Country Caulking

On a chilly night the new acrylic indoor storm windows leaked cold, so feeling around the single-pane window frame and catching breezes, I looked carefully and saw all three layers of the window frame needed caulking, right now, in the ever-narrower space in Missouri between hot summer and cold winter, neither of those good for caulking.

In September I spent three days caulking a historic single-pane window real nice (with "antique white"), but this one is 1969 in an aluminum frame and it rained yesterday and it'll rain tomorrow so instead of having fun I got the stepladder and drop cloths, plastic bags, nitrile gloves, wet rags and caulking gun and worked quick and dirty. Nearly every inch of this 85-year-old house needs caulking. Aproned and teetering and reaching overhead and messing up, I do it about every 10 years. This time I noticed caulk technology has changed; now soap and water will get it out of your hair and off your gloves and pants.

Inner critic: Your caulking stinks.
Me: Shut up. It's better than yours.
Inner critic: Should have cut the the tube a narrower tip --
Me: I didn't see you lending a hand.
Inner critic: Slow and steady. Don't smooth beads with your finger; use a craft stick! What a mess! Don't you have a sponge? Don't poke at that, it's almost dry! Now it's worse!
Me: The caulk didn't fill it up the first time.
Inner critic: It would have, if you'd been patient --
Me: Cram it.

The photo is AFTER I caulked and while it's curing. Yes, it's hoosier, but it looks a lot like the art downtown at the Pulitzer. In the right light.

The Floor

In the spirit of "cleaning for the maid" (so she won't see such a messy house) I cleaned for the asbestos removers the living room and bedroom after all the furniture had been moved out. With vinegar spray, dish soap and a long brush I scrubbed walls and baseboards I hadn't seen since 2001, and also the windowsills, alone for the final time with the carpet that carried the DNA of every visitor since 1986. And in the carpet appeared a favorite earring, tiny-tiny and given up for lost months ago: a 4mm pink coral cabochon in 14k gold, undamaged by dolly wheels and big movers' boots -- in perfect condition! Conscientious crazy-cleanness has its ecstasies.

During carpet removal, asbestos removal and then during the required inspector's visit I stayed in a motel, returning home before the carpet installation to see my rooms as I'll never see them again. Took a picture for the record. An eye-watering smell of glue or glue remover. The hearth from which innumerable snakes were hatched and crawled out in front of me and my guests is now well-sealed. What you see is a clean floor stripped of old asbestos tiling.

Divine Cabin built in 1935.

Nests

 Without screens for 19 days the Divine Cabin looked like a skull, or a jaw without teeth, or eyeless, or simply shabby, conked-out, or abandoned until today I retrieved my new screens from the hardware store (again 3 round trips to bring all 7 panels home; for delivery one must buy $300 of stuff and my total was $284). I've had flu for the last eight days and now bothered only by malaise and cough, decided to shower, dress, go get 'em and see if I felt better.

One last time out on the screen-free porch I had to scrape from beneath a rafter a nest built by a persistent house wren (see photo), a nest loosely woven from moss and dry leaves and grass. Could you build a nest using only your bill and natural materials? I couldn't.

Pulled from the closet some army-green jeans at least 15 years old -- I haven't bought jeans since, they don't flatter me -- and darn, they fit; that was a good omen. When my wooden screens rolled out on a cart they looked lovely and although the frames are 80 years old nothing had been broken. All was just as I had handed it over, except for the new pristine and skillful aluminum screening.

Proceeded to cook and eat the most normal lunch I've had in a week, sit, rest, then attempt to install the screens -- a second huge effort that day, didn't know if it was smart. I did it. Here's a photo taken as the sun slanted across, about 6 p.m. I'll find out tomorrow if I've overstepped my recovery. But now I'll be able to convalesce if I have to on my porch. The divine porch! My nest!

DIYing is an Art, Like Everything Else

I lowered the Maytag's top onto an exercise mat, sliced into the dishwasher's bottom which is mere cardboard covered with foil, and used my voltage meter seeking weak electrical links. Taped it up when I found nothing wrong. Then it remained to lift the dishwasher upright. Tried and couldn't. (100 pounds? 150 pounds?) I wondered who I might call and what I should pay them, and imagined the gossip they would spread. Disheartened, I left it this way for four days.

The fifth day, after morning coffee, like Popeye on spinach I righted the dishwasher on the first try, a miracle. Then with a star-nosed screwdriver I removed the inside of its door, exposing wires both live and dead. Online forums and YouTube videos recommended a new latch, $12, as a first step toward repair. This didn't fix it, and God arranged a minor electrical shock to further humble me. Second-tier solution: a new $125 motherboard. While waiting for its delivery I dismantled and cleaned the machine's interior, down to its motor. Reassembly left me with two extra screws. I knew this was not right. Cue up the circus music, because I had installed a part upside down. Five or six days passed before I summoned the heart to undo and fix it.

A 1990s course called "How to Build a Computer" taught me it is insanely easy and no parts inside electronics are fragile, so replacing a motherboard does not scare me, plus YouTube demonstrations showed repairs on machines similar to mine. Installed the new motherboard. Now all the wires were hot. Still the dishwasher wouldn't start.

Online fix-it forums revealed arcane knowledge about secret codes for resetting dishwasher programming. Tried all of these codes. Glory be, three of the green LED lights lit up. Much heartened, I pressed the dishwasher's Start button but in vain. YouTube sages indicated a possibly malfunctioning touchpad. Paid $72 and the new touchpad is on its way.

Wouldn't it be nice if that fixed it? A new dishwasher is $750. I have learned a lot. A lot.

Out of Square

C'est fini.

Need I add that the Divine Cabin's kitchen floor was not only gouged and discolored but terribly out of square, its surface lumpy, with fussy millwork around its three doorways and 80-year-old baseboards seriously warped? And that it wasn't possible to move either the oven or fridge? One night my neighbor Terri and I finished laying the self-adhesive tiles on the kitchen floor -- Terri with the skills and tools from crafting, able to custom-cut the odd shapes to the millimeter. I mostly lay flat on the floor waiting to be handed the puzzle pieces and sticking them into place.

Here is the finished product. Very nice. Now I need a threshold. I bought one yesterday, and a hacksaw to cut it to the (odd, weird) 35.5 inches, and installed it, but it turned out I needed not a "bull-nosed" threshold but a square-nosed one which can be glued because beneath the floor is concrete and screws cannot be drilled into it. Besides that, there is only fine-tipped caulking to do, and then one last big, daring DIY.

DIYing for a Clean-Looking Shower

After 7 years the shower's caulk was permanently mildewed or God knows what and it depressed even me, who has showered in below-freezing barracks, in a hoarder's bathroom, in shower stalls stained orange with bacteria, in state-park shower houses where families were gutting fish, and so on (when I had no other choice).

c'est fini

My current fix-it mania drove me to buy a claw-like caulk-removing tool and dedicated kitchen-and-bath caulk. I laid down a bunch of towels, folded myself like origami into the shower stall and with rubber-gloved hands scraped off the old caulk, and thoroughly washed the gaps now open with a 50-percent bleach solution, and let them dry for 24 hours while I stayed at a friend's house.

I returned home to apply the caulk. With my inexperience ("Why isn't any caulk coming out? Oh, I have to squeeze this trigger really, really hard, with both hands") it took three sweaty hours to apply, and as soon as it was good enough, like a guy would have done it, I left the wet towels and caulk-choked caulking gun in a heap and ran back overnight to the friend's house to allow the caulk to cure.

Turned out okay, as you can see, even if imperfect. There is no "before" picture because it was too repellent to show. I also stuck "treads" on the shower floor for safety. This plus the new tiles on the backsplash means the bathroom update is complete. The Divine Cabin has a shower only. I get baths 64 miles away in The Original Springs Hotel in Okawville, IL, the only mineral spring in this area.

I'm Self-Adhesive, Are You?

Feeling that I couldn't possibly make it worse I bought some self-adhesive fake tiling for the bathroom backsplash area. My spatial skills are poor so it took time to figure out how the four sheets of fake tile fit together, even though they were lettered "B," "C," "D" and "E" -- where was "A"? And the walls and fixtures are themselves crooked. I did the best job  I could. I've seen much worse in photos of pre-World-War-I Eastern Europe -- and I like the stick-on tile very much, maybe just because it's a change.

So enchanting was the stick-on that I decided I would do self-adhesive tiles on the kitchen floor. There is no way I could make it worse.

I watched every YouTube about laying down self-adhesive flooring, and measured, and bought 50 tiles (you buy extra in case you mess up a few) and the right kind of grout and a putty knife for the gouges and ragged edges that currently expose the concrete floor just beneath. With the floor prepared and cleaned it is perfectly okay to lay down new self-adhesive flooring on top of it. Yes, that bruised and cracked stuff is my old kitchen floor. It's not dirty; it's as clean as I can make it. Even my amateur DIY can't possibly make it look worse and there is a chance it might look better.

I chose this gray-green flooring (68 cents per tile) because it's called "Basil" and will show neither white dirt nor black. I haven't laid it down yet. Am still mapping and visualizing the work the floor will need. I can't move the fridge and stove until I find a magic lamp and a genie comes out who will move them for me, so the whole kitchen can't be self-adhesive floored until then.

You might wonder why no one is helping. Or maybe you aren't wondering. It's because I'm self-adhesive. And nobody else I know would think this is fun.

These Rocks Speak Dust

This is what 1000 pounds  or $130 worth of gravel looks like after I made a path to the road. The planned task is not complete but a spare $130 it will bring it closer to finishing.

Wore a breathing mask when I poured this last 360 lbs. Hosed the rocks to keep the dust down. Still inhaled some gravel dust, but less than before, and this time was further educated when I saw the coating of gravel dust over the car. The whole car, back to front, a thin even coating. I understood the nature of this dust now. These rocks speak dust. And feeling gritty all over meant I should shower it off right away and wash the clothes.

This project hallowed this June that slipped away so quickly, and will recall this hallowed month whenever I look at it.

360 Pounds Later, With No Lipstick

I forgot when buying 12 more 30-pound bags of Viagra stone this morning -- loading them onto the orange Home Depot cart myself -- that I'd woken with the dryest throat and realized only then I had, yesterday, while restoring the Divine gravel apron, inhaled invisible gravel dust, and only after I'd lifted, dumped and combed 12 more bags of the apron-to be did I recall that I ought to be wearing a breathing mask.

Yet I had fun sailing out early this morning until I realized I forgot lipstick. When no men offered to help me load and push the cart, in itself hefty, with 360 pounds of stone on it, I remembered that without lipstick and with short hair, wearing shorts and tee (but the tee was bright pink!) I am, in the eyes of the people out here, probably a man-hating feminist bulldagger who'd sneer at their offer of help. Well, f---, then I'd do it alone, and I pushed it as far as the checkout. I asked there for help loading the car and a teenager materialized,and said "Ma'am"; he filled the Honda's trunk and I stuck a wad of cash into his Home Depot apron pocket.

Was it the lack of lipstick or -- and I so regret this, want to weep -- that on my way in, in the parking lot a woman much older than I was slowly pushing a shopping cart holding among other things a huge bag of potting soil, but I did not stop and say "Can I help you get that into your car? I know I would need help." Now I'm crying. How wrong of me. Karma.

Wearing my neoprene lower-back belt, I bravely unloaded at home and made visible progress, but now, coughing and hawking and with pounding in my head, decided this was plenty for today, and thunder and changing winds made decision final. Here's a photo. Note how far I've come and how far I have yet to go to restore the apron.

I Travel for Gravel

Before

240 pounds later

The gravel apron in front of the Divine Cabin over the years has been scraped and washed away and grass grows there now hiding ticks and chiggers that bite me, and for four years we have asked the landlord for fresh gravel, because the road needs some too, but it never came. In despair I phoned the gravel mine and they'd deliver a cubic yard for $215, $75 of that delivery charge, and dump-truck the gravel in a pile as tall as I and I'd have to hire someone with a spreader or spend years spreading it shovelful by shovelful, alone.

So every summer more bugs bit me and I didn't even have to go into the woods but simply step outside. Mowing helped, but now I haven't a mower and have asked the landlord to supply one as the lease requires. They don't want to. Phoning mowing professionals got me estimates I felt ashamed I could not pay.

It occurred to me, in my misery, to buy and spread my own gravel and choke off the grass, solving at once the chigger and the mowing and the apron problem, and went to Home Depot, a 30-mile round trip, because they would load my car for me, and bought 8 bags of 30 lbs. each for a total of $31. I thought it was named "Viagra stone" (a dirty mind is a perennial resource). Said nothing of this to the teenager dragging the 240-lb. cart out to my car and loading it, as I could not. As an employee he may not take a tip. But I said, "You're not taking it; I'm giving it," and dropped money in his apron pocket.

Doesn't it look like Viagra stone?

With my own labor I could buy five more such loads before hitting $215. Hefting each bag I dropped them at strategic intervals on the apron, slit the bags, dumped and raked a while and was pleased as heck with my result but there was much more apron to cover.

Now I had big plans. About to return to Home Depot to reload I thought to try the nearby Walmart. An elderly employee said to go to the checkout if I wanted their bags of gravel, but the garden area checkout, at 8 p.m., was closed, and the young employee said he did not work in this section and could not cashier, so I just went home.

I thought it would amuse me to shop at every gravel-selling retail around here and score them on how well I was served. My work on the apron is satisfying as a long-lasting solution to a frustrating, expensive problem.

The New Firebowl

New firebowl

The firebowl I dug and built, obscured with brush and fallen wood, was a disheartening sight because I love a nice fire for myself and guests; it's just fun to watch and poke at while enjoying adult beverages. Unable to clean it up--and I wanted it moved a couple of feet over--without a chainsaw, I hired Patrick to do it, and not only did he dig and build a handsome new bowl out of stone I'd thrown behind the garage, but chopped and stacked all the fallen and mostly rotted wood, and I will burn some as soon as it stops raining and the wind dies down and I rake for quite a radius beyond the firebowl because there's fallen oak leaves an inch thick from autumn. I don't want to catch a spark.

The property could actually use a controlled burn to eliminate briars and brushy understory, but that won't happen. Meanwhile I'd cogitated on the fact that I'll probably be home more often during this administration and entertain more people, and the firebowl is a fine enhancement as well as potentially useful.

Old firebowl

Here are "after" and "before" pictures, with the "after" picture first, because if I put the "before" first nobody would know what it was. The old firebowl was encircled partly with sawn hunks of wood and partly with concrete and stone. Patrick, camera-shy, would not pose with his handiwork.

New firebowl with woodpile

Home Improvement

It's not my house (it's rented) so I don't improve it. Has been my home for 15 consecutive years on October 1. Thought I'd celebrate by improving my daily home life.

This doesn't mean interior decoration. I'm "adecorative," if that's a word. My focus is elsewhere. Like, on my vertebrae, now 15 years older than when I moved in. Vertebrae first disqualified me from mowing the lawn with a push mower. Some years ago one of the two wooden garage doors (measuring eight feet by nine feet) I permanently shut; after wet weather it was hard to lift and a few times I wasn't able to stop its downward momentum so it slammed the concrete, one time shattering a window.The landlord replaced the window with glass that made that door even heavier. I gave up and now use only the other door; it's identical but a bit lighter.

Lifting and lowering got dicier with time. I considered leaving here solely because of the garage doors. It got so I had to raise the door using two hands and shoulder muscle I built at the gym especially for that. A recent soaking rain brought the door's weight into my danger zone. I felt it. (There's no electricity in the garage for automatic openers.) So then I lifted and lowered only once a day: morning and night. Birds flew into the gaping garage and couldn't find the way out, and, panicked, threw themselves at windows and died there.

The fault lies not with the garage door or landlord but with me, so I chose as my 15th anniversary gift to my home a new garage door, without knowing how the heck to get one. It involves people. Went to Lowe's, saw the millwork guy. He showed me samples and colors of steel doors and sent full-time garage-door installers to my house to measure. Lowe's priced the project at $830. People I told cried out at the horrible expense. True, the garage is not my property but my vertebrae are, and I decided they were worth it, because slipped disks or crushed bones cost far more. The new door will be installed within the next two weeks.

Now for home improvement all I needed was a handle to help me out of the shower. I'd been using the towel bar just outside of the shower for balance and one day pulled it out of the wall. (The landlord repaired that.)  How the heck to get one? Would somebody have to drill? No: For $11 at Walmart I got this cool suction-type handle that latches onto and grips tile. Undo the latches on the back and you can move it. That, now, is my own property. Home improvement is so satisfying.