{"id":474,"date":"2017-03-30T22:02:50","date_gmt":"2017-03-30T22:02:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/?p=474"},"modified":"2017-03-30T22:05:15","modified_gmt":"2017-03-30T22:05:15","slug":"when-d-i-y-becomes-d-i-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/archives\/474","title":{"rendered":"When DIY Becomes DIWhy"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I bought this house, the upstairs bathroom had just<\/em> been installed by the previous owners. They\u2019d skipped a few steps\u2014the cabinets weren\u2019t secured to the walls, there was no exhaust fan and they hadn\u2019t finished the top row of tile above the bathtub\u2014but the room functioned reasonably well. Then we started using the shower, and it didn\u2019t take long to realize that, under the right conditions, you can grow mold anywhere\u2014even in Canada. <\/p>\n

Panicked, I called a contractor, and last week they installed an exhaust fan so strong it could dry out a tropical rainforest. And they\u2019ve promised to return to douse the room in mildew-resistant paint (which will be a huge upgrade from the mildew-welcoming paint that\u2019s currently in there).<\/p>\n

Now, if I can get away with it, I’m hoping to blame what happened next on my mother. Remember that top row of bathtub tiles? The row that was unfinished? Well, my mom pointed out that those tiles were most likely discontinued years ago, so it would be a lot faster to simply pop off that incomplete top row rather than spend weeks schlepping from store to store, trying to find an exact match.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve watched lots of decorating shows\u2014and I\u2019ve watched them take off bathroom tiles dozens of times. How hard could it be? I\u2019ll tell you how hard it can be:<\/p>\n

Tile #1:<\/strong> I tucked a screwdriver under the edge of the tile, tinked away at the end of the screwdriver with a hammer and POW<\/em> the tile exploded off the wall and landed (pointy corner down) on my bare foot.<\/p>\n

Tile #2:<\/strong> Now wearing shoes, I gently tinked away at the second tile. Tink\u2026tink\u2026tink\u2026apparently, Tile #2 had seen what had happened to Tile #1, and it wasn\u2019t coming off the wall without a fight. By the time it had succumbed to my screwdriver-and-hammer maneuver, it was in three pieces\u2014and I\u2019d damaged the wall.<\/p>\n

Tile #3:<\/strong> I won\u2019t bore you with the details, but suffice it to say bathtub tiles have finely honed survival instincts\u2014and they\u2019re vindictive little jerks. too. Some of the tiles only half<\/em> fell off\u2014leaving a thick layer of themselves welded permanently to the drywall. Other tiles pulled so much drywall down with them that chicken wire, hunks of plaster and weird little bead things came tumbling out. Bathroom walls are generally smooth\u2014mine now have ceiling-to-floor water stains, a light dusting of mold, plus a flaky, lumpy, eczema-like strip above the bathtub.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve set up the international symbol for Don\u2019t Judge, This Room\u2019s Not Finished<\/em> (two screw drivers and a hammer on the side of the tub). My next DIY project? Call the contractor, then avoid eye contact when he shows up with spackle and paint.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I bought this house, the upstairs bathroom had just been installed by the previous owners. They\u2019d skipped a few steps\u2014the cabinets weren\u2019t secured to the walls, there was no exhaust fan and they hadn\u2019t finished the top row of tile above the bathtub\u2014but the room functioned reasonably well. Then we started using the shower, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-funny-bits"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":480,"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474\/revisions\/480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}