Three weeks ago I had the exterior of my house pressure-washed.
At the time, I thought it was good idea because my house, thanks to a summer that hadn’t produced that much rain since Noah built his ark, sprouted a variety of fungi in a rainbow of colors.
But once the guy arrived and started the actual pressure-washing procedure, I rapidly began to regret my decision.
For one thing, my house has a big farmer’s porch with white railings surrounding it – and those railings have exactly 100 slats. The minute the jet-propelled blast of water hit them, the area resembled a snow globe. White flecks of paint flew everywhere, like a blizzard, and landed on the grass, the driveway, and probably on a couple of crows in a nearby tree.
Even the walnut stain on the porch floor and steps wasn’t spared from the attack. By the time the washing was done, most of the stain had been blasted off into the stratosphere, leaving patches of bare wood behind in sort of a checkerboard pattern.
The carnage continued on the garage, where the wooden frame around the side door not only lost paint, it also lost chunks of wood.
As I stood and stared at the mess, wondering how I was going to get rid of the zillion chips of white paint all over my lawn (drag out the Hoover?), the guy who did the power washing asked me if I had a hammer, a ladder and some roof tacks.
Call me a pessimist, but that didn’t sound too promising.
He explained, in a voice that sounded calm and unfazed, that a section on the edge of the porch roof was sagging and he just wanted to tack it back up.
But when he climbed up there, I could tell by his expression his next words weren’t going to be anything I actually wanted to hear.
“There's nothing to tack it to,” he called down from the ladder. “The beam behind the siding is gone.”
“Where’d it go?” I asked, thinking it probably also had been launched somewhere up into the trees with the crows.
I hadn’t expected that answer.
“I have a friend who’s a retired carpenter," he said. "I'll send him over to check it out.”
I’m still waiting.
Meanwhile, I bought some paint, a scraper, sandpaper and brushes so I could repaint the railings. It’s been a slow process because every time it rains, I have to wait three or four days for the wood to dry out again. And it rains often. So I currently have 50 more slats to tackle.
And to be honest, I’d rather fling my naked body into a field of poison ivy than do any more painting. So, with luck, those remaining slats just might get done by 2026.
Anyway, common sense told me my priority should be to find and call a handyman, contractor, carpenter, or whatever, and get the sagging roof portion of the porch roof repaired before snow season…which, in New Hampshire, could be tomorrow.
The thought of a lot of heavy snow piling up on something with a rotted-away beam that could cause my roof to cave in made me feel, well…desperate…to the point where I was willing to settle for a kid from an industrial-arts class or maybe even a beaver (hey, they construct pretty solid dams, don’t they?) to repair the sag.
When I mentioned the problem to one of my good friends, she said her husband, who has done quite a bit of carpentry work, would come take a look at the porch and maybe be able to fix it for me. I thought my prayers had been answered.
Alas, when he climbed the ladder, peeked behind the siding on my porch and let out a groan, my high hopes came crashing down.
“It’s not just a beam that’s rotted," he said, reaching underneath the siding and flinging what looked like pieces of year-old steak onto the ground. "The plywood all the way up to the roof is gone, disintegrated. I’m so sorry, but it’s too big of a job for me to handle."
He said his brother, however, knew a retired construction worker named John who might be able to do it at a reasonable price, and he’d have him contact me.
John called me that same night and sounded very gung-ho about the job. He said his two sons also were in construction and would come with him to check things out. And even though they all were really busy, he said they would make time for my job because it sounded like something that shouldn't wait. He gave me all of his contact information and even his sons' names, and said he’d get right back to me and let me know the exact time they would be over.
That was two weeks ago.
I called him and left a messages. Still no response.
So I did an online search for other carpenters and handymen, and also asked a couple of my neighbors if they could recommend someone. I ended up with two more names to contact.
Meanwhile, I found out that one of John's sons was out on bail after being arrested for pawning stolen jewelry, so that might explain why he never got back to me. And one of the two remaining guys on my list had his many 5-star reviews removed from Yelp when it was discovered his glowing reports all had originated from the same computer.
That left only a guy one of my neighbors recommended.
 |
| PIECES OF THE PLYWOOD FROM UNDER THE SIDING |
So I called him and he said he’ll be here this afternoon.
If he does show up, I have my fingers crossed he will have encouraging news for me and will be able to do the work within my meager (a.k.a. pretty pathetic) budget.
If not, I guess I will just have to hope for a snow-free winter.
Or an available beaver.
# # #
Sally Breslin is
a native New Englander and an award-winning syndicated humor columnist who has
written regularly for newspapers and magazines all of her adult life. She is
the author of several novels in a variety of genres, from humor and romance to
science-fiction. Contact her at: sillysally@att.net
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