Duct tape, spackle and pray for good weather

By guest writer and project co-conspirator Matt Davis

After months or structural work, framing and endless decisions, the end of the project is in sight. Like the horizon, we can see it but it never seems to get closer. Today, as The Call once sang, “And the walls came down.”

We have exorcised most of the demons, cast upon the home by nefarious owners of the past who learned framing in a gravity-free environment.

In Kurt Vonnegut’s very funny Slapstick, the earth’s gravity fluctuates over eons, being unusually stable in the 20th Century. The story says this is how ancient people with no engines could build Stonehenge and the Pyramids, simply carrying great boulders and placing them.

Gravity must have also been on the lighter side in 1959 and 1997, when former owners Commodore Scrapwood and Dr. Coverup, respectively, slapped broken sticks and rusty nails on our home and quickly left town. At the end of Slapstick, the gravity fluctuations occur more quickly, with the last inhabitants of Manhattan Island alternating between crawling along and skipping lightly with boners. Like living through a remodel.

The latest demon (we’ll call him “Mitt Romney”) reared his darkened coif today when the builder installed windows. Pulling out the old windows on one side of the house took part of the wall with it and unveiled a rotten, termite-damaged wood sillplate. This section had been carefully covered up when the good Doctor did his 1997 space walk/remodel.

Luckily, a large crew of framers (we’ll call them “Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton and Franklin”) were on site and rebuilt the wall. We’re awaiting a large bill. Later this week, the siding starts.

Who knows which demon still lurks behind those walls? Not sure, but I know we’ll call her “Sarah Palin.”