House-pocalypse now

Don't do it! Do not buy that house. Turn back now! You'll never have a life again, you'll never date, never know your unborn children, never blog again, you fool, listen to me!

This all brought on by removing the peeling wallpaper in my ugly, tiny master bathroom, which led to re-spackling most of the wall when just the tiniest bit of the outer surface of the outer sheetrock paper peeled off, which led to sanding and lots of inhaling of dust, which led to looking at the rotten floorboards, which led to pulling off the rotten floorboards just to replace them, which wasn't an appealing proposition, but if you're going to do the job, do it right! Which led to kneeling awkwardly in the 7 inch space between the bathtub and toilet and trying to detach the floorboards from the ugly sheet vinyl they were caulked to only to find that the sheet vinyl was pulling right up off of the floor to reveal a big ol' wet spot and some frightening musty smell underneath, which lead to tearing up the sheet vinyl, getting out the paint stripper again and removing all the goo from the floor so I could stain the concrete to match (most of) the rest of my house.

Seven hours, 4 crying fits, one near nervous breakdown and several cancer cells later, I noticed that the water leak that wrecked the floor was coming from the toilet, not shower over-run as I'd thought. I immediately suspected the worst--the wax seal. That means lifting up the entire toilet and releasing noxious sewer fumes into the house, i.e., having to pay a plumber to do it because it's way to heavy and disgusting. Lucky for me, it was coming from tank connection. After replacing the only 2 washers in the area of the leak with help from a friend after the first washer replacement did nothing--nothing!--we hit on something near zen when the tube began to drip slightly less. Oh, it never stopped. No, no. But "slightly less" began to look an awful lot like heaven.

In the meantime, some kittens with fleas came for a visit and left behind several of their little friends. There's a whole 'nother tale of kitten/house-sitting, de-fleaing and flea-bombing my friend's house there. I just don't have to energy to tell it right now.

My roommate whined that "Wah, fleas bit my ankles as I was sitting on my ass on your couch watching your TV and eating my 1,947,969th bag of potato chips, chewing with my mouth open as I always do so you could hear my crunching all the way in the other room. Hey, and I took some of that pate you made and put it on my spaghetti and microwaved it. That was good." I wish I was exaggerating about any of this. I really do. I am not. Okay, he didn't actually say "Wah."

This mercifully caused him to leave for the night so I could finish de-fleaing the kittens in peace, remove them back to their freshly bombed house post-poison-ventilation, and flea bomb my own house. Some beer was drunk during the two-and-a-half-hour forced intermission while poison made it's way through every crack and crevice and offed the fleas along with several frighteningly large roaches. Yea! I think.

The next morning, following hangover recovery, I finally gave up, drained my toilet so it couldn't leak, decided to buy an entire new toilet gut system to be installed later, and stained and waxed the concrete (a 26-hour process involving more fume inhalage and cancer cell creation). Meanwhile, I thought, I'll use my roommate's bathroom.

Hm. How did an actual print of his ass-crack get on the toilet seat and why is the bottom of the seat cover all spotted, and why is the bowl itself all covered with black?

At this point, I nearly threw up both hands and cookies, but I got it together and scrubbed, scrubbed, scrubbed so I could pee without fear of infection from his noxious weiner spray and ass rabies. Bleheheheh.

Last night, I finally primed the walls in the bathroom. I ruined a 15 dollar paint brush doing this, but I did it, dammit! Then I got the can of orange peel wall texture spray to finish up the walls. Covers 100 square feet, much more space than I have in my McBathroom. It's quick, easy, and only scores a medium-high on the carcinogen scale, apparently only in the state of California. Who knew some things could only cause cancer in California?

Let me describe this can of vile-smelling texture to you so you'll understand the horrors to come. It's like a spray paint can with a little tube you attach to the nozzle to direct and control the density of the spray. You can get fine, medium, or coarse orange peel depending on which tube you use.

I shook the can vigorously and securely attached the tube to the nozzle per instructions. Did some test spraying trying out all 3 tubes on cardboard first to make sure I had what I wanted. Yep, I want the straw with the smallest opening for a subtle, fine spray.

Hm. That spray nozzle is starting to get a bit goopy, but I can still force the straw in there at least.

Began spraying the actual walls, wearing Hepa mask because damn, this stuff feels just as vile to the nose lining and lungs as the paint and glue stripper I used to prep the floors. But it's looking good, baby, looking good.

First rule of home repair: Never say something's looking good. This invokes some ancient curse whose origins I have yet to discover. The moth*rf*cking tube no longer wants to stay in the can, and it begins clogging badly. I have to hold the tube in the spray opening and texture is now spraying all over the room and all over me. Big ugly blots are spewing out the end of the tube, not unlike the mental image I had days earlier of my roommate's horrific weiner spraying out over his [my] horrific toilet. Unattractive blops of texture goo land pendulously on the wall. My arm gets covered with a stream of the shite. It burns. The Hepa mask does nothing, or at least not quite enough. My nostrils burn as well. I keep going. Must finish, goddam it, must finish. I have to use the other straws and now have competing textures. They clog one by one. The can gives out after about 20 to 30 square feet of wall is covered. The wall looks like shit. Shit, shit, shit. But only half to go!

Can't breathe. Not sure I wish to breathe any more.

I look around me. The toilet is textured, some of the bathtub, too. The tiny out-of-the-way part of the floor I left uncovered has been textured by the explosion of crap out of the side of the straw. I have to use mineral spirits to get the texture up, which also takes up the floor wax, which means I'll have to re-wax the floor (more vile fumes). Luckily, I was able to scrape off the worst shit-splots on the wall and they now look good enough.

"Good enough" is my new mantra. I will never criticize a slap-dash home repair job again. This is truly one of the most stretched-out--and one of the worst--experiences I have ever had. This is the second time I've said that since I've moved into this house just over a year ago.

Tonight is night 12 since I began this project. I've lost track of how many times I've been to the hardware store and of how much money I've spent. I'll be back there tonight for another can of the evil spray-shite. What other choice is there? I can't say I know who I am anymore. I can't say the person I once thought I was was ever anything more than an illusion. Perhaps I know myself better now than I ever have. Perhaps I will be stripped down, finally, to nothing.

Another round of spray-torture, one more round of priming and then finally nailing in the new floorboards and finishing up the actual paint job. Will I put a nail through the plumbing? Perhaps. Perhaps I will. Maybe on purpose. And let's not forget replacing the toilet guts, because I'm brimming with confidence now (so sorry) that that's going to take care of the leak. Then I have to find new shelves and add a towel bar. Yes. A towel bar in the bathroom next to the tub. How luxurious, if one can appreciate luxury again. If one can appreciate anything other than the sweet, sweet oblivion that only sleep, head injuries such as those caused by falling down in the bathtub while painting, and the bottle can give.