OLD HOUSE DOCTOR 7-29-01

                                                               Actual portrait of the author

I've been asked what the OHD in OHD Restoration and Repair...etc. actually means. Apparently they didn't read the heading above.

I hold the International Copyright to the name Old House Doctor, as I've been publishing under that name in a number of public forums (newspapers) for over thirty years. I also had a TeeVee show by the same name. If you get adventurous and look around this page, you'll find links to a number of my OTHER Historic Restoration blogs at the bottom. One contains reprints of The Old House Doctor from several different newspapers. 

This appeared in the Lovely County Citizen, a wonderful little rag from the most beautiful town of Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Eureka Springs (I often refer to it as Eaky Spings) looks to be a mix of San Francisco, The Ozark Mountains, Switzerland, and Disneyland. Feels that way, too. I took a lot of liberties making fun of the locals, mostly hippies that bought up the town in the sixties and seventies and have become the old curmudgeons as the town grew.

THE CONTRACTOR’S TEN COMMANDMENTS

  Forty five years in construction have given me a great deal of insight inside both the contractor’s and the homeowner’s minds. I’ve come up with a set of guidelines that get posted on all major jobs, and if the homeowners don’t laugh at least once, I know I’m in trouble. Here they are, followed by brief, but useless explanations:

1.   THAT’S EXTRA. I won’t raise my prices during the job if you won’t change your mind again.

2.   PAINTERS WILL FIX IT. You expect carpenters to know something about joinery? Of course caulk is structural.

3.   THAT’S NOT CODE. This gives us the chance to catch up as you and the architect go crazy making changes (see #1) to remain legal. In Eureka, it should go “That was code according to the LAST inspector.”

4.   YOU WON’T SEE THAT. We’ll fix it, or it’ll be covered with sheetrock, or some such nonsense. The further up it is, the less we have to worry about how it looks.

5.   IT’LL HOLD. All we had were six penny finish nails to attach the roof, so we used superglue. Or, “liquid nails never fails!” See #2.

6.   OF COURSE WE’VE DONE THIS BEFORE. If the whole crew shows up with brand new tools and spends all morning reading instruction booklets, you’re in trouble.

7.   PERMIT? WHAT PERMIT? Sometimes goes “License? What license?” Often coupled          with # 8,

8.   WE ARE OUR INSURANCE. A very dangerous situation, especially when they show up with wooden ladders and circular saws that have the blade guards removed.

9.   I AM NOT YOUR COUNSELLOR. If you and your spouse haven’t worked out your architectural differences yet, just keep #10 in mind.

10. DEER SEASON STARTS NEXT WEEK, WE’LL BE BACK IN FEBRUARY. Usually        followed by, “Kin we git a ad-vay-unce?”