re-point brick that made up
some of the support posts and my son continued to patch cracked joists and make
sure the joists were all at the proper level to lay the floorboards. Around 5:00 p.m., my wife and I had to leave
to return home. She had to be at work the
following day. We left it to my son and
son-in-law to finish. My son stayed for
another 4 days to finish the porch and several of the “minor repair jobs” that
still remained to be done.
My body ached for days afterward. But I looked forward to a relaxing visit with
my oldest son in New York. I had bought
tickets so the two of us could attend a concert featuring Rodriguez, who was
the subject of the Oscar-winning documentary, Searching for Sugarman. A
few days before my trip, he called to tell me that he hoped I could help him
move some furniture to his new third floor walk-up apartment. After we finished carrying desks, tables and
bureaus up those steep, narrow stairs, he complimented me on being a pretty
good mover – for an old guy. Oh my
achin’ back! I’m currently looking for
another desk job.
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