1262 Habitat

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

I went to the Habitat for Humanity house today. There was a man there, Charlie Somebody, who was "in charge", and two girls, I don't know what age, maybe even high school. Nobody else. Whoa! Nobody. Isn't there supposed to be a future homeowner doing sweat equity? Where are the other volunteers? Weren't there supposed to be lots of retired able-bodied men for me to meet?

I got the impression the girls were interning in construction or something. They were being paid a few dollars a day, and they got scheduled timed breaks, and went to "the center" (?) for lunch. They've been working on the house all along. They couldn't understand why I was doing this for free. Apparently volunteers are rare.

I got assigned to spackle the upstairs bathroom.

I had a short stepladder, a cordless drill with a Phillips screwdriver bit, and the spackle and tools. The sheetrock job was BAD! Huge gaps, holes, screws sticking out all over, edges that don't seem to be in the same plane, wavy corners. The sheets had been badly cut, and badly sized - one sheet would be screwed straight into the joist, and the next missed the joist so the screws were at a 45 degree angle to catch the joist. One of the girls told me about the guy who did it, "That's his business. He does sheetrock all the time." I didn't say it, but my thought was that if anyone did that to MY bathroom, we'd be in small claims court discussing the fact that I refuse to pay him. Frankly, I could do it better myself (except maybe for the ceiling). At least I'd know enough to put shims on the joists to line up the surface.

So, anyway, I had to work with what existed. The first thing I had to do was tighten down all the screws so that the heads were slightly below the surface. Sounded easy, what with the power screwdriver.

Not easy.

Bathroom sheetrock is not the same as in other rooms. Most of the walls and the ceiling had a very hard green stuff (the inside of it was not the softish chalky stuff I'm used to, it was very hard, you couldn't even scratch it), and around the tub it was a beige-gray, which was filled with CONCRETE!

I tried to tighten the screws down, and even leaning my shoulder into the drill, the bit just went bump-bump-bump in the grooves of the screw heads, threatening to strip them. I finally figured out that what I had to do was back out the screw, and then wiggle it around in the opening to chew a hole big enough to accept the head. Then I could put the screw back in, and it would tighten into below the surface.

When it came to the concrete stuff, there was no way. The Charlie guy said he'd bring in a concrete bit tomorrow to cut an inset (there's a name for that, but I forget) so the screws could be tightened in.

The screws alone took hours, and the cordless drill was heavy, especially when doing the ceiling. Corded drills are so much lighter! My right shoulder aches.

I like spackling. I'm also very good at it. One of the first things I learned about spackling is that the worst, ickiest, nastiest, dirtiest, hardest part is sanding it when it's dry, and then cleaning up the dust from the sanding. Plus, sanding roughs up the paper around the spackled spots. So I spackle so neatly that it needs almost no sanding. My spackled spots look sanded! I do three thin coats, the first to fill the hole, the second to fill after shrinkage, and the third to feather. It's important to use the full surface of the knife very flat against the wall. I use a damp finger to smooth any tiny rough spots. When you lay your head against a wall I've spackled and look across, you won't see any bumps or high spots.

I'm rather proud of the job I did today.
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