Day 25: Do You Ever Wish for an Uneventful Day?

Courtesy Pixabay

I know it sounds silly. On those days when nothing is going on, I'm so annoyed because there is just nothing of interest happening. Even this retirement thing is a pain. I've had the devil of a time trying to learn to be retired. You'd think it would be a breeze. It isn't.

So, I was going to repair the ceiling and wall in Sarah's room while she was gone and repaint the room. It was a simple job. Scrape off old paint, patch a few rough spots, sand down drywall mud, paint. Really, as home repairs go for me, this was a piece of cake. After all, I didn't have to reinvent the wheel. 

LIES! LIES! LIES! 

I started scraping the paint. It was old damage from when there was a leak that we were unaware of. It had bowed the drywall and caused the paint to begin to flake, although it never came off the ceiling. No biggie. I scraped off the first chip, maybe the size of a half dollar. 

That. Is. Mold.

I scraped off another flake, larger this time. Oh no. Crumbles of what appeared to be sand fell on my hand. Oh no. That's a hole. I scraped an area about 1 ft x 8 in. The hole you see near the wall is all the way through the ceiling and large enough to put a man's fist through. 

Now, this isn't my first rodeo, folks. If you're read this blog for a more than a decade, you know that home repair for my family is a unique and .... exciting event. I refer you to How to Install a Faucet

This was not going to be a simple project. This was major repair the required a 2x3 ft section of the ceiling to be replaced. Why so large? Because there is mold on the damaged section. I don't know how far under the paint it goes. Because the drywall bowed from the leak and although dry for years, it is still bowed. I won't be able to patch an unlevel surface with a small section of drywall. I have to cut a patch wide enough to fit between the rafters and long enough to eliminate the bowed section... about 3 feet. 

To facilitate this, Mike had to go in the attic to remove the insulation from the area. My insulation is blown in and it will fall all over us when we remove the section of the ceiling. It was about 150 degrees in the attic. My roof is low. Mike is 200 lbs. He was nearly ready to faint in the 15 minutes he was in the attic. 

I've already heard that he should have waited until night to do that. Unfortunately, I have to sleep and I doubt the attic would have cooled below 100F before 3 a.m. He can't go in my attic in the middle of the night without help and someone to supervise in case of emergency. So, we settled on a 15 minute time frame to get in and out. Of course the vents and supports and the low roof served as blocks in his passage. He's a big guy. We elected to remove only enough insulation to allow us to take out some of the damage drywall and then try to move the rest when we take out the ceiling. Fortunately, I learned some things during the process. 

As I stood on the ladder with a light stuck through the hole so he wouldn't waste time searching for the area, I figured out how to repair this with the least amount of trouble and without having to go back into the attic to do it. And it will be perfect. In fact, if the section is longer than I anticipate, It will be no problem, except I'll be the one having to hold the thing up. I'm not sure how that's going to work. 

Mike lay on the couch with a wet cloth wiping himself down and drank 32 oz of water. It took half an  hour for him to recover. We went an got lunch. He did his laundry at my house and before he went home, he stuffed a plastic bag in the hole to keep the heat from coming through. 

I am going to write. Tomorrow, we're going to work on the ceiling and I have lunch with my writer friends. Thank goodness! Thursday, Mike goes back to the orthopedic doctor to see where he stands. (No pun intended.) Friday, I hope we're done with the ceiling. 

I'll think about the next step after that.