A week and a half ago, I helped my in-laws with a long distance move. After spending 12 hours on the road, crashing for the night in a hotel room was welcome relief. It was when I was laying on the hotel bed staring at the ceiling hoping my spine would realign itself that I realized that home renovating is not something you do… it becomes a part of you.
In the hotel room, after a long day on the road, most people would notice the cleanliness, or lack thereof, of the room and how comfortable or uncomfortable the bed was. Most people would surf the television channels looking for a newscast or a favorite show. But as I lay on the bed, it was the joints in the drywall that first got my attention. And I thought to myself, “I can do a better job than that.”
Details…
I know I am not alone in this. When you spend any amount of time figuring out how to do something yourself, you are usually curious as to how someone else did the same thing. Here are just a few of the details that have recently caught my attention:
- On the Whitewater Walk on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, in addition to admiring the raw power of Mother Nature, I was looking to see how the railing was attached to the boardwalk.
- When helping a co-worker dig post holes for his deck, we walked down the street, looking at the construction of other decks and fences. THIS was perfectly normal, as we were making direct comparisons to a current project.
- My wife and I sometimes go antiquing. I especially enjoy looking at old furniture, and the Norm Abram in me is always looking at the joinery, and the general craftsmanship of any piece of furniture. Often these antique stores are in old buildings or barns, and I usually end up paying as much attention to the structure of the building as I do to its contents.
- In a restaurant, whether fast food or otherwise, I notice things like the floor tiles (design, colour, layout), light fixtures, wall coverings and moldings.
- Driving down the road at 50 miles per hour, I will glance at the houses I pass, and either wonder about or observe things like the number of roof vents, and the size of the soffits. Is it 2×4 or 2×6 construction? I wonder how well it’s insulated?
- In someone else’s home or apartment, I am renovating in my head– either applying their ideas to my own house, or picturing how I would renovate their house if I owned it.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not obsessed. I am usually only distracted for a couple of seconds. If I am sitting on someone’s deck having a beer, I am paying attention to the conversation. But, just like a lot of people will peel the label off of a beer bottle when there is a lull in the conversation, I will glance down to see whether the deck boards are 1 inch or two inch, and whether they are attached with screws or nails….
