Sunday, January 30, 2011

Someone was smokin' somethin when......

...they invented Lath and Plaster.


Hubs here...the hot one in the mask.  I bring to you the raw perspective.  The...how shall I say this...male viewpoint.  Yup, I'm a guy and this is my side of the story.  Ladies and gentlemen...listen up.  Lets start with lath and plaster. Seriously awful stuff. From the Stone Age.  Caveman cake. After the wheel....came Lath and Plaster. It worked for a while I guess. Until some genius came along and invented SHEETROCK!!!! Wahoo what a revelation!!! A few good ideas from the 20th century....like, Let's land on the moon! Let's drink some Tang! Let's drive instead of walk! Let's send some electronic mail! And Let's build houses with Sheetrock!!!

Unfortunately for me, we decided to pulverize a wall out of our kitchen which revealed the aforementioned Lath and Plaster (hereafter referred to as the devil's playdough- aka DP). This freed up about 2 feet of extra space in our kitchen, which is totally magical. We don't have to suck our tummies in when squeezing by the table and stove. SaWeet!!!

So! What's so bad about that you say? Three words, the DEVILS PLAYDOUGH. Here's why: You hit the stuff with a sledgehammer and it crumbles to the ground (which feels good). BUT when it hits the ground, it breeds like gremlins and rabbits! Seriously! One hit, and you've got a pile a foot high to clean up! Impossible you say? Well, from a section of 2 walls 8ft by 8ft (yeah, that is kind of a lot), we filled about SEVEN HUGE Garbage cans full!!! I had a garbage can parked in my kitchen for three weeks!!! (Thanks Ogden Recycle Bins) And now, until we get a dumpster (duh, I know, but we didn't), it's in my backyard. Piled high, and probably breeding still. Darn DP.

Side note on knocking down walls.....scariest thing I've practically done. I would have felt more comfortable walking through a drive through in winter with my speedo on....at least I would've known what to expect (wore those things in High School.....on the swim team, not so much in public). The wife says "just get up in the attic and look". For what exactly? The one 2x4 that's saying, "I'm holding the roof, don't kill the wall beneath me!". "I'm not gonna do it" I said. Partner in crime Scott (Brother in Law) agreed, and was scared too. Thought we were half crazy. You see, when your contractor (Wife) got her license from Google, oh yeah, we felt like pros. We looked about seven times and saw that indeed, there was nothing above this wall but insulation (which feels like evil pillow feathers when it's falling from the ceiling).


*So we did it.


And yes, we survived. So did our house.

BUT later that night, still shaken by our bold steps, you hear funny noises. This happened to be New Years Eve when firecrackers were going off outside, which sound VERY MUCH like BEAMS SPLINTERING TO LITTLE PIECES. Got our hearts going a little. For a split second I thought, gonna run to the nursery, grab the baby, jump out of a crumbling building, and come back for the wife.

But happily it did not come to that, and the kitchen remodel is coming along. Will be doing a post on overcoming electricity schizophrenia next week. And until then, for all of you happy re-modelers out there, enjoy your Sheetrock.

*Disclaimer: Get help if you can't determine which walls are load bearing or not. Get help. Anywhere you can. It's worth the peace of mind. And so your house won't implode.

4 comments:

Heather said...

ha ha ha. "electricity schizophrenia". Lot's of good one liners in this post!

Ellie Cutler said...

Seeing as he's your brother...you know how he gets after 10:00 pm. That's what happens when I ask him to post and it's already late. Haha.

Anonymous said...

Hi there,

Just happened to stumble upon your blog. O.M.G., your hubs HAS to do the post on electricity. This post made my morning--I just chuckled and you know what they say about laughing--it adds yrs.(o.k. maybe days) to your life. It must be fun around your home. : )
Thank you again.

Tam

Scott said...

Thanks for teaching the masses as to the rate at which gremlins and rabbits breed.

I'm excited to see the transformation.