It’s the drywall job that keeps growing, and growing, and growing... But it’s always like that when you start fixing something.

Once the ceiling pieces are in, that area where the extra door was just too enticing. And then there was the extra light that needed to be put in the laundry room, and the switch for the living room light that was located in the laundry room never really made sense to me either. Looking around, I can always find a few more places that need to be renovated. There was also an extra door in the back bedroom that went into the bathroom, despite the fact that the back bedroom is just two steps from the bathroom door to start with.

But I never would have removed the door if I hadn’t already had most of the rest of the house in shambles. Neither would I have started work in the laundry room, had I not already done some significant work in the ‘big living room,’ as I call it. Everytime I look around, I am surprised at the magnitude of the work, destruction and rebuild that is going on all around me. On the bright side, I’m about to run out of walls to cover, and at about $8 a sheet, that’s a good thing. Next I plan on taking out a couple of the windows in the living room, but that shouldn’t be too much of a problem, considering that there are at least eight of them on that wall. The only problem will be getting the work done, considering that I have already been a bit too ambitious to begin with.

I’ve been considering installing a design to feed firewood in through the wall, but I haven’t finished with the drawings yet. My uncle created just such a thing at his house once, but he used a chute that the wood could slide down en route to a little door by the stove. However, when you filled it, someone had to be inside to keep it from getting jammed. I’m thinking of using a cable lift attached to a flat platform that would keep firewood by the opening. Then again, maybe I’ll just carry it all in again like I did last year. I better work on slaying one dragon at a time, especially with winter coming on. As I said before, it always happens like this. I look around and realize that I’ve taken the long, warm summer days for granted and let far too many of them pass me by. Then, all of a sudden, my house is being victimized by a building boom.

It was all progressing well last week until I tried to use my screwgun only to find that one of the batteries had decided to quit on me. The other one is at about half strength, leaving me with more headaches than answers. So I opted to look around for batteries at the local tool place, only to find out that the cheapest thing I could come up with was going to set me back around $100, and that was just for one battery. Then I considered going corded, but a good drywall gun would have been every bit of $100, and I need my drill to be a very multi-use tool. So I thought maybe I would buy a cordless drill of similar quality to the one I already had, albeit with good batteries. Those ranged from nearly $200 to nearly $300. Try buying the premium toolkit to save and you’ll fork out between $400 and $700. I could hire a contractor to do this job for somewhere around there.

So I looked on the Internet and managed to find a few batteries for $44 each, but it still set me back around $100 for the two. How folks can afford this stuff is beyond me, especially the guy I saw in the 2006 pickup truck loading it up with tools, building materials and his family. He must own a gas station. There aren’t enough credit cards in Sparta to get me home with a haul like that.

Oh well, there’s no need to be concerned. Surely the 5-year-old drill, the one my friend gave me after he broke the chuck, will last at least another two or three years. Maybe in the meantime I’ll win the lottery, if they ever get that thing going. Since I don’t plan on buying tickets, I probably don’t have much of a chance.

Even though I complain now, I can remember repairing a barn with a brace and bit and wooden pegs cut out of whatever we could find. Turning a brace and bit, which looks sort of like a “C” with a chin rest coming off the top, will make even the weakest drill look pretty good. Running in a few straight-head screws with a big wooden-handled screwdriver should all but stop the complaints about the tools I have. Then again, maybe I’ll just finish the work so that I can put them back away until next fall.

Get more tongue in cheek commentary this week's issue of the Alleghany News!

Email: allnews@ls.net