37) Dressed to Impress*

Even though the list… the wooden one… set in stone had sat unwavering, zip tied to the column; the reality was that there really was much to add. David who once vehemently opposed to any additions had since softened his stance. The reality was that “PAINT WALL” and “PAINT FLOOR” were virtually impossible without a bit of leeway.

Not caring nearly as much in the past, you had definitely cut corners before. Rather than spackling and sanding little holes you liked to pretend that “the paint will cover that…” except you had known now from far too much experience that paint didn’t cover a shitty prep job. Paint didn’t fill nail holes or empty voids left from old screws. Paint didn’t cover the spackle that you were too lazy to sand. Fresh paint on badly prepped walls was merely lipstick on a pig… and while you hadn’t cared too much in the past… you were FAR too vested in this project to “phone it in” on the home stretch.

The east and west walls were a combination of old paneling and drywall. It wasn’t in the budget (none of this had been) to replace the old paneling but you did think that you could make it look a lot better, maybe even intentional. You started by removing all of the old nails, screws, and push pins. The push pins really had you perplexed. They were in the strangest places, most of them a good ten feet off the ground. You liked to imagine what the ceramic artists that had owned this property nearly a decade before you had needed all the pins for. You pictured large sketches hung on all the open walls, sheets of plastic temporarily affixed to help keep large sculptures from drying too fast and cracking, and you pictured lists… maybe they had their own to do lists for their art… not so rigid as to be written in wood, but rather serving as flexible accountability.

You were getting a lot better at using the 8’ ladder too which surprised you. When you had first moved in you struggled just being on the second rung. Your hands would sweat, your body was stiff and rigid, each step… only two… slow and deliberate. You clung to the ladder. Now you had made your way up to the fourth rung and while you still exercised extreme caution (especially when climbing back down) you no longer had to continually stop to wipe the steady accumulation of sweat from your palms. “Pffft… at this rate you might even take up cliff jumping,” you had mused from the fifth rung, the top of your head nearly brushing the soaring ceiling.

“Did you know that the majority of falls happen on 6’ ladders?”

“You think that’s because that’s the most common sized ladder used or…?”

“I think it’s because that’s the most commonly used ladder height and also a level of comfort,” David had said.

“Well I guess I’m in luck then because I’m about as uncomfortable on ladders as I’d be swimming laps in wide legged jeans.”

You wondered now if you were statistically more safe on an 8’ ladder… then decided that maybe this wasn’t something you should look up.

You continued to pull push pins, dropping them into the top of a small recess on the ladder’s plastic top. There was that little indentation and then a few random shaped holes of varying sizes. You imagined they might be intended to hold a cordless drill, your caulk gun, or even your metal scraper but nothing fit quite right. You wouldn’t chance the ill fitting ‘holder’ with the cordless drill on account that taking a drill to the head from 8’ up might prove fatal yet you didn’t hesitate with the caulk gun… you figured at worse you’d end up with an odd shaped knot on your forehead, a caulked coiffe, and a great story. Besides even if you were getting a bit more comfortable on the ladder, you felt much better about having full use of both hands. If you could carefully balance the caulk gun up there, you weren’t going to keep bringing it up and down every time you needed to move the ladder.

And you moved the ladder a lot.

“Most people fall off ladders either climbing down and missing a step or reaching too far…” David had told you one time.

Which meant on account of the limited mobility you had on your left arm and your resolve not to become a statistic, you were continually moving the ladder. It wasn’t just the walls you had to prep. Sure, you had planned on prepping only the walls but when all the nails and screws and push pins were finally removed… you noticed some push pins on the two beams that ran the entire length of the basement. “Jesus Christ… really guys? The fucking beams too?” You laughed as if you were playfully ribbing the former owners. You pictured them laughing and shrugging before you sighed and carefully climbed the ladder.

Now the beams and the ladder definitely made you far more uncomfortable than the ladder and the wall. There was something about the top of your head being 12’ off the ground and staring at the wall right in front of you… it was another thing entirely when there was no wall to obscure just how high up you were. You’d start at one end of the beam, carefully removing all push pins and nails within reach, and using your metal scraper (might as well since you were already up there) to remove any large scales of loose paint. Each time you climbed down the ladder you’d watch everyone of your steps, and then you’d drag it a good armspan down the room where you’d carefully position the ladder before rocking it back and forth. If even one leg was the tiniest bit out of square from the others, the ladder became incredibly wobbly. Not something you wanted to find out that high up… however if you could get all the legs lined up just so, the ladder seemed nearly untippable. That took time though.

David rarely took that much care in positioning and repositioning the ladder. He’d scuttle up there, reaching and bending every which way, then bound down each rung, not even looking before he’d drag the ladder, give it a quick shake and then he’d be climbing back up. One time you had caught him on the very top of the step-stool, the part that wasn’t a rung but a thin guard to keep you from walking right off the top tier.

“Are you kidding me right now?”

“Shhhhhh… don’t call OSHA,” David had laughed as he pulled a loose cord down from the ceiling.

“Is that fucking cord hot?”

“I don’t think so… but you never know…” he shrugged as he gave it a good tug.

“You don’t think so….?! Jesus Christ David… I just can’t imagine why women live longer than men…” you chided him before you walked out of the room

Now as you pictured David on his tip toes perched on that metal guard all you could help but think is… “You would never…” as you carefully pried a few nails out of the beam as you did your best to ignore just har far down the floor was.

You had considered leaving the beams to him which would have then left you using the circular saw instead. And that didn’t sit too well with you either. It wasn’t that you were trying to be such a chicken with the ladder and the power tools… it was that you kind of had every right to be terrified of taking off a digit or two.

When you were in sixth grade you were so excited to take shop class. You’d watch other students come out of class with their decorative little wooden benches and that toy duck on the stick with the rubber paddle feet attached to the wheels that flip-flip-flapped when you’d push it down the hall. That was until you met the shop teachers… the wood shop teacher was missing four fingers. The metal teacher was missing three. “Fuck… almost two whole hand’s worth of fingers between the two of them…” The odds of both shop teachers missing quite a few fingers didn’t seem to phase the other students at all… you on the other hand couldn’t help but think that teachers were usually better than the students… and if the teachers were apt to saw off some fingers every now and again, you were definitely at risk to lose at least a whole hand. You had yet to hear of another kid getting maimed in shop class but there was always a first for everything. Then later in life your friend had sealed the deal for you when he cut off his thumb in a garage shop accident and his wife had to find the thumb and pack it into a cooler so it could be reattached at the emergency room. Imagine that? Scouring the garage for your husband’s severed thumb? Problem was that you could. And so you stuck to the ladder and left the circular sawing to David.

When all of the push pins and screws and nails were removed from the walls and the peeling paint was scraped off the two beams it was time to spackle and caulk. Once again you under estimated the entire side quest. It took you a full day to remove everything from the cavernous space and you’d expect that spackling and caulking would probably take just as long… except it didn’t… it took twice as long. The nice thing about this though, was that you enjoyed spackling. And even though your caulk jobs had once bordered on criminal, a few cases in and your handiwork was not only becoming impressive (especially considering your prior attempts) but you were enjoying the caulking too.

You loved the instant satisfaction of wiping away any evidence of imperfection or former damage. You’d use your metal scraper to grab a glob of the purple spackle and you’d wipe it onto the wall over the offending holes before you scraped the excess with your tool and continued on to the next imperfection. You’d come a long way since college when at the end of the second semesters you and the other students would pass around a tube of white toothpaste to fill all the holes from posters and cheap blacklight tapestries so as not to get charged for any repairs to your dorm room walls. When you’d finish your index finger would feel chalky and smell like peppermint, but your walls would look fresh and clean.

A year ago you had heped your ‘big brother’ on a restoration job, doing repair work on an old motel turned apartments that had suffered significant water damage during the string of 2024 hurricanes that had nearly decimated the barrier islands. He had given you a tube of caulk pre loaded into the gun and ready to go then stood back to watch you. Two sloppy beads of caulk in and he nearly grabbed the gun out of your hand before he decided that you were far better suited to paint trim. And you were! Now though… you wished he was here to see you with the steady even stream of caulk and the perfect finish after you’d carefully run your gloved fingers over the neat bead.

All this though and you still weren’t done. Because once all the caulking and spackling was done… there was the sanding. You had originally intended to sand only the raised spackle but you quickly realized that the surrounding wall and paneling actually looked a lot better after a sanding too. You spent the next two days sanding walls. You’d carefully run the little hand sander across the wall, your left arm, the bad one trailing behind to make sure that you hadn’t missed a spot. Your ‘big brother’ had taught you many years ago that you always diagnosed AND fixed a problem using your eyes and your sense of touch… you were in a “shitty situation” he had joked one time when he was helping you to fix a leaky toilet… when you had to rely on your nose.

You sanded until the walls were all buttery smooth, inspecting your work with a profound sense of satisfaction before you realized that the bare spackle was going to create a difference in sheen when the final coat of paint was finally applied. “Well son of a fucking bitch… I guess we’re priming then too…”

There really was no way around it. You spot primed when you could but the beams needed the full treatment. You’d brush and roll one side along with the bottom before you’d come back down along the other side to paint the opposite face. You had primed both beams in their entirety except for the one 8ft board that had rotted on one end and had to be replaced. You had mentioned replacing it to David but quickly regretted that when through clenched teeth he brought up “the list…” and how that was definitely not on the list and he would get to it at some point in the future. when you finally finished all of the priming a few days later you took a ‘day off’ from the basement project to rest your neck and arms and focus on some administrative work. Honestly if you just looked past that one rotted board with the splintered edge that sagged a few inches off of the beam, the basement was beginning to look quite nice.

You were exhausted. Reaching far overhead for a number of days definitely took its toll. Really the entire project had been exhausting. Now though, so close to wrapping it up you liked to picture yourself curled up on your large sectional couch in your finished basement. The heat warm and toasty, a hot glass of tea on the coffee table by your side, a thick throw blanket and a good book on your lap… So close.

You spent the day replying to emails, paying bills, creating reels for your church’s social media accounts and you even snuck in a little bit of art time working digitally on your tablet. You had been so immersed in your work down in the kitchen that you never really noticed or rather heard David at work in the other room… Towards the end of the work day he asked if you had a minute to give him a quick hand.

He had the 8’ ladder and the step stool set up under the beam that had the long rotted board that needed to be replaced.

“See what I did?” He asked…

The rotted plank had been removed. You hadn’t noticed it before but a new primed board cut and ready for installation lay propped up against one of the beam’s supporting steal columns.

“Holy crap! Oh my god! Thank you! This is going to look so good!”

“You’re welcome. I need your help though.”

“Ok…”

“I’m going to install the new board but I need you to help hold it in place while I screw it in… You won’t even have to climb all the way up to the ceiling… I’m going to have you stand on this step stool and hold the board in place with the push broom… and if at any point it’s too much for your arm… you’re just going to let me know.”

“So that it doesn’t come down on my head… or yours?”

“Exactly.”

Per usual you were hardly dressed for the occasion. You had spent your off day in the warm kitchen in front of your computer in a thick bathrobe and fuzzy slippers. You weren’t about to get changed for this. You decided that the broom idea was pretty clever and even a bit humorous and so you told David you’d be right back before you ran to the kitchen to grab your phone. You set it up on one of the pieces of furniture you had started to refinish and hit ‘record’.

The installation was completed without a single hitch. David didn’t drop the board on your head and you never lost control of the board. When you watched your installation video… despite your ridiculous work garb and the push broom the two of you almost looked like you both knew what you were doing.

Later that day you edited and posted the repair job video to one of your accounts. The board really made such a difference to the overall look of the basement project and you were that much more excited envisioning yourself lounging on the couch in your slippers and robe on a chilly winter day. It wasn’t long before one of your friends saw the video and commented…

“LOL I love the broom and the board but you absolutely SENT me with the robe and slippers! LMAO.”

To which you quickly responded, “I guess it’s safe to say that we could file this video under: dress for the job you want, not the job you have…”

She found that just as hilarious. You did too and also you could not wait to start enjoying this space… not a ladder or circular saw in sight.

We’re a lot of things… but conventional isn’t one of them.

The old board was in such rough shape. We always try to salvage what we can but this one was beyond saving….

Here’s the broom and board video… enjoy!

I was so excited about the board replacement but I utterly estatic with this wall. Now I know that you might find this hard to believe but a couple of weeks ago I decided to ask David if maybe we could venture from the list… and before he immediatley cut me off… I added… “I know that this isn’t on the list BUT I think that if we took care of it now… we could save ourselves a lot of time, mess, and maybe even some money in the future.”

Ya’ll… this man was immovable. WAS being the key word. Months ago Jackie and I decided that we would tackle ‘one more quick little’ demo job before she had her surgery and left to recover. Directly on the opposite side of this door is a cute little foyer into the basement. Unfortunately the ugly paneling in there had a bit of mold in one section and so while we had the dumpster we decided that we should just remove the affected paneling. If you guessed that instead of having to remove just a tiny bit of paneling, we wound up having to remove it all… congratulations… you’re doing a lot better than I was with the whole pattern recognition thing.

The more paneling we removed, the worse shit got behind the wall until eventually we would up taking EVERYTHING down. There was a silver lining though. Originally we weren’t sure what to do with this wall (see first picture). We didn’t know if we should take the quick, cheap and easy route and buy a few pieces of paneling to replace the missing section on the left side of the wall, or take down everything to the plaster… Not gonna lie though… we were a bit nervous to take that second route because honestly we had no idea what to expect behind those walls. Would the plaster be in such rough shape that we’d back to chiseling away? None of us had it in us. So we had decided to just salvage that wall and buy some new paneling, then paint the whole thing.

That was of course before the whole foyer demolition thing. After that ‘little demo’… minds were quickly changed. That door we soon found out was NOT original. We had assumed that it was. However once we removed all the old paneling from the foyer we realized that it had been added afterwards… it was ‘freshly’ framed (probably sometime in the last 40 years) and that behind it sat and absolutely beautiful hidden arched entrance. With that I talked David into taking out that door entirely (I really didn’t have to twist his arm too much when he saw the arch) and that we’d remove the paneling on the other side too…

That of course was a pre-list idea that didn’t manage to make it onto the list. We had decided (mostly him) that we would address that wall sometime in the future and that we weren’t anywhere near the future. Except that me being me… I couldn’t leave well enough alone (more patterns amiright?). So a few weeks ago it dawned on me that we could be dealing with a real fucking mess behind those walls… crumbling plaster mainly and that the last thing I wanted to deal with was crumbling plaster and the ensuing mess after we had already moved in. So I got the brilliant idea that even though we didn’t have a dumpster… that there really wasn’t all that much paneling and drywall to remove and that if we took everything down, broke it all up into manageable pieces and snuck a few chunks into the household trash every week… we could save ourselves the bullshit of scrubbing plaster off of everything when we finally did take the wall down.

Except that whole list thing and me not putting it onto the list and David’s head nearly exploding off his neck when I mentioned my plan, “Vaness… absolutely not. You agreed that the list was final. I am not adding one more project to this. We HAVE got to stick to the plan.”

“You know plans change… and you don’t have to be so rigid… and we’re already WAY over schedule… what’s another day going to do?”

Well apparently another day or two was going to start World War III: The List and so as they say, if looks could kill, I’d be way on my way to skeletal remains. He was a “HARD NO.” And I decided not to push my luck. BUT… I could not stop thinking about that fucking arch. The whole basement was starting to look so amazing… especially once the beam was replaced, but then your eyes would come to this one wall and it was a big ol’ yuck! I wanted that whole “final reveal WOW,” moment when we were done… not some piecemeal bullshit and my husband probably wanted to kill me. And that would probably be fair at this point if we’re being honest. Now I said I let it go… and I did… but every once in a while I’d drop a real subtle hint like: oh boy… I sure can’t wait until we tear out that ugly paneling… or Wow the basement sure looks good now… can you imagine what it’s going to look like when that paneling is gone… or I am so excited to unearth that archway… what about you?

You know… subtle.

Fucking crickets. That man would not bite… and I just really struggled to leave well enough alone. The inhumanity of him not letting me have my Reagan moment (the only Reagan moment I’d like btw) with my very own dramatic rendition of “Mr Gorbachev… tear down this wall!” Was pretty fucked up. I wasn’t going to sulk… but internally… I was longing for that 1987 historic speech reenactment.

Last week two of our three kids and I all got some sort of nasty cold. My youngest and I spent the day cuddled up in bed blowing our runny noses into handkerchiefs while parked in front of the tv watching cartoons. Neither of us moved out of that room until David called me on my phone (don’t judge… it’s a long walk) to tell me that it was time for dinner. So the kids and I came downstairs into the basement. I walked through our active construction / project zone before coming into the kitchen where David asked me if I “had noticed the basement,” not sure what in the absolute fuck he was talking about he ushered me back out of the kitchen and pointed to the back wall… the arch wall.

ALL THE PANELING AND PLASTER WAS GONE!!! And not only was it all gone but he had broken it all down into manageable chunks and told me that he was “done for the night” but that he’d get the pieces out of the basement tomorrow along with the remaining furring strips… “and didn’t it look so good and we really should have done it two weeks ago when I brought it up…” that last part he didn’t say… but I’m sure he was probably thinking it. Obviously.

After dinner I fucking rallied… the wall looked so good already that I could hardly wait to see what it would look like without those furring strips… so up the ladder I went (in slippers of course) and I tore every last one of those strips out. I may or may not have loosened the framing on the door (honestly it was accidentally) and (probably) inadvertently hastened the door removal process. Now David did tell me that he was NOT removing that door until winter was over… in all fairness it does keep some of the heat in the basement BUT… now with that framing no longer secure… we might just be taking it down sooner. I did mention that since I’m going to be patching the little bit of plaster that was damaged (I was shocked that it was in good condition) that we probably should just remove the door so that I can patch and paint in one go around vs two. He has yet to respond to that… and I get it: NOT ON THE LIST… but like I’d like to say, maybe lists… even those zip tied to support beams in a fit of “I swear to GOD Vaness! NO MORE PROJECTS,” should be way less rigid… and way more ‘guideline.’

Wish me luck!

Apparently life does imitate art… and David has a good sense of humor…