Time's a turning, so is that screwdriver! - From the field and around the WWW
Ever feel like you don’t have enough time in the day? Me TOO!
I have personally begun a lot of new projects in the past few months. Some of these are easier to complete than others. Some seem like a never-ending journey.
When my wife and I moved into our home we purchased in August, we knew there would be a few little kinks to work out. First off was to rip out a vanity in the bathroom…it wasn’t misfunctional, just dysfunctional. The counters were very low because the people that originally built the house in 1998 had them custom built to meet their needs. My wife and I were having to bend over just to brush our teeth! That wasn’t going to work!
Fast forward a few weeks, and with the help of a few friends, the vanity was ripped out, a freestanding replacement, new light fixture, speaker in bathroom to listen to music, and then my wife says…”what about that cheap accordion door on the linen closet?” I replied, “You mean the make ship linen closet that was built when the former owners converted a bath tub to a glass block wall and tile shower and closed in the old shower as a linen closet that is non-standard size, that will be extremely hard to do anything with?” She didn’t get the challenge I was putting forth in my super long explanation to say that I didn’t think that I could do anything about it.
Fast-forward about a month…new linen closet door ordered, framed in, and a huge mess as I tried to match up the existing drywall, framing, flooring, and so on. Job completed! Now time to move on to something else…I chose painting a room or two. I am pretty good at painting…except for these walls.
The walls in this house had been painted over multiple times since inception of the house. The last few times was a not-so-good coverage with a latex full satin or eggshell base. It literally shines…and peels right off (when you don’t want it to). So, fast forward a month or two…bedroom painted…bathroom painted (still need touch up and clean up…the parts my wife complains that I am not so good at). Then….while I am working on another project in the TGOC office, I decide that the color of blue that we are painting some rooms at the office would look exceptionally well in our kitchen….so, paint buckets, brushes, rollers all go home with me for the weekend. Bam! New paint job practically finished in two days….wait…that wall has a ton of blemishes. Get out the spackle…sand…paint again. Oh no! I got trim paint on the wall…no problem, touch up…now I have wall paint on the trim.
Turning to admire the non-professional painting work that I had completed, the backsplash was screaming to have some tile placed on it. Saturday night, 4 o’clock. Lowes is open! Sunday night, amateur tiling work is complete except for grout. Then…clean up.
Fast-forward two weeks. Clean up is still pending, but painting tools are all removed from the kitchen, grout is finished, sealant applied, satisfaction almost for me…not so much for my wife who is still grading my trim, touch up and clean up. Abigail comes home from Freed-Hardeman for the weekend. She brings her roommates sister home so they can work at an event. All is great. Enjoying sitting down not having to worry about paint, bathrooms, closets, and tile. Julie (Abbi’s friend) is staying in the guest room and has a bathroom next to it that she would utilize during her stay.
Sunday morning rolls around. I am drinking my coffee, studying my lessons for the day to preach, look up and in the middle of the kitchen appears this very unusual item coming from the ceiling…WATER! It was just a small drip, but I soon realized that the upstairs bathroom is directly over that area…uh oh! Typically, we do not use that bathroom except when our grandkids or company comes over to stay. So, we had no idea of any problems with it. After running up and down and up and down trying to align where the water was coming from, I discovered that the tub was the culprit. Went to worship, came home, poked a hole in the ceiling to allow about a half-gallon of water to evacuate, then went to assess the damage. It was the drainage pipes. They were dripping at the drain for the tub.
Easy fix! So I thought. I began to disassemble the drain pipes to realize that the plumbing was breaking as I was trying to remove the culprit piece. So….cut open the opposing wall more and start to cut out drain pipes…one thing after another led to me telling Kristie…”well, we wanted to update that bathroom anyway, so I am going to rip out the tub and start all over. One piece shower/tub, fiberglass, had to cut it in about 30 pieces to get it out. No worries…right? Built the plumbing…went to Lowes…no tubs that size. Called a plumbing distributor…no tubs in stock that size. Checked two towns over…no tubs in stock. Finally found one just a few days ago. Installed it! Began tiling the shower around it! Feeling pretty good about this project…
Until…I turned the water on to check my handy work. Water went all over the place! Small piece of the ceiling fell, and cold water line ruptured while I was standing in the tub. I plug the hole with my finger….it was forced out of the shower to complete an unwanted cold shower for the night.
Well…I think I have the plumbing right now. I have blue PVC glue all over my hands as I type this. I have built the drain three times now and I hope that I did not miss any rough spots this time…time will tell. But, here’s the thing…
While I have been working on the plumbing, I have also been tiling the shower. I have taken multiple pictures to show off the work that looks great. The fellas at the local hardware store are the only ones who have seen my pictures of my horrible plumbing job that has failed multiple times. What’s my point?
Isn’t life kind of like that? We want to “show-off” the good parts of life, but not so much the bad? You see, when we were born, we were perfect - at least spiritually speaking. But things changed. We grew in age, knowledge, and stature. We sort of outgrew our innocence and may have had to lean over a bit just so see what kind of mess we had. Over time, we may have become brittle much like my plumbing of 23 years. We have probably failed and caused a lot of damage to those around us. And maybe…WE tried to lean on our own understandings on how to fix things…when in reality, we may not have the proper knowledge, or used the true option to “fix it.”
That’s kind of where I have been for the past several months in this “remodel” of a great house. We watch some of those fixer-upper shows and I grab a bit of knowledge here and there and tell Kristie…”I am gonna do that one day.” She always knows that the “one day” may end up being tomorrow with me. But, I take that leap without first weighing the costs, and just spend as I go until I realize I could have hired someone cheaper that knew what they were doing. Or, I break something else that was working great when I was trying to fix the other.
Am I referring to physical projects now…or spiritual? Sometimes the two can get quite close to each other in this aspect. I have to realize that God knows best of how to help me, and that sometimes, instead of just running to a “quick fix,” I need to take out my copy of the word of God and seek answers (1 Tim 2:15). I need to ask for help for spiritual matters (James 5:16). I need to submit my life to God in the “fixing” of all spiritual ailments (Phil 4:6-7).
Remodeling is fun and rewarding…if we know how to do what we are trying to do, and look for expertise in the right place!
~Joey
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