Teach Me

It's easy to wax philosophical while sitting on the floor of a coat closet, slowly prying up the flooring with a screwdriver. There really isn't much else to do with a brain while staring at the floor, dusty coats flapping in my face.

I realized most of my help is coming from 2200 miles away. How does that happen? Someone is giving me good advice. Someone who knows what he is doing and can explain it to me.

You have heard the adage that goes something like this: Give a man fish and he will eat for a day, teach him to fish and he will eat for a lifetime?

I think I am learning to fish. So to speak. I already know how to cast a flyrod. I didn't realize how complicated this simple remodeling was going to get. I am going to have to pull off all the closet doors, replace the fitting at the bottom on some, pull up my railing that is bolted to the floor in the foyer, and I am trying to get out of having to remove 60 hinges on the cupboard doors. Actually there are only 58, but I rounded up.

My obsessive part of my personality is freaking out. Do I paint the ceiling first? The walls? The moldings? Do I paint the new toe moldings before I install them or after? How do I manage to only have to pull that monster stove out only once when I have to remove flooring, install new flooring, and paint behind and around it? How will I paint the ceiling without getting any drips at all on anything? Is it worthwhile to countersink - or whatever you call it -the finishing nails on the new toe moldings? And the most preplexing so far for me, how do I get the faucet off the laundry tub so I can replace both? I remember trying to do that a few years ago and not having any luck.

I have two college degrees. Almost 2 master degrees, but I didn't turn in the thesis on the first. When I did the second, I started from scratch, since it was a different field. I also took a year of law and accounting, and a year of computer classes. I am used to being taught. I am used to learning by book, by spoken word.

I am working with my hands, not my brain. This is fairly new to me, although I can whip up a wardrobe on a sewing machine, if I am in the mood. I can knit, I can crochet. I can do landscaping. But this house remodeling stuff, it's all new to me. I used to paint inside my house, and did it often. Then I sort of stopped. I am so out of practice.

Maybe I should have gone ahead and gone to law school and earned enough to pay someone to do this. But I have to admit, for all the crabbing I do, for all the pain pills I pop, for all my whining, I am enjoying the learning aspect of it. All the scabs and the smashed knuckles are from the school of hard knocks, and I want to do the work all by myself.

I just need some education. I hope I can pass this course.