Connect • Contribute • Care

I’m very familiar with cover-ups—I own a 110-year old house.

Its exact age is hotly debated between my wife Libby and me. She says it was built in 1885; I’m thinking more like 1890s.  To keep our marriage healthy, we avoid the topic, but I think it’s safe to tell you that I am right.

Anyway, the craft of Home Improvement is child’s play compared to the real art of CoverUpManship, which any zealous old homeowner is familiar with. For example, when I moved my home onto it’s new foundation, just before the winter of 1996-7 (very bad if you remember), I thought I would save a few bucks and leave the cement basement walls unfinished.

Then the blizzard(s) hit.  The propane man started calling me by my first name on his weekly visits, and curtains in the living room flapped in the cool winter breeze.

So the cover-up began: I had better cover up those basement walls pronto!

This we did, with cheap 2 by 4’s and bat insulation, far into the night, like panicky sailors patching and bailing during a hurricane. This worked for 7 years, until Libby (rather forcefully) mentioned that a lot of people cover up their insulation with drywall.

Now the cover-up gets dicey.  By sighting along the warped, and helter-skelter studs, I realized that any outside professional brought in to finish the basement would sneer with disdain and say something like “This looks like it was thrown up in 8 hours in a blizzard”.  So I covered it up myself with drywall. 

Now the bare walls ripple like potato chips with bulges of chip dip sagging from the joints. Soooo... I cleverly hung stuff on the walls to draw the eye away from the compounding mistakes (as in Cover-Up).

Now the final stages of cover-up involved mood lighting (which means 5 watt bulbs) and a sworn pact among family members to Never Let Others Into The Basement During Daylight Hours.

This column could easily be a multi-part cover-up series about my whole house, which would include:

• Leaky Kitchen Ceiling cover-up
• Plastic Toboggan in the Attic to Catch More Leaks cover-up
• How do we deal with the Sloping Floor in the Dining Room cover-up?
  (and the all encompassing)
• Why is there not a Single 90 Degree Angle in this Whole House cover-up?

If you ever happen to visit our house, you will see us all standing around nervously in front of various flaws, hazards, and ill-fated patch jobs.
We will then give you the bums rush and toss you out as quickly as we can.  As the door is slammed, locked, and bolted shut during your departure—Please don’t look up at the porch roof.

I haven’t had a chance to cover it up yet

Sincerely, Jeff Gould

Besides Jeff's humor -- If you are looking for dentist blogging, dental Blogs and dentistry web blog, this is the blog for you. We are a Dental Blog with heart and humor!