Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities

Projects never-ending cycle

Clyde Davis

Columnist

One of the popular novels in high school language arts curriculums today is “Things Fall Apart.” It details fictional but realistic events in late colonial Africa.

A home and mortgage owner's parallel to this might be called “Things Pile Up.” It details the interrelated challenges and connections between home repairs and improvements, which tend to reveal themselves during long stretches of time when one may work on one's house.

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Example: Being foolish enough to believe that one had effectively completed the ceramic tiling of the wall. This was true only so long as one did not remove the hood from above the stove, an adjustment which became necessary when a new microwave that inserts above the stove was purchased. Removing the aforementioned hood opens up a small but significant block of wall, which now needs to be backboarded and tiled.

Example: Thinking about and preparing a garden so that, when frost possibility has passed, plants may easily go in. Enter the dogs into the mix, and further adjustments will now entail a way to keep the dogs from hopping into the garden, as they have done previous years. Life without dogs is not an option, so the solution must lie elsewhere.

Example: Woodwork is endless when one is refinishing it. A room with small amounts of wood trim, or what seems to be so, can become suddenly crowded with pieces of trim which one never knew existed. The fact is, perhaps they multiply over night.

Example: The projects which one started for home improvement have not, contrary to what one hoped for, completed themselves over the winter. This is not a task that is accomplished by Santa's elves. The stone fountain rocks which needed replaced are still missing, and the woodpile has not restacked itself.

Yep, someday I will write a home improvement book called “Things Pile Up.” Right now, there are too many tasks to be done for the book to take priority.

Clyde Davis is a Presbyterian pastor and teacher at Clovis High School. He can be contacted at: [email protected]