Weekend handy man warrior

Have you ever had a project that you just decided to start on a moments notice and halfway to its completion, you started asking yourself the question, “What in the world was I thinking when I decided to start this whole crazy thing?”

The author of this letter came to this predicament in the middle of what initially seemed to be a simple task of repairing and renovating a humble kitchen. The whole thing started one afternoon just after lunch when I looked at my kitchen sink and the cabinets that supported it. I gave its appearance a disapproving look and decided that the kitchen needed some repairs. I figured that it won’t take long for me to replace all the cabinets and sink. My assessment was it would take only one weekend to finish the job—Yeah, right!! I donned some working clothes and went to the garage and brought back a hammer, a pry bar and a box of assorted tools. The mild manner Aden has now transformed into the formidable DEMOLITION MAN!!

I worked like a well oiled machine. I swung my powerful hammer with the intensity of a storm and the structure just crumbled before me. What I did not realize was that demolishing something needs a bit of a technique. A Rambo type demolition can cause unwanted damages to things that are meant to be preserved. My overwhelming energy caused me to demolish the interior wall of my kitchen. When my wife checked to see the progress of my work, she almost had a heart attack when she saw the damage on the wall. She pointed to the wall and asked me, “Aden, what heck did you do?!”. I responded by calmly telling her “I meant to do that. Relax, honey…..Everything is progressing as planned”…….Darn, was I a big lair!

Wanting to cultivate some confidence from my wife and kids with regards to my ability as a handyman, I decided to give a gleaming picture to them on how the whole kitchen will look like once it is finished. After a lengthy explanation about my master plan to my family, my kids told me, “Dad, don’t you think it is better just to pay a professional to do the job?” I responded by saying, with a bit of handyman bravado, “Nonsense! Your old man can handle this!” Those famous words had been uttered by an iconic handyman named Tim Allen (aka Tim Taylor) of the “home improvement show”. He said those words moments before he caused a major disaster.

Demolishing is the easy part. Sorting, organizing and placing all the demolished kitchen parts in huge trash cans is a time consuming task by itself. I had to buy a filter mask to protect myself from the dust.

The work rolled into the second weekend and my wife converted our bathroom sink into a temporary kitchen sink. She also used our outdoor gas grill as a means to cook and heat our food.

One valuable lesson I learned is that there are certain tasks in the project that would be best done by a professional. Soldering copper pipes is one of them. I bought a soldering kit and tried to solder the water pipe. I forgot to drain all the water out of the pipes and so while I was soldering, the water inside the pipes boiled and it squirted hot steaming water onto my chest. Fortunately, it did not hit my face. I thank God for that. There was also the tiny incident where the wall insulation caught on fire because it was accidentally hit by the flames of my soldering gun—It was the fault of the wall. It should have moved away from the flames.

I called the plumber and he came and did a superb job. Of course, I had to pay his expensive rate. Plumbers here in America are well paid because their rates are quite high. They earn far more than a manager of a Bank. My plumber told me that he earns about $150,000 annually. No wonder plumbers own expensive houses.

To accelerate the progress of my work, I decided to take a 5-day vacation from my work. My plan was to work from dawn to dusk in my kitchen. What I did not factor into my whole work plan was the delays and also the hot and humid summer weather which caused me to slow down. Though the oak cabinets were pre-made, I had to use some high school mathematics in calculating the angles, plains and distances so that all the pieces connect perfectly. I even had to use a laser light to assist me in getting the proper wall alignment. I guess a little help from high-tech gadgets can make the task at hand a bit easier.

On the last day of my 5-day vacation, I was able to install a brand new dishwasher machine. Finally, my kitchen is beginning to take some sort of recognizable form. My children were most excited because this is big news—No more daily dishwashing duties for them.

Last weekend marked the completion of my kitchen. Underneath my kitchen sink is crowded with assorted types of water tubes, drain pipes and electric lines. I closed my eyes and opened the hot and cold water valves. I heard a surging sound of water rushing through the copper pipes. There were a few leaks that I easily fixed. The dishwasher worked like a charm when I turned it on and the garbage disposal machine spun perfectly.

What did I learn from this “Simple-1-week-project-that-turned-to-a-4-week-job”? I listed the valuable lessons that I learned and here they are:

1. When doing a project, expect to complete it beyond the date you set to finish it.
2. Expenditures rarely goes below the set budget.
3. Annoying delays are numerous.
4. Walk out of the work area and take a breather whenever your patience is running low.
5. Quality materials and tools might be a few dollars more but they are worth buying because they will determine the quality of your workmanship.
6. Measure twice. Cut once.
7. Pay attention to details.
8. Always read the lengthy product instructions. It won’t kill you to read them.
9. If your child asks you what you are doing, take a few minutes and explain to your kid what you are trying to accomplish. Let the child hit a nail or turn a screw because they will feel involved in the project.
10. Expect to have cuts and bruises when doing a home improvement project. They are a proof that you are not sleeping on the job.

As I finished one project, another one presents itself. The oven, air vent hood and additional kitchen cabinets that sits on the opposite side of the sink seemed to have renovation flags waving at me. I turned on my 1950 model stove and flames came out of its burners. My conclusion—Why fix something that is not broken?

Sail through the sale.

Thanksgiving Day brings certain opportunities to a number of people. There is a 4-letter word that never fails to bring excitement to the buying populous— SALE ! Majority of the shopping community that is bitten by the buying bug belongs to the female specie. Why do I say this? Being married for 20 years to a shopping fanatic, I am convinced that women have been born with a gene that causes them to uncontrollably buy products that had been tagged as a sales item.

The whole frantic fight to grab the best sale items at the store shelves always starts about two days prior to the thanksgiving sale. A few diehards would camp outside known stores with the sole goal of being first in line to grab the few items that will be put out on sale at very reduced prices.

Yours truly does not subscribe to the idea that SPENDING money makes one “SAVE” money. Who is the lunatic that came up with that logic anyway? Only boneheads believe in that logic! It is very obvious that all these sales hype is just a marketing ploy that department stores and other businesses wave above their heads to attract the buying public. Like innocent lambs, the hypnotized credit card holders are drawn into these credit slaughter houses whom I call shopping Malls. These poor souls blindly swipe away their plastics with skillful hands without any careful thought if their income is able to keep up with their purchases.

Lucky for me, my spouse has learned to become a cautious buyer. Though she is now a careful shopper, she still can’t help succumb to the urge of going to the stores early to get ahead of the huge crowd that might head to the same store. Last November 23rd at four in the morning, my wife drag my kids and I out of our warm beds and led us to a large electronic store 8 miles away from our house. Half of my brain was still asleep while I was driving towards the store. The temperature was about 40 degrees Fahrenheit that morning and when we got to the store, there were already about 600 people waiting in line. By the time the store opened at 5AM , there were about 1,300 people waiting in line. There was a mad scramble inside the store to grab the remaining sale items. I went to the computer programs section of the store and immediately grabbed a 3-pack box of Norton anti-virus that was on sale for $29.99 (regular priced at $99.99). It was a very good deal because the pack contained three packages (Norton Anti-virus 2008 with spyware, Norton System works and Norton Confidential). After I got the item I wanted to buy, I started searching for my wife and kids. I found my wife waiting in line to the cashier and was holding a bunch of small product boxes. I examined the contents of the boxes and found two wireless routers, two types of computer games, an I-pod and other computer gadgets whose usage I am not too familiar with. When I asked her why she grabbed so many items, she said that she was waiting for me to sort through them. Looking through the boxes, I told my wife, “Honey, though these things are technically interesting to operate, we are not computer geeks and would be a waste of our hard earned money to purchase them”. With that said, returned half of what she took from the shelves and we ended up just buying four items. I was so relieved to step out of that mad house and told my wife that my cozy bed is calling my name.

Well, my story does not end there. At around 7PM that same day, I decided to return to the same store that we lined up to at 4AM . I was just curious as to what items that were still left. There were still a number of people going inside the store searching through the shelves. To my surprised, ALL the items that we bought at 5AM that day were still available at 7PM ! I felt like a bloody fool! I called my wife and told her what I just saw and advised her that unless we are aiming to buy the highly sought merchandise, we need to just go to the store at a more convenient time.