Things I Stink At

I would not be a good General Contractor.

This is too bad, because I harbored a secret ambition to make this my new career. Another dream shattered.

I realized my inability in this area when I started attempting to oversee renovations in my bathroom. As you may recall, I ripped down the wallpaper border months ago with plans to repaint the walls. This was either a success or a failure, depending how you look at it. I learned that there was wallpaper under the wallpaper border, not paint as I'd thought, and I had to spend hours removing wallpaper (and wallpaper glue) from all the walls. Once this was done, I was left with a beautiful purple wall - marred with scratches and non-purple sections.

The purple has actually grown on all of us and we love it, but it doesn't go with the tile.

You know what doesn't go with aqua and black? Lavender.

Before painting, though, I decided to see about getting the shower I wanted put in. And while things were getting repainted, I might as well replace the ceiling fixture with a fan to solve our mold problem, right?

All good in theory. But then the electrician did this to my ceiling:

I don't think cutting drywall is his specialty?

 Which was really my first failure as a GC, because he really should have discussed things with me before relocating the fixture and destroying my ceiling.

And then the plumber came and put in the shower, but that left me with this:



Do you see the holes in the tile? Look closely...

 

Which was almost exactly what I asked for. Old taps out, new shower in.

"I'll just swap out those holey tiles with ones from under the sink, behind the vanity," I said.

"No, no you won't," the wall said. "I, Wall, will break long before you shatter one of the tiles. And removing them in one piece? Hahaha! Not if I have anything to do with it!"
And then I bashed those babies with a sledgehammer and wound up with this.

Success! For now...

Which, um, takes us to today. I have holes in my ceiling and my wall, a shower that's not totally functional because it will get the walls soaked, the walls are still not one color, and the tub refinisher dude is coming in two weeks.

And I'm over here blogging. Which just goes to prove that I stink at renovations and should stick with attempting to write my novel. It's almost November, folks. Will this year be the year? I finished editing novel one and it stank. I finished novel two and it stunk, too. I am halfway through writing a third novel and it is so boring that I am having trouble finishing it.

(I also agreed to coordinate field trips again, which is also stinking, just in case you were curious.)

The husband has completely given up on the bathroom. "Call a GC," he told me last night. "Have someone come fix this mess you made."

Has it come to that?

I might be terrible at many jobs; at least I can still fall back on being a

-Real Housewife of the North Shore.