Spackling the Bathroom

At this point in my relationship with my house, I should have known that the former owners and/or builders/crackheads would have left some half-assed handiwork as a testament to their construction prowess. I go off to Lowe’s all Pollyanna to get me a gallon of latex for the bathroom and slowly morph into Medusa by Monday. The Medusa part was mainly because I couldn’t find my hairbrush during the painting period, not like the turning-men-into-stone part. Although I could totally have fun with a power like that. With Comcast.

I spent day one of this adventure with a tub of spackle in my hand. There were the small nail holes that were to be expected and then there was the BLOBULA next to our medicine cabinet which I had never really studied too closely. Our monster medicine cabinet which has been inset into the wall as far from the sink as possible, had a lumpy spackle-y area at its corner. I figured they had attempted to repair the wall at one point and never sanded it smooth.

*sand* *sand* WHOMP!

Blobula disappeared behind the sheetrock leaving a hole as big as my fist. Grrr…and that would be a repair that involved mesh tape and multiple layers of compound and me trying to speed things along with a hair dryer and an extension cord.

My deep thoughts as I sat on a stool and blow dried the wall – How much spackle ended up inside the wall before they got a blob that stayed put? What exactly is supporting this medicine cabinet inside the wall? How many studs did they cut to fit it in? Is this a load-bearing wall? How many times can I get this extension cord to wrap around my arm? Ozzy on Survivor is really cute. Why does Dr. Pepper make me burp so much?

The previous crackheads also had a penchant for silicone caulk – and not just for areas around water. My best guess is that they got a deal on a 5 gallon bucket, bathed in it, then used the leftovers on every bit of woodwork in the house. Miscalculated with your miter saw? Fill in the gap with silicone caulk! Floorboards not quite flush with the wall? Fill it in with silicone caulk! Gappy teeth giving you problems? Fill it in with silicone caulk! And I’ll tell you why this really pisses me off – paint beads up on it and it flakes off in scales if you rub it. A good chunk of time was dedicated to rubbing this caulk off the baseboards so I could actually paint them. My finger has a new affliction called Caulk Scraper which also happens to be great for getting into your nose.

The other repercussion of doing the bathroom is that we were forced to use the kid’s bathroom for showers. I discovered that a few of their towels smell like cat pee right after I wrapped my wet hair up in one of them. And I was too tired to care. I also found out that once the hot water has been coming out of the shower head for about 30 seconds, the whole system starts to whistle. I’ve been listening to Babycakes whistle in the mornings and my showers are lacking a little in the relaxation department. I just want to get out and wrap myself in a cat pee towel.

After the massive prep, the actual painting was pretty easy. I took this respite to replace the light fixture in our dark closet and the one over the shower. If there is a hell – hell will be replacing light fixtures. More specifically, replacing light fixtures in areas prepped by the pre-Alice construction team. Our crack construction team made sure nothing was quite lined up and things were wobbly so that when you tried to aim the hole in the light fixture (that’s covered with an inch of insulation) onto a screw that moves – you have more deep thoughts like “could I just Super Glue this fixture to the ceiling?” Repurcussions of light fixture replacement include a severe depletion of rations:

And since I'm in a rant-y mood, take a good, hard look at my lawn in the background and tell me if you think it's in "winter dormancy" like the crackhead from Chem-Lawn wrote on my invoice. MEDUSA POWERS ACTIVATE!!!
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