The Work Will Teach You

It's been a while, so I will start off with a quote that sets the tone of what I am encountering...

"The true test of character is not how much we know how to do but how we behave when we don't know what to do." ~ John Holt ~

My instincts tell me to start at the top and work down, however, the final bit of demo that needs to be done is removing the ceramic tile in the bathroom and the front & back entries (because it is so slippery when wet and some are cracked). So, "to finish the demo" won out and I started on the bathroom - a small enough room I surmised. In my mind I envisioned chipping it off with a chisel and a hammer and each 2"x2" square would just pop off at the least prompting . . . which turned out to be impossibly unrealistic!

"To the man who has only a hammer in his toolkit every problem looks like a nail." ~Abraham Maslow~

So, off to Home Depot I went and bought a tool specifically designed to pry off ceramic tiles (it might have worked had the installer not used so much cement) and my brother brought over a sledge hammer and a pick axe. The sledge hammer just bounced off the surface for four or five blows and then finally crumbled a small area into dust. My muscle endurance will not improve rapidly enough for me to use that method (maybe later). The pick axe puts out an amazing array of sparks at each strike and requires as many blows to chip off a small portion. So, that was relegated to the realm of the sledge hammer. What works? The plain old hammer after all. Without the chisel of course. Just double hand the hammer and apply each hit at a slant a couple inches from the edge and smash them off! This required another trip to Home Depot (also useful for the functioning restroom, which my house has not as yet) to buy safety glasses, work gloves, knee pads and face mask for the dust and flying debris. (Water tastes awful when you've been breathing in dust...).

So, now I'm making progress and I celebrate each row as it's swept up and thrown into the bin. Did I consider hiring out? Sure! I'm human ... But this house is mine to renovate. My intention was to do as much of it myself as is legally possible (electrical and plumbing mandate certified tradesmen). But I intended that all the rest was mine ...

"We can do anything if we stick to it long enough." ~Helen Keller~

Who knows? Maybe I'll build some muscle! And, I'm already sleeping better because I'm actually tired! So, there are side benefits. I couldn't find the quote I was thinking of, but it was something like.... "Just start the work and the work will teach you."