When you’re a DIY-er by economic default, there’s always something to do around the house. Where other, better-heeled folks hire painters and carpenters, we roll up the sleeves of our worn denim work shirts and dive in. Last Saturday was typical of the purgatory that’s come to represent home ownership for my husband and I, eight years into the Great American Dream.
The children left some crayons on the deck a while back, which–when we failed to pick them up in time–melted into an ooo-ey, gooey puddle that refused all attempts to be contained. Noticing the waxy mess all over our expensive IPE decking, we yelled and stamped our feet, then left it alone for the better part of a year. Last Saturday, the damaged deck moved to the top of our to-do list at last.
We unscrewed the ruined planks and flipped them. The underside was wax-free, though stained at the joist joints by weather and time. We noticed that various boards all over the deck had become swayed and warped, so with a crowbar and some elbow grease, we straightened each and reattached them with special, kryptonite screws.
Now, because of the inverted boards and because we’d never actually finished the dumb deck in the first place, the whole thing needed sanding. On hands and knees, one pair of kneepads between us, the sanding commenced. And continued. It went on. Inch by terrible inch. It was torture. But as bad as the sanding portion of our fun-filled Saturday was, it looked like Christmas next to what came after: sealing the deck with linseed oil. By the time we finished at nearly seven o’clock, I looked like a scoliosis victim and smelled of Iranian crude; my husband looked like the letter Z and smelled worse. We hobbled to the shower making unfortunate middle- aged noises, and then flopped on the bed, utterly wrecked.
“It’s date night,” he reminded me, his voice little more than a croak.
“Cold wine drunk straight from the bottle with a straw?” I offered.
“Solid, baby.” Even though I was technically paralyzed and unable to turn my head, I could hear the smile in his voice. Who says romance and home ownership are mutually exclusive?
