Laquering the floor

Originally published March 27, 2005

Short story this one.

I spent the Easter long weekend preparing and laquering the floor in the renovated part of the house.

Easter Saturday: 12 hours of sanding the floor.Easter Sunday: Three coats of sealer and more sanding (about 6 hours).

The floor looked awesome and it wasn't even finished yet.Easter Monday: Time for the good bit... the lacquering..

I've stirred the can of lacquer ($180 a can), had a complete brain fart and thought I would leave it on the floor while I run downstairs and grab a brush. 30 seconds later I return to find Ben with one leg completely in the can of laquer and he's about to insert the other leg.

I ripped him out of the can. "Aargh!!! You stupid boy!!! I Yelled. "Lynda!!!! I shouted" "Here... you clean him. The floor's ruined"!!!

I started spreading the lacquer he had spilt all over the floor.

In the end Lynda cleaned him up okay.

I had to spend another hour between the first and second coats hand sanding all the bubbles out of the floor though.

Lesson: Lee = stupid.

The Glue Story

Originally Published March 10, 2005.

Lynda's gone downstairs to hang some clothes on the line. Leaving me in charge. (In hindsight, this was the first mistake). Rather than supervise and play with the kids, I was out on the front verandah playing on my conputer.

Then I heard the screaching.... "Oh Shit!" "Lee!!!!!!" (Oh man I knew I was in trouble).

I walk into the kitchen and see a white stain on the floor. (I assumed spilt milk and wondered what all the fuss was about).

Then as I continued to enter the room, I see Ben on the kitchen table physically stuck to the table cloth. He was frantically trying to separate himself from the table cloth but was only making it worse. (In hindsight, this was the funniest image of the event).

• Some background: I bought PVA glue that morning from Bunnings to fix a chair. Melanie had got it down off the window sill, unscrewed the lid and begun to paint the kitchen with it.

There was glue everywhere... on the floor, on the table, on every kitchen cupboard door, all over Melanie and ben, around Ben's mouth (he'd been eating it) and of course all through their hair.

My response to seeing this mess was to exclaim the imortal words.... "Oh F*&k!". Two words which Melanie immediately repeated :-(

I grabbed the bottle, read it. It was non toxic (Wheh! Huge sigh of relief).

I hand the kids to Lynda "Here you clean them, I clean the house".

Lynda drags them into the bathroom and proceeds to bath and scrub them for the next half hour.

I scramble and grab old nappies and begin to wipe it up, mop the kitchen floor etc.
Thinking I had got it all, I went into the Lounge. to discover they've put glue all over the leather couches.

"Shit, Shit, Shit!!!!" (Stress levels through the roof now).

Not the couches.!!!!! (Remember I've discovered this 15 minutes later. The glue's beginning to dry).

It was a race against time...More towels. 30 minutes and lots of spray and wipe and finally it all came off.

The lesson here... Don't store glue in the house.

Start of original blog

This article was originally posted 1 March 2005.

Well today I started my blog. Lets see whether I can type anything meaningful here.

Insert meaningless emoticon here... :-)