Thursday, November 10, 2005

Throwing in the trowel

Ok, so I formally retract any previous statements about being cut out for this sort of work.

Standing there yesterday looking at my carefully measured out wall and realizing that somewhere along the line my level was greatly skewed, I cracked. There's something so horrible about ripping out an entire days work. Not to mention that there must be some sort of something funky in that bathroom because I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening puking my guts out. I'm sure it has nothing to do with all the mildewed and moldy crap we pulled out of those walls last week, or all the mortar dust filling my lungs.

So one wall is nearly complete, the other two are going to be done by someone else. I don't know who yet, but it sure as hell won't be me.

After my puking rampage ended last night, I spent the remainder of the evening on Heidi's porch nursing a beer and soaking my ruined hands in epsom salt. Word to the wise, which I apparently am not, WEAR GLOVES! The mortar ate holes in my hands that ache and burn. I'm still picking cement out of wounds today.

If EVER I tell you that I want to lay tile again, you have permission to bitch-slap me. Repeatedly.

3 Comments:

At 3:53 PM, Blogger Laura said...

after we finished the tile in the living room ( I did the grout, and a good bit of the thinset) I felt like I had broken my butt. All the stretching and reaching... I couldn't sit down normall for a week.

wear gloves anytime you do this stuff unless you absolutely cannot, you'll get used to them and it'll save your hands.... I like using medical gloves...

I'm sorry on the tile job, that would be incredibly frustrating expecially since you worked so hard on it. It might do you good to take another stab at it so you can win, damnit.

The puking is just plain weird, though... I hope you feel better, hon.

 
At 8:25 AM, Blogger me said...

The wall issue is where it truly is trial and error, Ang. I am no Bob Vila by any stretch but there are other issues awaiting when repairing holes, drywalling and fitting edges, taping sanding, getting the smoothness, making sure your seals are tight and there are no gaps and such that will manifest into similar hindrances along the way. It ~IS~ frustrating. Hard to believe a college-boy, fancy pants, desk monkey can speak with any authority on a subject like that, huh?

You'll be fine. Surgical gloves, like Laura said and the paper masks that asthma patients wear in the extreme cold may help with the nausea and the bits and pieces finding their way into your flesh? Well, thank God it's not lyme you're working work, hon. It cracks your skin, makes it bleed and hard to continue in a day to day consistent pattern while using it.

And when it's all done? Something, a really huge thing to celebrate and be proud of and that my friend, NO ONE can take away from you!

~hugz

 
At 5:36 PM, Blogger Mommyleek said...

Thanks for the pep talk guys, but I'm really serious about it. I quit. There's no way I'm getting back in there. And I'm not one that gives up easily. But I'm thoroughly confident that this isn't something I want to do on my own. There are some things in this world that deserve to be done right, and if I'm investing $800 of money into it, I sure as hell want it done right. And I don't want to do it again in a few years because the wall has rotted out behind it again. Ugh.

 

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