Unscrewed

Ned’s toolbox was on the kitchen floor, and he was rustling in it for a screwdriver before heading down to the basement where the rigging & jacking guy was waiting with a measuring tape and a flashlight. The basement features a new electric fusebox and hot water heater, a dirt floor and a foundation of stones the size of chest freezers. There are a few places where there should be windows but instead there is yellowing styrofoam. Down cellar, there isn’t anything to be screwed or unscrewed.

We’d called the rigging & jacking outfit a year ago to look at the ell, which contains (but just barely) our kitchen and a little section of barn. The rodents run freely throughout the ell, and the bottom of the north wall swings gently when you push on it, over the empty place where there should be a sill. Like our driveway, the rigging & jacking guy’s schedule had finally opened up, and he was on site to deliver a diagnosis. The men scrounged around for measurements and shone flashlights into crevices and crawlspaces while I stood within earshot, holding a mug of coffee and hoping to capture some good dialog. The rigging & jacking guy wasn’t much of a talker.

Ned’s toolbox is almost always on the kitchen floor. We should have water in 15 minutes! he announced mid-day during our Project-opening visit a few weeks ago, thereby commencing a four-hour reconnection process involving deconstruction of kitchen cabinets, work in copper and PEX, a trip to the nearest hardware store three towns away, a hacksaw, and quite a bit of water on the floor. After sunset, water flowed in the appropriate places, and Ned reassembled the cabinets while I mopped.

Over supper, Ned confessed the hacksaw was not technically speaking the right tool for the job. My dear MacGyver has made similar confessions in the past: after reframing a window with a sawzall, or clearing woodland with a grass whip, or stripping wallpaper with a clothes steamer. But having enjoyed the fruits of all these improvisations, who was I to judge? I had just treated myself to a hot outdoor shower under the cold clear sky! I had cheese and crackers and eventually the kitchen would stop smelling like wet wood!

Turns out screwdrivers have a secondary purpose, which is to test the structural quality of wood floor joists by being jammed into them from below. Our joists, which have been hanging sturdily from a granite foundation over a dirt floor for 167 years, are chunky hand-hewn wonders. Some are whole logs, with the bark removed. I’m glad I wasn't down cellar to watch them be stabbed by the screwdriver. Two inches, easily, Ned wincingly confessed to me later.

Lucky we checked! Ned said, shaking the rigging & jacking guy’s hand and sending him off to his next appointment. How screwed are we? We’ll get an estimate in a few weeks.