What’s something you have to do regularly that you really don’t enjoy? I’m tiling my final bathroom here and painting the ceiling………and the prep work–taping plastic, covering outlets, etc–just gets on my nerves. I’m usually too impatient to want to do it right and wanna rush through so I get to the fun stuff. Really have to force myself to slow down. But still don’t like it.
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Getting out of bed and going to work.
___________________________________________
paying bills and doing taxes ranks right down there for me.
Excellence is its own reward!
PAINTING!
It lists under active septic tank crack repair. Lower than whale sh!t.
i agreee i built an orangery with 78 georgian panes of glass last year.
it needed 2 coats of paint inside and out!!!!
drove me mad
aleks
Cleaning out and organizing my truck at the end of the day ( or job ). I have a bad habit of tossing my tools in my van at quitting time without actually putting them back where they belong. The next day, I'm always annoyed with myself for not taking the 5 or 10 minutes necessary to arrainge things so I can start work without hunting for the tools I need to start with. After 28 years, you'd think I would start learning from my mistakes!
anything involving being near the edge of the roof, or working off a ladder 20+ feet in the air for too long.
Me and heights don't mix, but we seem to be getting better acquainted with each other lately.
Never be afraid to try something new. Remember, amateurs built the ark, Professionals built the Titanic.
CAG, I'm not fond of heights, either. Don't know if this might help you, but I always remind myself as I begin to move around when I'm up on a ladder or similar that GRAVITY IS ALWAYS STRAIGHT DOWN (in other words it's not so much different than moving around on the ground). May sound crazily simple, but somehow it helps me relax and do whatever needs to be done...Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a carpenter to build one.
Joe,
GRAVITY IS ALWAYS STRAIGHT DOWN Yeah, thats the problem lol
I just try to not focus to much on it, just enough to keep in mind where my feet are in relation to the edge of the roof, if I can do that I'm fine If I start thinking about that 20 foot drop to solid ground I just pull back for a moment.
I fell off a single story a while back, before that I was fine, since then It's been interesting ;)
Seems to be going away as of late.
Never be afraid to try something new. Remember, amateurs built the ark, Professionals built the Titanic.
Seems to be going away as of late.
Long as the feelings of fright and paronoia go away youre ok cause when you actually hurt yourself at a young age as I did about five years ago.....lol... stepping off a ladder and right down through the floor joists (dumb azz helper pulled out a sheet of ply below the left edge of my ladder foot) and seriously twisting my ankle.......
Well it healed fine till a few years later and now every once in a while I hobble outta bed each morning for a few minutes.....Older age brings memories back to injured bones it seems.
Did I say......Be well?
andy
In his first interview since the stroke, Ram Dass, 66, spoke with great difficulty about how his brush with death has changed his ideas about aging, and how the recent loss of two old friends, Timothy Leary and Allen Ginsberg, has convinced him that now, more than ever, is the time to ``Be Here Now.''
http://CLIFFORDRENOVATIONS.COM
What helps me is the orange nylon line, rope grab, and full body harness. I use it with the grab in the locked-on mode, and set it so that I'm pulling against the harness to reach the edge of the roof. There's something about pulling like that that makes me feel safe.
-- J.S.
Sanding mud, but I would have to say that over the years I've become good enough not to have to do to much of it.
I'm with you. Masking takes all the fun out. I'd much rather have my finger on the trigger than on a tape roll. Same goes for DW sanding, ladders, and anything at all remotely resembling a plumbers job.
"The child is grown / The dream is gone / And I have become / Comfortably numb " lyrics by Roger Waters
Scraping sheet vinyl off a concrete slab before laying ceramic tile.
Do it right, or do it twice.
yup. you win
"The child is grown / The dream is gone / And I have become / Comfortably numb " lyrics by Roger Waters
rent a "Sabre" floor stripper try it you'll like it
1. Installing rake boards without full frontal scaffolding
2. Installing new sinks in old kitchen counters unless the HO has emptied the under-counter space first
3. Scraping painted decks/floors for re-painting
4. ESTIMATING!!!!!!
Dinosaur
'Y-a-tu de la justice dans ce maudit monde?
Haven't done this regularly for a while but roof tear offs. Especially those 3 layer jobs which I figure have bought me alot of time out of purgatory.
Recently and regulary tearing out plaster and lathe.
I'm with you on painting.
Seems to be okay after a while when my brain has gone kind of numb...but the thought of set-up, prep, painting, and clean-up...
Ugh.
That said, I do enjoy the end result of a nicely painted room, and watching a good painter casually cut in a perfect line always ticks me off...in a good way, though.<g>
Still, I'll probably always wield a brush.
What do I absolutely despise doing, and avoid whenever possible, which means almost always?
Hanging sheetrock.
Could be that I use 12' sheets of 5/8ths, though...
oh, yeah, I forgot about that--hanging gyprock on ceilings. I think I'd rather fix a busted septic system.Dinosaur
'Y-a-tu de la justice dans ce maudit monde?
>I'm with you on painting.
I got lucky with this yesterday. Was using a hopper gun with synthetic stucco in a room. Had perfectly taped the walls. But lots of the synth gets on the plastic and makes it heavy. Finished and left the room. Came back in 15 min to check on it and the plastic had come down from the weight and was in a perfect little ball in the middle of the floor--not a single streak of paint anywhere as it fell!
You got lucky. If that had happened to me, one edge would have stuck fast, and the whole mess would have swung against a wall then slid down, ruining everything.
Do it right, or do it twice.
Handing the Client, the bill. Ever so slowly, it becomes easier. It's the money thing, something I consider, to be a nessasary evil. When people ask me " How much is it gonna cost" anymore, I tell them "Costs lots of money". Jim J
OH Man! handing over that bill is one of my favorite things!
It mean's that it's time for desert and compliments all around. Almost as much fun as depositing the check.
Actuially, my last two jobs have involved sceduled progress payments at preset intervals with accompanying statements sent via e-mail. Totally painfree both ways because they knew what to expect and I knew how to budget. Like grass geting green, it just naturally happened..
Excellence is its own reward!
The prep work before the actual job....I just want to get on with the actual job.
The prep work is actually "most" of the work and something most people don't actually see or realize........hey, you think this life is prep work for the next one....ok ok sorry, there I go again.
Be here now....lol
andy
In his first interview since the stroke, Ram Dass, 66, spoke with great difficulty about how his brush with death has changed his ideas about aging, and how the recent loss of two old friends, Timothy Leary and Allen Ginsberg, has convinced him that now, more than ever, is the time to ``Be Here Now.''
http://CLIFFORDRENOVATIONS.COM
Fixing other people's fark-ups!!!!!!!!
Listening to incompetant people's excuses.
Having to do things the hard way because of lack of fore-sight.
Anything to do with asphalt shingles.
" " " " insulation
" " " " paint
" " " " roofing tar
" " " " crawl spaces
" " " " being dishonest!!
Give me some time, there are certainly more!!
Mr T
Do not try this at home!
I am an Experienced Professional!
1. Attending our weekly operations meeting. This meeting should stick to the meeting agenda, be productive, and last no more than one hour. Instead, it usually runs 3 1/2 to 4 hours! (I'd rather be painting!)
2. Dealing with whiners (our painting and plumbing subcontractors are both this way).
3. Running errands. (I'd rather be masking)
Taking care of my pooch's *ahem*...Klingons.
Mike
I don't do it regularly, but I've always disliked footing and foundation work. I want to start a house at the sill plates!
I spent most of three summers working outside in the Phoeniz, AZ area. Framing I love, but nothing is fun when it's 115 degrees and sunny.
Also:
Insulating over my head.
Scraping and preping an old house for paint.
Anything with extreme dust.
Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a carpenter to build one.
Hi Jim,
Garfield here, worst I've had to do was a 'punch' list that included removing, from the inside of the gable end vent, bat 'guano'!!!!!!!!!!!
PS: hope the vino survived the trip, how is it?
Let's not confuse the issue with facts!
Edited 7/20/2003 9:38:23 PM ET by GDCARPENTER
Edited 7/20/2003 9:40:18 PM ET by GDCARPENTER
Hey there Garfield,
Survived just fine. The 99 is as we remember...yum. The 2000 is noticeably different. Don't care as much for it, but DW likes it better than her alternatives here, so...
At any rate, it's loads better than bat guano!
Cheers...
Prep is a beast, and as you said, sometimes much of the work. IMO tearout is worse, and installing anything on a ceiling is a killer. That said, I sure miss the workout I got from that labor.
Does plaster/lath removal rate in the top ten dirty-dirt jobs? Then there's the cleanup and carryout (if you can't throw it out the window). It has been a gift that keeps giving (bronchitus) a few times.
Like someone else said PAINTING I hate painting...
Darkworks: No Guns No Butter squilla and the bling bling.
I'm with you - Tearing out old plaster and lathe has got to be one of the worst, dustiest, messiest jobs. Seems like you can never get every last little piece out of every nook and crannie, either. Stuff keeps falling out on you.
Running a honey wagon would be right up there, too. Most of the time it wasn't too bad. But once in a while one of the hoses would plug up and you'd have to take stuff apart. Major disgusting.Business conventions are important because they demonstrate how many people a company can operate without.
Installing a GD dryer vent! Those dryer vent manufacturers ought to be strangled for leaving about 1/4" to attach the slinky dryer vent to (+ the 1/4" is inset!!) . MY goodness I am positive I could designe a better way to do it.
Use a store bought adaptor and stick that on first. Piece of cake. That will free you up to come do some painting.
dryers or fart fans.
I got to do some of that muttering last thursday.
Excellence is its own reward!
Well, I just got to do one of my least favourites: patching a popcorn ceiling. Cleaning up around the repair site is messy enough, but glooping that slurry of texture and mud with about 1/2 not sticking and raining down on you is just plain awful. The drop-sheet is covered in the stuff, my ladder is covered, my Carhartts are covered, and there's a bunch in my hair..
Phill Giles
The Unionville Woodwright
Unionville, Ontario
my number 1.5 is drywall....anything part of it.....aside from a small patch.
but you reminded me of number 1 ....
job I'm hoping to finish next week....
bid it after poking around some walls....both GC and me thought aside from the shower areas of the 2 baths.....everything else was rock over rock lath. Easy.."that'll come out in nice big pieces"......
Come to find only one wall in each bath/BR was rock lath...
the rest was the same as the shower....
1 1/2" thick plaster over razor wire mesh.
came out in little tiny pieces.....most with drops of knuckle blood on them!
Only weighed about 3 times what I guessed ...only took about 3 times longer too!
3 times dusty/dirtier ...did I mention that yet?
All....so I could put up ........drywall!
JeffBuck Construction Pittsburgh,PA
Fine Carpentery.....While U Waite
I'm on "vacation" this month. Saturday I stripped three layers of asphalt shingles off the back of my house. By the end I was sure that it was my least favorite job. Then I cleaned it all up....that takes the cake.
Old boss of mine had us demo the interior of a house once with blown in insulation in the attic. He insisted we just rip the rock down from the ceiling without cleaning out the attic first..."I'm not paying you guys to clean up this place twice!". Was about 90 degrees with 97% humidity when we did it. Looked like abominable snowmen by the time we were done. Also left us there with no trash bags/barrel or dust masks. Nice guy.
What an SOB!.
Excellence is its own reward!
My least favorite task is when you go to finally walk your patient they decide that it is time for the bowel movement thingy and you are at least 40 feet away from the bathroom AND they will take at least another 10 min. to get there. OH THE CLEAN UP!!!!
OH you aren't talking about physical therapy you are talking about construction. Forgive me I forgot where I was.
My LEAST favorite is taking wallpaper off 100 year old beadboard. The wallpaper is four layers thick. The bottom two layers are at least 60 years old. I HATE this job with a passion. Still have a ceiling to do and the bottom two layers of one room. The second runner up is painting. I just am not the best at this job. I have tried and tried to tell Lars not to put me on a painting project.Tamara
You could clean up with the old wallpaper. Sortta fitting for the job.
Piffin
I think your being way to kind.
Doug
re - the prep work--taping plastic, covering outlets, etc--just gets on my nerves.
-------
Same here.
Been doing this at a rental house I've been toiling away at.
But I have one that is absolutely the worst as far as uncomfortable and awkward repetitive motions - washing and rinsing the kitchen and bath walls/ceilings with....TSP.
Just did this for the first time TODAY and I would feel guilty even if I paid someone else good money to do it.
Even after getting into a good routine with a helper, it is absolutely the worst task ever.
I may even opt to spend time in the hot attic running wires rather then washing and rinsing the ceilings.
Another miserable task is mowing the lawn (it takes nearly two hours) while being swarmed by gnats and other insects, which has been pretty bad this year with all the rain we've been getting.
But I took care of that problem by wearing a military bug netting over my hat.