Home Repair Mishaps

Written by Bakersfield Magazine

We are a country (and a city) of do-it-yourselfers. We enjoy the feeling of accomplishment that comes from completing a task. We imagine there’s no job too big or too complicated for us to handle, especially when it comes to home repair.

Remodel a kitchen? No problem. Install track lighting? In a heartbeat. Lay down a hardwood floor? Cakewalk.

But our stubbornness and desire to “do it ourselves” tends to get us in over our heads from time to time, like when we take on a project that usually calls for the seasoned hands of a professional (there’s a reason they’re called “certified electricians”).

While there are wonderful occasions when we tackle what the home repair gods send our way, more often than not, we end up kowtowing to the contractors who graciously come in to clean up our messes. Let’s face it—we can’t all be Bob Vilas. So we asked our A-List members to send us some of their most hilarious home improvement stories...you know, because we were too embarrassed to share our own.

Fixture Fail

There are many reasons to call an electrician. If you’re planning to install a massive, ornate light fixture in your living room, you can assume it’s one of those times. Unless, of course, you’re Norm and Susan Dale. Susan has always been a big fan of old craftsman-style homes. So while today’s wiring might be straightforward enough for someone to install a new overhead light on their own, the wiring that was available in the Dales’ 1915 home left a lot to be desired...and no instructions.

“I saw this particular light fixture at an antique shop and had to have it,” Susan explained. “We’re pretty handy around the house, so I thought it would be a breeze to install.”

On the contrary. The Dales quickly realized they’d need some rewiring done. That realization came only after they’d made an attempt to hook up the antique fixture to the antique wiring.

“So we broke down and had an electrician come out to redo the wiring to the house,” Norm continued, laughing. “But we wanted the pleasure of installing the fixture ourselves, so we told him just to update the wiring, and we’d do the rest.”

“When we finally got everything connected and replaced all the light bulbs, nothing worked,” Susan said. “We tried reconnecting the wires...still nothing. After an unsuccessful day, we were forced to call the electrician back.”

When the electrician climbed his ladder, he discovered something that would have the Dales shaking their heads for years to come. After all that trouble, they had simply not screwed the lightbulbs in far enough.

“I couldn’t believe it!” Norm said. “But the electrician was a good sport about it. He said that type of problem happens more often than anyone would think.”

The Linoleum Cutters

For Whitney and Rick Bolinger, their first home was going to be their haven. They spent a long time saving for the home and furnishing it just right. They put in a lot of man hours transforming the yard into paradise. But there was one thing that always drove them crazy about their home.

“The linoleum in the kitchen was a hideous shade of cream that showed everything that had ever touched it,” Whitney explained. “I swear I scrubbed it every day just so it looked clean.”

“We loved everything else about the house so we figured that once we saved up again, we could have the floor redone,” Rick elaborated. “Then I got the idea that we could just install the new linoleum ourselves. Whitney found a pattern she liked and I did some research.”

What the Bolingers didn’t count on was how many things could go wrong. After all, most people assume laying linoleum is pretty straightforward. But sheet linoleum shrinks in length and expands in width as soon as it hits the latex glue meant to hold it down. In all his research, Rick never really processed that tidbit.

“We didn’t leave room on the ends when we laid it down, so we noticed that as the linoleum settled, there were going to be gaps by cabinets,” he added.

“I assumed we could just cut strips and lay them down to have the linoleum look flush with the cabinet, but that looked awful,” Whitney laughed. “Some of them settled differently and some were still too big.”

So after a few months of living with their do-it-yourself floor, the Bolingers had someone come in and perform damage control.

“By that time, some of the ends that didn’t sit flush were curling up,” Whitney said. “It looked like we had a linoleum ocean in the kitchen.”

A Simple Fence Job

It sounds easy. You stick some two-by- fours in the ground, in a line, an equal distance apart, and the next thing you know, you’ve got a fence. But fencing can be tricky (especially the kind with swords).

Still, Tom Edmonds thought he could handle replacing a fence post. After all, he’s a handy guy.

He even had the help of his longtime friend, Ron, when it came time to put the post in the ground.

He just didn’t have the foresight to check and see if there was an established riser on which to rest the new fence post.

“We put in the new post and I cemented it down,” Edmonds explained. “Only then did we find out that it was sitting two inches short of the top of the fence.”

So Edmonds cut a block of wood to fit in that space and shimmied it into place. Job well done, yes. But that would not be the end of his fence troubles. Soon after, he replaced another post and this time put in a steel post...and he put it in good. He did such a good job, that when it came time to replace the entire fence, the contractors couldn’t even get the post out. The company actually left one of Edmonds’ posts in the ground near the gate part of the fence since it was in so solidly, it would be better than anything they could do.

“There’s a reason we call ourselves ‘Dumb and Dumber Construction,’ ” Edmonds said with a laugh.

“Ron is a retired dean and I’m a retired cop but every time we do a construction job we have some grief.”

And isn’t that always the way?

Carpet Woes

“I just bought my first house three months ago in Tyner Ranch,” explained Tomeka Powell. “It was a HUD house so I had to do so many repairs, paint, carpet, and get appliances.” But that’s not Powell’s story. She had an experience months earlier that so prepared her for the trials of home improvements that she learned to just hire a professional to do the work.

“I joined the Board of Directors for the Bakersfield Community Theatre in hopes of changing the world,” she said excitedly. “My first real project: a complete box office remodel with an $800 shoestring budget. We’re talking removing old carpet and ceramic tile, cement patching to the sub floor, and paint in a 900 square foot space. All of which I was certain could be done within a little over a week for the opening night of a youth production, which brings in some of the theatre’s biggest audiences.”

Talk about pressure.

“I watched HGTV religiously. If those people could do it in three days, of course I could do it in over a week, right? Wrong!”

One of the biggest problems was the floor. “Carpet [is often] a cover-up for previous mishaps. After pulling up the carpet, I realized the old vinyl tile underneath was still stuck—I mean really stuck to the floor. Blow torch wouldn’t work, chemical treatment a definite no-go. The only choice was manual labor.”

So Powell attacked the floor with a tile scraper to remove roughly 300 square feet of vinyl tile. It took two long days and nights, but she got it up. Then came time for pouring a floating cement floor...but that’s another story.

The Bathtub of Horrors

Lila Mettler was happy to help her son remodel the master bathroom in his home. She was happy to start and happy when the job was done, but her emotions in between were far from content.

“When you’re a novice, you really don’t know what you’re getting into,” Mettler said with a laugh.

“We just really liked the look of a particular bathtub.”

The bathtub happened to be a pedestal bathtub with a faucet in the middle.

“We ordered the tub and while waiting the five weeks for delivery, we completed demolition down to the bare studs,” Mettler explained. “It was at this point that we discovered the potential problem of the plumbing not being in the right place for the center-faucet tub.” But, ever the optimist, Mettler assumed they could perhaps run some additional piping to reroute the plumbing. But that wasn’t going to work—not unless they wanted the bathroom to look horrible and create potential plumbing problems.

“It was as we were getting ready to put in a new tile floor that we realized the concrete slab needed to be jack-hammered and the plumbing pipes moved to accommodate the center tub faucet,” she said. “So it was kind of a surprise at that point. You budget out cost and time and this was definitely not expected.”

Thankfully, they were able to get a professional in there to chip away at the concrete and reroute the piping properly...and just in time for the tub to arrive.

“Sometimes you don’t know that you don’t know how to do something,” Mettler said chuckling.

She and her son were able to do the actual installation of the tub themselves, so there was a sense of completion.

“We were all exhausted but so proud of our work.”

A Throne fit for a King

Jeff Smith considers himself a handy guy. His wife, Jen, thought the same thing. He’s replaced windows and built a dog house. He’s painted rooms and installed a ceiling fan. So who could have guessed he’d meet a job he couldn’t tackle? All he had to do was replace a toilet seat. To this day, however, Jeff maintains his innocence.

“I asked Jeff to replace the toilet seat one weekend,” Jen explained. “For someone who’s replaced windows before, it seemed like a no-brainer.”

Never underestimate the pride of a man.

“Apparently, unable to loosen the screws connecting the seat to the toilet, Jeff tried to use a hammer and chisel to pop the seat off,” Jen said. Which, naturally, would have been our next move, too.

During this process, a large section of toilet bowl is chipped off. Somehow, a bit of superglue found its way (magically) to the affected area and the repair was made and a new seat put on.

No one was the wiser...for about 25 minutes. Jen tried to use the toilet and found that the entire seat and lid came off in her hand. Not to mention, a large piece of porcelain cracked from the base and made its way to the floor.

“I was accused of breaking the toilet at that point,” Jen said, laughing. “But I really couldn’t be happier because Jeff agreed to buy a brand new toilet [which was professionally-installed] to replace the one I broke. So a job that should have taken 15 minutes took an entire day.”

Might we suggest keeping a close eye on a man with a hammer in the future?

Window Pain

Cameron and Kate Long thought it would be a nice idea to repaint the windowsills on their house to give it a fresh look.

“Little did I know a simple coat of paint would wind up costing us so much,” Cameron joked.

After sanding down the wooden sills and then applying primer, the Longs were ready to paint. Now, most people know that you shouldn’t paint the window pane and then allow it to sit in the sill, that is, unless you want a lot of extra work and expense.

Thankfully, the Longs knew this. This was their first house and they had never attempted a project like this in the past but they felt confident they could handle anything thrown at them.

Even if what’s thrown at them is a cat.

At some point, Cameron had fashioned a ruler to hold up the first window pane while it dried. Unfortunately, it was a window their frisky feline enjoyed using as a door.

“The cat must have jumped up onto the windowsill and dove through the open window, knocking the ruler away and allowing the window to close,” Kate explained. “We know it was the cat because the paint dried with orange fur stuck to it.”

But how did it have time to dry?

“It was the first window we attempted to do, located in a room we hardly go in, and we must have just been on the other side of the house making too much noise when the window closed,” Cameron said. “We didn’t find out until the next day when we tried to pry the window open and wound up shattering the glass with the crowbar.” The window was later replaced (by a professional).

Talk about an expensive coat of paint.

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Article appeared in our 28-3 Issue - August 2011