the in's and out's of Construction

February 1, 2010

I'm sitting here resembling one of the characters out of a Dr Seuss story; hair pulled up, a pencil sticking through at some obscure angle, with the upper layers of hair curled up and out in a very Cindy Lou Who fashion, face unmade, donning baggy sweats and sheet-rock dust covered shirt. I haven't showered in two days and can't remember if I even brushed my teeth this morning. I'm honestly surprised that my arms even have the ability to rest on the keyboard to type at the moment as they have spent the last several hours installing drywall in the garage ceiling with my father. My intent had been to be at work by 8 am this morning, and get through the mountain of paperwork that has been covering my desk lately while making an endless number of phone calls to subdivision and condo trustees to earn bids for the company. But before I even made it into the bathroom to wash my face I learned that today was the last day with the dry wall lift and my dad planned on spending the day finishing the garage ceiling.  It doesn't take a genius to conclude that this is not a single person job in any way, shape, or form. Twelve foot pieces of sheetrock/drywall strategically balanced on a wobbly lift positioned another 6' overhead, while one person attempts to locate each stud and quickly install as many screws as possible before the greater portion of the upper body cramps up completely, is definitely a situation in which it would be best to have a companion present. So fate had stepped in, and now here I am covered in dust about as dirty as our garage floor (a floor which regardless of the continued efforts of both my parents to keep it swept up, has accumulated several layers of dirt, sawdust, sheetrock dust, and insulation dust over the last two weeks), and persisting in boosting my motivation to return to the scene and continue to install sheetrock screws despite the protestations of my aching arms. 
 
The job would not seem so daunting were it not for the activities of yesterday afternoon. A pleasant day and very rewarding as a friend and I managed to clean off around six very large sections of parquet floor within a few hours. Had the cleaning merely consisted of a mop and bucket the ceiling today would be much closer to completion, but yesterdays cleaning entailed hours of chiseling away at duct tape residue with a utility knife blade. Skin So Soft has many unknown uses, one of which is aiding in loosening and removing gum, tape, or glue residue of any kind. (My favorite shirt as a kid was a bright yellow and white plaid shirt in a cowboy style, a style I'm surprised to see popular once again, which I wore nearly every chance I could. On one occasion I had worn it out with my favorite pair of jeans to a work social held by my dad's office. With hundreds of kids running around we all had to wear name tags much to my dismay, and rightly justified, as the tag remained on my shirt later that afternoon when my mom shoved it in the laundry to hopefully remove the grass and sweat stains it had earned at the picnic. Unfortunately name tags and washing machines, or dryers for that matter, are not a great match and my poor shirt came out with name tag glue stuck all over the left front breast pocket. Enter the magic Skin So Soft, two years later. No more sticky name tag glue, and a perfectly restored shirt. As luck would have it I had grown enough since then to miss out on another two years of good wear-ability. Or maybe not so unfortunately.)

Skin So Soft worked then and it worked fabulously now on our beautiful parquet floor. Duct tape, residue and tar (from the underside of the pieces that were stacked together) were successfully removed with a great deal of elbow grease. Apparently my arms have escaped my daily workout and found that the scrubbing motions of many hours worth of work was enough to last for that week. I wasn't about to leave for work picturing my father balancing on our old, rickety wooden ladder with 100lbs of sheetrock positioned on one metal pole over his head pushing in as many screws as possible. One more day off of work wasn't going to hurt, especially if it meant finishing the garage ceiling by the end of the day. I must say that my dad deserves a standing ovation for the work he has done over the last month. Nothing like sticking in a bit of sentimentality here, but honestely, my folks are nothing shy of awe inspiring. They would never complain about the hours they keep or the work they have to do but I will boast about them. I doubt either one has had more than 4-5 hours a sleep a night over the last month and a half and my mom spends her days juggling three different full time jobs all under one job title, which includes dancing for nearly six hours strait in the afternoon to come home and work for another 4 hours on construction while my dad has spent a great deal of his time here trying to keep the momentum going by installing floors, building walls, putting up insulation or whatever job needs to be completed that day, while completing contracts for work and driving in and out of the city to meet with a variety of companies wanting to bid on any upcoming contracts he may be working on.

I have the greatest respect for my parents and I know we are all eager to see this project completed. For now I'm going to force my aching body, nowhere near what my parents have to deal with, out of my chair and back to the garage to hopefully see the ceiling covered by the end of the day. Once I figure out how to make my Powershot compatible with the darling operating system on my borrowed laptop, or I make it back into work, I'll be sure to add on a few pictures to give you a better idea of the extent of work currently underway. Until then my descriptive narratives will have to suffice. Keep your fingers crossed, one month down...two weeks to go. Here's a link to a few more photos to check out!
http://picasaweb.google.com/stephalioto/OurConstructionProject?feat=directlink