If you give a mouse a cookie.
 

Living in the land of kids this is the best example of my week I could think of...

Wife: Our 19 year old boy is going to paint the 'kids' bathroom.

Me: That's great! I haven't had time to get to that one!

Wife: There is a little paint peeling around the shower head. Can you fix that first?

Me: Scrapes the peeling paint.
Me: Removed all of the caulk from around the tub surround.
Me: Finds that some of the drywall tape is peeling so I remove that too. Why in the world anyone would run a strip of drywall tape around the top of the tub surround is beyond me.
Me: Patches the area where the paint was peeling and all the way around the surround.
Me: Removes the towel bars, shower curtain rod, TP holder etc.
Me: Finds and fills all of the screw heads that have popped over the years.
Me: Removes toilet tank.
Me: Has to use a grinder on the toilet tank bolts because they are not budging.
Me: Wipes down all the walls.

Boy: Tapes and paints bathroom.

Me: Goes behind boy for touch ups.
Me: Cleans tub.
Me: Re-caulks tub.
Me: Buys new bolts for the toilet tank and re-installs.
Me: Installs the towel bars, shower curtain rod, TP holder etc

At work we'd call it project creep. :D

I always search out and install brass toilet hardware. The crap they pawn off these days is plated steel which starts to rust almost immediately and has to be ground off. A magnet is your best friend when shopping.

LOL, that sounds very familiar.
Last week the wife said that the shower door in the master bath was old and ugly.
So i go to home despot to get a new one.
Insert project creep.

2 days later I had completely gutted the bathroom, stripped off the wallpaper (I hate wallpaper) and was busy scraping up the second layer of linoleum.
It looks like it was original to the house, and evidently they had really good glue in the mid 60s. What a PITA.

I was using a 48" hand scraper to peel up the tile (one itty bitty piece at a time).
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1565198510.jpg

Note to self, don't use the palm of your hand to drive the handle of a scraper a zillion times, even if you have gloves on.
Bad place to get a blister. it's small but it keeps reminding me it's there.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1565198627.jpg

The good news is, this is the only room in the house that I had not yet completely remodeled.
So in a couple weeks, I'll be all done! :rolleyes:

What you need to do is find a seldom reviewed open work order in an unrelated cost center and dump your labor in there.

Then your kid makes budget.

Everybody wins!

Good job! That's what Dad's do.

LOL I used to work with a bunch of guys just like you!
My cost center was always under attack, I remember when my boss asked me why I ordered 14 chain saws.

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If you chip '60's linoleum, don't breath the dust, asbestos is what made the mastic so strong.

i have no idea how to check it

Of course, Mom congratulates the 19 YO son for a wonderful job done on painting the bathroom, right ?

That's the whole key. Dad gets thanked offline in a perfect world.

Exactly! The boy gets all the public credit.
And I get... :D

Give a mouse a cookie, and you feed him for a day.
Teach the mouse to bake cookies, and he'll do all the bathroom prep for the rest of his life.

Bill K