Handy with a capital "H"

Have you noticed that husbands tend to fall into two categories? There are Handy husbands (with a capital "H"). These husbands build additions, remodel bathrooms and finish basements. Then there are handy husbands, (small "h"), who paint, strip wallpaper, fix leaky faucets and install ceiling fans. Come to think of it, there's a third category: hopeless. The only tools these guys use for home improvement are the telephone and the checkbook.

I would put my husband somewhere between handy and hopeless. He can paint. He can kluge. He can repair something (usually) when pressed into service. Case in point: Recently, one of our kitchen cabinet doors cracked on its hinge. Our cabinets are completely outdated, so the idea of purchasing a replacement door was out of the question.

My husband took the door off its hinge, looked at it, thought about it, consulted the helpful folks at Home Depot ("you can do it...we can help") and came home with wood glue, new hinges and a few other items I would probably misspell and mispronounce. (I can identify a hammer, a screwdriver and a drill...everything else falls into the "miscellaneous tools" category. But then he probably can't tell the difference between an adjective and an adverb, so we're even).

Within a day he had repaired and re-hung the cabinet door. And while there might be a slightly larger gap between the newly hung door and its neighbor, in my mind my husband is a home improvement hero.

Several years ago I guilted my husband into re-tiling the non-carpeted area of our finished basement. It was a small area, so rather than pay a fortune to have laminate professionally installed, I packed up my kids, took them to my parents for a long weekend, and had my husband install peel-and-stick tile. To this day he maintains that he did a lousy job, but the tiles are only slightly skewed and barely noticeable only to those sitting on the toilet in the laundry room. Again, my hero.

An item currently on our "honey-do" list is the peeling paint on our metal front door. Each time I enter I cringe and think, "Something must be done." I ran the idea of stripping, priming and re-painting the door by a few friends who all had the same suggestion: Buy a new door. When my husband and I discussed this option, we (okay he) decided that buying a new door was one thing but framing and installing it was beyond his capability. Back to option A.

Visiting the charming folks at Lowes ("Let's build something together!") my husband returned home with paint stripper, putty knives, drill attachments, primer and paint. The long weekend forecast was for cool, sunny weather, so my husband decided to combine two tasks in one: peeling, stripping, priming and painting both the front door and the bulkhead. Bright and early Saturday morning, my husband applied paint stripper and was cheerfully scraping loose paint off the front door. The rest of us went about our day. My older son went to a friend's house and my younger son came with me to run errands. Several hours later, we returned home to find my husband tired, sweaty, groaning in pain and still scraping loose paint off the front door. Attending a party that night, a friend's husband (who's a capital "H" kind of guy) admitted that he would have probably just bought the new door.

Day two brought more door scraping, some cleaning and then a fresh coat of primer (which needed 24 hours to set). For the rest of the day, my husband continued scraping and peeling the bulkhead. By the end of the day, my husband was popping Motrin and grumbling under his breath. Day three finally brought an end to our home improvement project. With both the bulkhead and front door freshly painted, my husband stood back and surveyed his handiwork. Purchasing a new door would have been infinitely easier. Certainly less time consuming, but definitely not as "green" (there's one less door in the landfill). But I'm proud of my husband's achievement. And while he might not be handy with a capital "H", he certainly gives new meaning to the term Labor Day Weekend.