Last winter, when we moved into our new home, my girlfriend and I, we spoiled ourselves and hired a painter to save time.
But recently, the choice to put a colored wall in the all-white living room became clear. Just one wall…we weren’t going to hire a professional just for that, right? A priori, I would have said yes, but my girlfriend, wiser than me, asked me if I was better at cutting or rolling. I don’t know, it’s been 30 years since I painted.
And for good reason.
In my twenties, I was optimistic and under-equipped. “Paint a ceiling? It shouldn’t be very complicated! »
Yes it is. I remember a living room where I had to put three coats of white on a ceiling that I just wanted to refresh, simply because in the afternoon my work seemed impeccable, but the next morning, when the sun came in through the large windows, all my roller strokes were visible.
And it was like that for the slightest renovation, the slightest little job. “Install shelves without visible hinges? It shouldn’t be very complicated! »
Yes it is. In the end, after drilling holes everywhere for support behind the drywall, the shelves leaned forward so much that my paperbacks would slide across the floor when the garbage truck drove by, vibrating the walls.
You might think I’m exaggerating, but no. I can scratch an entire wall trying to put up an innocent cork board. I already thought that my death would be predictable: I would die in my bed, my throat cut by a piece of glass from the heavy frame that I had been foolish enough to install above the bed myself. I would sometimes hear it creaking in the night and I would say to myself: “That’s it, it’s happening now, my incompetence is going to kill me.” »
In hopes of living longer and saving money, I try to improve myself. And then, I can’t always call a professional to help me. To change the electrical panel, yes. To fix the toilet bowl, which only required screwing in something, I discovered on YouTube, maybe not.
What angers me is that if I had been more attentive and interested during adolescence, I would be able to renovate anything. Because my father was.
He built a shed in the courtyard of the family home which is still standing and erect 40 years later. But at the age when I could have been helping my father work on the shed, or installing an extra bathroom in the basement of the house, I was too busy trying to master I Love Rock’n Roll by Joan Jett & The Blackhearts on electric guitar. A skill which, all in all, no longer serves me at all today.
I’ve put away my guitar for a long time, even though I find myself at least once a week with a screwdriver or a hammer in my hand, wondering if I’m going to succeed in this fairly simple little job or make the situation worse.
It was by watching my mother out of the corner of my eye that I learned how to sew on a button, as well as how to cook a few meals. It would never have occurred to me to get up from the couch and abandon for a few minutes my reading of a Bob Morane, a Gotlib or a magazine Unexplained to say to my mother, “Can you show me how you do that?” » The mysteries of Easter Island statues or spontaneous combustion always seemed more thrilling to me than mastering spaghetti sauce.
Obviously, I can’t blame myself; I don’t think it’s given to teenagers to know what will be useful to them later, unfortunately. When I moved away from my parents, I knew how to reheat frozen burritos in the microwave and order pizza.
I’m not one to live in regrets, but let’s say that if I could go back in time and give a little advice to the teenager that I was, it would be quite simple: learn everything you can from your parents while it’s time.
Our parents often pass on to us their values, also their qualities and their faults, but when it comes to their knowledge, we sometimes have to make the effort to ask them.
If I analyze parenthood only from the angle of transmission, my real mother is Ricardo, and my real father is a mustachioed Marseillais in poorly lit tutorials on YouTube. I’m now an ignorant orphan, and it’s all my fault!
But, in case you were wondering, thanks to the mustachioed Marseillais, the living room wall is impeccable.