i married tim taylor

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I married the tool man.  Really, I did.  You know, the build-it-bigger, disaster-prone, grunting, snorting, car-loving, tool-wielding, master of home improvement.  I must say, it makes life interesting.  Besides, now I can more aptly identify with Jill when I watch Home Improvement reruns late at night.  I think my husband should start his own home improvement blog.  Readers would find it hilarious, but only if he included all his random mishaps.  Since he won't, I thought I'd share some here.

It seems like every time we have a home improvement project going on, Mr. Hull either gets injured, breaks something, or both.  Every project becomes more elaborate than planned.  Nothing is easy.  Nothing is quick.  Everything requires at least two trips to the hardware store.  at least. 

Now, I must say, that Mr. Hull doesn't get in silly competitions with the neighbors over Christmas lights and the such, though I would love for him to hang some lights one year.  Rather, he has two issues:  He is a disaster-prone perfectionist. 

Mr. Hull plans and plans before he ever starts a project.  He approaches everything that he does well-educated and level-headed.  He researched storage sheds for no less than two weeks before he ever broke ground to build one.  He doesn't go about things willy-nilly and he strives to do everything just right.  For example, with this shed he's currently building, he used 6x6 pieces of wood for the floor frame and 2x6s for the support joists.  Last night, he revealed to me that the project instructions only called for 4x4s and 2x4s.   Overkill?  maybe.  Again, where someone else might just level off the ground and plop down their metal building, using some gravel to keep things drained and dry, Mr. Hull took a whole day and a half to properly build a deck foundation.  He either does it all the way, or not at all.  Build it bigger, build it better, build it to last.  He's a good man.

The problem comes when disaster strikes.  I can't tell you how many cuts, blisters, scrapes, bruises, and more Mr. Hull has gotten in the last two weeks alone.  Yesterday, he came into the house holding his hand above his head.  He had sawed into his finger instead of the wood.  Luckily, it was a minor cut compared to what it could have been.  Last week, he bloodied his hands while digging the mortar out from between the tiles in our new bathroom.  When he went to work a few days later, his boss asked if he had a stigmata.  This is in addition to the second degree burns he got while cooking steak a few days prior to that.  The poor man's hands are beaten all to hell.

But, Mr. Hull doesn't just beat himself up.  Check this out:

• On a camping trip this summer, Mr. Hull walked down to the water faucet to fill our jugs.  He turned the knob and it felt a little loose.  He turned it a little more and the whole thing came off in his hand.  A 100 ft. geyser shot up from the spigot.  The camp host and park ranger had to scramble to find the water shut off in a dark field.  It took a couple of hours and the field was flooded.  
• Our bathroom faucet started dripping a little last spring.  Mr. Hull thought he would fix it.  In the process, he stripped something or the other and we wound up with a new faucet.
• During clean-up from our mini-flood that I caused, our other toilet developed a leak.  Mr. Hull spent the whole day working on it, and we wound up with a new tank at day's end.
• While reinstalling our bathroom light fixture, I hear Mr. Hull cry "Oh Shit!"  I reply, "Did you shock yourself?"  He answers, "Maybe... possibly."  It turns out, his father had told him that he merely had to turn the light switch off before playing with electricity.
• Years ago, he smacked himself in the mouth while assembling a China-made computer desk, and nearly knocked out his teeth.

The thing is, though, like Tim, Mr. Hull's heart is in the right place.  He tries so hard to repair things around our house and, eventually, succeeds every time.  One can only learn by doing, and Mr. Hull does a lot.  He may get injured, it may take lots of time, but we always come out on the better side of things.  We've only had to call someone in to clean up a mess once, and that was mine.  So, I guess I'm fortunate.  From what I hear, other men don't do anything at all.