When we knocked down the kitchen ceiling that was ready to tumble down heavy chunks of plaster filled the air with dust and grit. It took several days to clean the house.
Then we carried in heavy sheets of plasterboard. “We must be very careful not to knock the corners against anything.” Bill said in his most patient, husbandly voice. Off we went from the front porch to the kitchen. “Gosh, this is heavy,” I said as I stumbled into the kitchen and dropped my end. “You just knocked off a corner,” Bill said.
I asked how we were going to get the sheets of plasterboard up to the nine-foot-tall ceiling. “Don’t worry. I have a plan.” (A phrase that I had heard ad nauseum!) He dragged in a “T” made from two-by-fours. “I’ll climb the ladder and hold a sheet against the ceiling. You hoist the other end up with the “T,” and I’ll nail it in place.”
He went up the ladder. “Now!” he yelled. “Get the “T” under it! Hurry!” It was impossible to hurry with a heavy nine-foot two-by-four “T.” “Hurry!” he moaned. “I’m hurrying.” He shrieked, “Get it straight!” It wobbled.
“I’m not strong enough.” (A phrase that I’m still using till this day.) Husband, plasterboard and “T” made a rapid descent. Leaning against the wall, he said quietly, “It was my intent that you lift your end and brace it rather than knocking me off the ladder with my cross.” We started over: “Hurry!” “I can’t!” “You have to!” “I simply cannot manage this ‘T.’ I’ll be the beast of burden.”
Weak-kneed, I went up the ladder. “Are you O.K., hon?” “Don’t talk to me — just hurry!” I yelled. Bill nailed the sheet. I stumbled up the ladder with the third sheet that had one inch cut off to fit. I held my end against the ceiling with my head since my arms were as limp as spaghetti. One end overlapped the preceding board.
“It doesn’t fit.” “Push it over.” I pushed. “No good.” “It has to fit!” he roared. “It doesn’t fit.” He joined me on the ladder and sighed. “It’s a quarter of an inch too wide at this end. The wall is crooked.” (There’s no such thing as a straight line in an old house.)
Every sheet thereafter had to be taken up, marked, taken back down and trimmed. During our torment in the 90 degree heat, neighbor Linda brought in lemonade. “I thought you guys could use this right about now.” I was grateful, but suspected that she’d come to gloat over my agony as I’d done when she helped her husband, a professional floor covering installer, lay a new kitchen floor. “Dammit, Linda, you’ve tracked adhesive all over the new tiles!”
Our worst argument came when Bill decided to move a cedar wardrobe down from the attic and make a playhouse for Vicki. “We’ll never get it down these narrow stairs.” “Oh yes we can!” “It’s too heavy.” “Don’t let it slip!” “I can’t hold it much longer.” “Don’t you dare let go!” “You’re killing my hand!” (He always managed to scrape my hands.)
At last the wardrobe was at the bottom of the stairs where it became wedged like a cork in a bottle. He moaned, “It’s half an inch too wide.” I snarled from my position up the stairway, “Didn’t you measure it? I don’t have time to be stuck in this attic all day.” Later: “You have to do something soon because I need to use the bathroom.”
He sawed it in two. By this time, he was so angry with me that he wouldn’t let me help him carry it out. “Obviously, you do not wish to help me. I’ll do it myself.” When he learned that I was writing about our experiences, he said, “You’ll include the wardrobe story, won’t you?” After all these years, he isn’t angry anymore, but I’m not so sure about me! wclarke@comcast.net