Murphy's Law? or Chain Reaction?

Why is it that one thing leads to another and most of the time these things are not good! Take, for example, today I cajoled Hubby into building a cabinet in the hallway. It seemed at the time to be the perfect space to store extra toilet tissue, bath soap and cleansers. This small storage closet would be built in the empty space beneath the stairway. It just seemed logical that since there was a massive unused space under the stairs that a built-in cabinet would be handy! The stairs is actually in the dining room but the back of it butts up against the hall wall directly across from the bathroom. How convenient would it be to have a cabinet within a few steps of the bathroom! Handy, indeed! Hubby told me that it would be an easy job to build this cabinet..it would only take a couple of hours and we already had the materials on hand! I was elated! Then, tools in hand, he started! The first thing was to cut the drywall to make an opening for the cabinet. While doing this, he noticed that the carpeting was loose from the floor. The carpet was pulled up a bit..to reveal crumbles! Now even I know that crumbles do not make a good floor! When we had put the flooring down years and years ago, we could not get the proper plywood to go under the carpet. We had to settle for something called waferboard. Well, it would be covered so no problem! I have news for you...that stuff is humongous problems not just big! After a few overfilled bathtubs when the children were small, the waferboard decide to take on a life of its own...it grew! Not at all in a good way...it swelled to unbelievable proportions and then turned to sawdust! The carpet was laying on a nice bed of sawdust! "Out it goes!" he said. And I was in full agreement! We tugged, pulled, pried and ripped until the carpet was out in the yard. Now it was time to remove the crumbly waferboard! This job gave a new meaning to the phrase "sweeping up the floor"! I was literally using a broom to remove the floor! A broom, dustpan and bucket became the tools of choice in the floor demolition!

This would have been enough of a problem but....and this is a large but....some of the subfloor was rotten. A few of the boards needed to be replaced....so.....we ripped up boards. These were tongue and groove 1x6 boards. Not as easy as removing the crumbly waferboard. No more using the broom and dustpan. Out came the big daddies from the tool set. A crowbar, circular saw and some other funky-looking saw like thing. We cut, pounded, pried and smashed our way through these boards until.....I saw another problem...ugh! There was water. Now, I am quite certain that there is not supposed to be water in my hallway! Hubby looked.."Oh, no." he said rather dejectedly. The wall that was adjacent to the bathtub had ewwy-gooey water stains. The water pipes must be leaking. So another hole was cut in the wall. Now I have no floor and two walls have holes big enough that I could crawl into. This was not good. He stared at the pipe dripping. Something would need to be done. Not only was the faucet leaking into the wall, the drainpipe was spilling water everywhere under the house! He repaired the pipes, fixed the drain and replaced the torn-out floorboards. The next step was to put some sort of really smelly black "felt" down on the floor. This would go under my new plywood floors. By this time, poor Hubby, Son and I had been working for nine hours on the hallway. It was getting a bit late. We were all getting tired and it was starting to show. Our once happy chatter had lapsed, the spring in our step was lagging and we were starting to hit our thumbs with our hammers a lot more. Still, we should not quit as there were large holes in the wall!

As it neared time to place the plywood on the floor, each of us looked at the other. We were tired..worn out..exhausted. This two hour project had now taken over ten hours and was not nearly finished. As I said, one thing leads to another..and if anything bad could happen, it would. In the process of ripping out floors, a couple of small holes were accidentally knocked in the walls. They would have to be replaced. If we are going to replace the walls, something had to be done to the ceiling. If the ceiling was redone, the light fixtures needed replacing. All of this required new trim and baseboards. Painting would be required to freshen up the doors. Why, oh why did I ever asked for a cabinet? One simple cabinet to be built in the hallway.