Honey Do Project + FEATURES!

Mar 26, 201415 min read

Deviation Actions

Published: Mar 26, 2014

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Journal 3-27-14

I haven't been as attentive on DA lately as is usual when I'm on my 'time off' at work and I apologize for that. I've been fairly busy over the last month despite the term 'vacation' or as folks in other parts of the world might say, 'on holiday'. In fact, there hasn't been a whole lot of rest & relaxation for me over the last month and not a whole lot in the coming month either.

I've been engaging in what is known as 'Honey-Do Season'. Guys, you know the season--it's the season where your interests acquire cobwebs and dust an inch thick and the interests of whoever your honey is gets all polished up like a shiny new dime. Don't get me wrong, my interests are also my wife's interests (at least, that's what she tells me) and the thing I've been doing will benefit both of us although my benefit is more intangible than hers. Intangible is fine with me. It means she is happy and will put up with me for a while longer and a happy wife makes for a happier husband (and it might also mean she will allow me just a little more of the blanket at night) and it means a small piece of my mind is at peace...for now.

The 'Honey-do' project (as I have taken to calling it) involved remodeling a room in our basement. Nothing fancy. Just clear the room, tear out the carpet, remove the adhesive used to hold the carpet down, paint the floor and walls, install a couple wall cabinets, install a new light fixture, install a set of corner shelves, roll out a new carpet runner and assemble a spiffy new craft table. Easy peasy and most guys could probably do it in a weekend. Took me a month from start to finish and all the while I was certain a couple burly guys would show up at my door to inform me that my Man Card had been revoked.

Long story short is that while I did prevail in this 'Honey-Do Project' task I certainly didn't prevail without help from a friend who was afar and the internet. You see, I've never done a project like this so I didn't know how to do most of what was required. Never learned the skills. It's hard to learn those home improvement skills when I'm on the road most of my life. Anything to do with trucking? Sure! Ten four, good buddy! I copy that! Anything to do with a hammer or drill or paintbrush? Nope. But I learned I had the capacity to learn and I also learned that a 49 year old truckers body will rebel violently when it is made to scrape adhesive from a concrete floor for several hours!

At any rate, the room is as finished as it's going to get. It's nowhere near the level of work you might get from a 'real' home improvement type who might pride themselves on attention to detail, but it's good enough for me and my wife hasn't said anything about the paint roller marks on the wall from painting the floor or the hole I kicked in the wall after having the sawzall kick back into my shin when scraping up the carpet adhesive (yeah, honey wants me to fix that ). I did the whole project for about $500. I saved about $140 on paint because , luck would have it, when I went in to buy the paint the clerk told me they had a gallon of off-white wall paint and 3 gallons of floor paint already mixed that someone didn't pick up for $5/gallon! Regular retail on that paint is about $35/gallon! If you open your window and listen closely you can probably hear Bob Villa banging his head against a wall in frustration, but you might also hear me whooping it up with the joy of completion!

Here's some shots of the completed room if you want to have a look--I disabled comments because this is just to show you all in my journal and I'll probably delete them later.