Be thankful, be grateful, be patient, be charitable, be kind, and don’t forget to smile, as it is infectious.
Hmm! This is a difficult one, as over the past 50 years, and in three different homes, there have been many instances. I’ve installed wainscoting in two houses and refinished old kitchen cabinets. I painted and spackled more walls in my lifetime than my dad and grandfather (a painter/paperhanger by trade) would be proud of, and to know the craft still runs in the family. I’ve done, cement, minor plumbing, stonework, fixed broken windows, plastered and drywalled, carpentry and trim work, put in gardens, replaced the trim board on both the house and garage, built a deck, made an attic bedroom over four weeks’ vacation, installed drywall, insulation, and electrical, etc. (with the help of siblings and friends). The normal things that come with homeownership, that you learn to either DIY or write the check.
That said, we’ve been in this, our last house, for about 8 years, and it didn’t need much done inside. However, I did manage to design and install a Pennsylvania blue slate patio with our two eldest grandsons. I then built an 8′ picnic table from the two oak pallets the slate came on for our ever-growing family. A year later, with the help of my daughter Kate, I installed a fire pit, put in 6 posts and a canopy for shade, and built 6 benches to complete the ensemble.
However, my most cherished individual project was when I refinished an antique Jacobean-style carved oak/walnut China cabinet that was in my wife’s family since the 1920”s. I painstakingly removed years of stains and polish. I refinished it in a tungsten oil finish. Another note of interest for my son Michael’s graduation project: 27 years ago, we built a treated-wood bench that he still has on his front porch. We used only a hand drill, a circular saw, and a jigsaw, and glued all the joints and slats with wood dowels.
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