My life is starting to play out like a broken record, maybe Tennessee Ernie Ford’s “16 Tons.” I was thinking of the part where he says, “Another day older and deeper in debt.”

I really hope this property sells quickly so I can recoup some of the money I have been borrowing to fix it up. Since the signs aren’t even displayed yet, it doesn’t yet look good.

In fact, the combination of trying to finance home improvements to a home I don’t live in and pay for other associated costs, such as electricity, utilities and labor, is beginning to be quite a strain. The work isn’t easy, either — especially for a fellow who gets paid to work at a desk.

This past weekend, I worked the equivalent of two full days, trying to get through a list that seems to keep growing as I go along. I also am managing to keep up with my job here at the newspaper and spend time with my family.

Luckily, this building blitz will definitely end soon. I have already completed the two bedrooms, from lights to paint to vacuuming the floors.

The hallway is also painted and trimmed out with new boards, all freshly painted. I started working on the bathroom, but didn’t get much past one stubborn little pipe that was extending through the floor. I had started putting in the trim, but realized that a piece of old plumbing, a galvanized pipe with two broken copper fittings attached, was still blocking off part of the wall. I decided to try and take it apart, but figured out soon afterwards that it wasn’t going to happen. I have a 20 inch pair of slip-joint pliers that wasn’t going to get the job done, even when combined with a large pipe wrench.

So I did the next best thing, I started sawing through it with a miniature hacksaw. To those of you who don’t know, a miniature hacksaw is basically a flat blade with a little handle on it that is designed to cut through metal. I would have used a regular hacksaw, but I didn’t have one with me and I was at least a half hour from the house. It always goes like that. Whenever I need something, I usually find that I don’t have it. It makes no difference how much stuff I pack into my work bag and tool box. It doesn’t matter what I pile into the truck. I am surely going to find the one tool I need most is going to be somewhere else. If it doesn’t happen on one job, I’ll leave it there and then need it at home later that day. It never fails.

Anyway, I had to saw on the pipe for the better part of a half hour. I’m just glad it was conveniently located between the toilet and the wall with every bit of 12 inches of clearance.

Putting one’s head that close to a toilet is never a pleasant experience, but adding in the fact that the pipe, which had a shutoff on the bottom and a T on the top, was little more than six inches long, things were really cramped.

I pulled it up as far as it would go and still barely had room to work with one hand at a time, relying on my aforementioned slip joint pliers to hold the pipe up in position to saw.

I finally got through the thing and measured and cut the trim, only to realize that I had again run out of materials.

The day prior, I ran out of 4 inch trim for the hallway, having underestimated the scope of my work. The other unwritten law is, if you have to travel to get building supplies, you will forget something while you are there and need to go back. I bet the folks who live next door to these places always remember everything they need on the first trip.

It sometimes seems like I spend almost as much time going back and forth to the building supply as I do working. Not only that, but try finding something at the really big store and I guarantee you’ll spend more time looking for the item than you do selecting what you want. That’s one thing I like about our local hardware stores — the supply and choice may be limited, but the shopping time is cut in half. I also had a new fellow working, which turned out to be a bonus. He brought his son along, who proved to be a good helper in his own right. However, there isn’t much excitement to be had on a construction site. By the end of the day, he had already played and explored, shoveled, swept, carried and cleaned. He ended up playing with a vacuum cleaner in the bedroom floor, trying to suck his face off. He didn’t succeed. Anyway, his dad kept telling me, “All we lack now is finishing up.” Since he said it all day, it stayed with me. That’s the best way to look at it. It isn’t possible to do it all at once, even if I wanted to do so.

The next day, I worked to install the new porch boards and get them stained while the weather was warm. You can’t take days like we had earlier this week for granted this time of year.

The drywall man came by later and finished touching up a few spots on the expansive living room and kitchen ceilings, still in need of paint. It was fine until the hallway was painted, making it look dingy by contrast. The more I do, the more I find in need of doing. Oh well, all I lack now is finishing up, as my friend said.

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