How to Tackle Spring Projects and Avoid Divorce: Work alone

I recently attended a home show. Couples thronged the aisles. Many of them looked irritable. That's because spring is the season of expectations. Ambitions bloom. The blood surges with homeowner hormones, known in clinical circles as Home-moans. This hyper-aware state means that your house, your decorating, your garden, your socio-economic bracket, and even your mate, come under the beam of watery spring sunlight and are found wanting.

I'm here to warn you that unreasonable expectations can sour the springtime mood. So remain alert.

For example, if you're optimistic when you start a project you're setting yourself up for trouble. That's because you have not computed the statistical probability for failure. You think it is likely to go smoothly. Where you got this idea from is your imagination, because experience shows that no upgrade or repair has ever gone smoothly in the past. But for mysterious reasons, you are an optimist.

If by some miracle you could change this about yourself, you would have the option of being either a realist, or a pessimist.

Now, a realist would not attempt the upgrade in the first place, because realists know that somebody would just come along and say, "I thought you were more realistic than to attempt something like that," and that kind of comment really gets a realist's goat, if they actually had a goat, which they will be quick to point out they don't.

So your remaining option is to become a pessimist. The glory of being a pessimist is that no matter how badly the project goes, it'll turn out better than you expected. So you see, compared to optimists, pessimists at least have a hope of being pleasantly surprised.

Once you have trimmed your own expectations to a manageable level, you can turn your attention to the expectations of others. If you're going to try to improve anything in life, you're going to face criticism from relatives. Some forms of criticism are always difficult, like when somebody says, "How many beers did you have before you hung that shelf?"

That's the kind of criticism that really smarts. Because in your heart, you know it wasn't the beer that made the shelf crooked. Because you didn't have any beer.

So those critical comments cut deep and they require an immediate retort. Something that implicates the critical party, if possible. Something like, "As many beers as you had the night we got married."

Now you have started a dialogue, which, experts tell us, is the path to true understanding.

Experts also tell us that criticism has to be delivered constructively. So when he says, "You should've tuned up your level before you attached that shelf." you can say, "I thought you tuned up the level that day you dropped if off the roof four times and kept calling me on your cell phone to come out and pass it back up to you."

Now you're really getting somewhere, supporting his own efforts at home repair. And experts say that's the kind of repeated generosity it takes to sustain a good marriage.

Whenever possible, work alone. You can indulge your creativity without the benefit of colour commentary. Here's a perfect example - this morning I got this e-mail from a girl with the perfect blend of sass and valour:

Dear Mag,
I always enjoy your columns. I read the other day about finding a stud (I mean the wall kind - I have three kids so I have found the other kind). I laughed, as I have tried all your methods except the hitting the water pipe one. Well I put up some crown molding and, in my own defense, the pipes should not have been there. I needed a way to fix it while making dinner and taking care of my three boys.
Leslie Stock

Leslie is a person we could all strive to emulate. Because you never know when a crown-moulding project is going to turn into a plumbing repair. And when it does, you have a choice between dissolving into panic, or giving an impertinent snort and saying, "I was expecting something like this".

May I suggest:

1. Shut off the water and plug your kids into normally forbidden electronic games.
2. Install a #8 or #10, 3/4-inch long, self-tapping screw (with a washer so you do not go all the way through the pipe). This will get the water back on to make dinner.
3. Use a hack saw to cut the pipe, clean the ends, and put a brass compression fitting in (you need two wrenches and no soldering!) Do not use the plastic kind as it is hard not to mess up, and then they leak - trust me.
4. Replaster and sell house.

I might also note that in the same day I lost my keys, almost decapitated someone with the ice on my truck, and got stuck on a snowdrift, blocking the garbage truck - who seemed to think that the whole street should know, and that by waving his arms and honking it would magically remove me from his path. I don't know how, but actually it was not a bad day.

I am in the process of putting our house back together as we have decided to move. Our "new" house is over 100 years old and has to be gutted (and the raccoons and skunks need to be evicted). Everyone else thinks we are crazy but I am really looking forward to the adventure - and learning ever so much more about plumbing.