The handy man, let’s call him Fixy Not Really, has made it a habit of starting multiple projects and finishing none. The latest 2 projects are the kitchen recessed lights and our washing machine repair. Both began this past Wednesday. True to form, neither are complete.

My washing machine is in thousand sad little pieces, with a couple of bits broken that were previously no worse for the wear.

My kitchen, well …

Fixy Not Really took out one of those awful fluorescent box lights (was that ever in style?), and installed five recessed lights. Battle won, war not over. In the process of installing the lights, at least 8 holes were cut in the ceiling, because of course that happens. On day 2 or 3 of the project, (who can keep count with such a complicated install?), I reminded him to please also put a drop cloth on the stove this time due to my lack of fondness for cleaning (and his propensity for mayhem with building materials, but I left that part out).

Yesterday Fixy declared the kitchen ceiling was ready to paint later that day. I come home to find he put a drop cloth only over the stove. Sigh. I guess he did exactly what I told him. This left texture splatter on the cupboard, microwave, fridge, and every bug that stood still long enough.

His excuse for not coming today was lost contact lenses. Yup, that sounds about right.

Fixy kept on saying, “the paint will cover it”. I realize I have boobs, but they don’t cover my eyes. Since I don’t want our ceiling looking like cellulite,  I took it upon myself to sand off his mess and patch it, boobs and all. Check out what I found:

Oh yeah, Fixy actually put paper towels in our ceiling to patch a hole and covered it with tape. With a few unkind words (in Texas I’ve learned to use “bless your heart” as an insult), the paper towels were removed, along with about four feet of unnecessary tape, and pounds of patch. Now we have this before paint:

After we told him what transpired, Fixy still demanded full price for the ceiling. Bless his heart.

This is sadly panning out to be a DIY job at every turn and I’m running out of clean underwear.