June 23: Measure twice? Ha.

Eleven years ago at this time, the house in which we currently live was being built. We had made all our color/carpet/vinyl/lighting selections, signed the papers, and sold our other house. We came by every few days to check on its progress. Puppy Scout even took a big poo in what was eventually the master bedroom. We were all very excited about moving into our new home.

Little did we know that something sinister was occurring in the house at that time. No, it wasn’t being haunted. It was much worse. Apparently the (finger quotes) builders (close finger quotes) spent most of their workdays sitting on their thumbs instead of building our house according to the blueprints. These evildoers were either blind or very inexperienced or four-year-olds or idiots; generally, their construction credo was “Meh.” Every time we have done something Home Depot-y to our house that requires even a small amount of precision, we have found more and more evidence of this.

Studs are typically 16 inches apart, are they not? There are areas in this house where there are no studs for several feet. I wish I was kidding or being even a little bit sarcastic; I am not. If there was ever a bar fight in here, people thrown against the walls would go right through them like cartoon characters. I think the only thing holding the roof up is the paint and what we now realize are load-bearing posters.

When we had our floors redone the contractor told us there was no ductwork behind one of our vents. Who knows, we’re probably heating our crawl space all winter long. When we replaced all the base trim after the floors were done, there were places where the walls went inward a good half inch away from the trim. Three tubs of putty later, I think it finally looks alright.

Once upon a time we wanted to hang shelves. A three-day-long flood of cursing ensued. Now the only thing holding up that wall is the spackle from all the “oops” holes. Oh, and the shelves. And the books on those shelves.

After today’s fiasco, I am more sure than ever that these (finger quotes) builders (close finger quotes) may not have even had a measuring tape in their possession at the time they were pretending to build our house. We tried for the fourth time to hang curtains in our family room windows. We’ve never been very successful because the windows are large, which means the curtains must be plentiful, which means they are heavy, which means they require extra-strong brackets. It seems that the area surrounding the family room windows is one of those with few to no studs, so getting the brackets to stay in the wall is a challenge. My solution (this time) was this: buy a big ol’ piece of wood and nail the hell out of it into the studs, then screw the brackets into that. Sounds brilliant, right? Thank you! I thought so too. But finding the elusive studs and determining a straight line in which to nail the hell out of them proved to be our biggest challenge yet. And this simple little task—nailing a straight board into what should be a straight wall—that turned into a day of cursing at those jackasses from 11 years ago really just made me hate our house more than ever.

Don’t give me any of that “at least you have a roof over your head!” stuff. Because I’m pretty sure we live in a 4-bedroom, 2½ bath structure of cleverly arranged sheetrock and we’re but a blustery day away from it being a pile of rubble.