Wildwood, MO—A Wildwood man is disappointed that a home improvement project proved more difficult than expected.
William Hennessy began a project to remove wallpaper and paint the master bedroom in his house in the Westglen Farms subdivision in Wildwood. Shortly after starting the job, he learned that, what he expected to take to hours, would take more than a day.
“According to the guy at Home Depot, this was a slam dunk,” said the unemployed software architect. “They told me to score the paper with a Paper Tiger, apply DIF dissolver, and peel the paper off. 1-2-3.”
In reality, the job was more difficult.
“First, I ended up scoring and rescoring the paper. The Home Depot guy said a room my size would take about 20 minutes. I spent 3 hours with the Paper Tiger,” said Hennessy. “Then the directions on the DIF bottle made it sound a lot easier than it was.”
After more than 10 hours of work, Hennessy estimates he is only about fifty percent done with the paper removal. “Hell, I thought I’d be priming by now.”
Home improvement expert and independent contract Mike Stevens of Stevens Decks, Interiors, and Snow Removal, said that Hennessy’s experience is typical.
“These do-it-yourselfers believe that crap they print on those products,” Stevens said. “Then they listen to the minimum wage idiot at Home Depot. It’s a wonder more of them don’t end up breaking a leg or burning their houses down.”
Stevens recommends hiring a qualified, local contractor for such jobs. “I’m wide open after the fifteenth,” he said after consulting his planner.
For his part, Hennessy is having second thoughts about his other planned projects. “This makes me wonder whether I can replace all 24 windows in my house in a weekend like Joe at Home Depot told me,” he said. “Too bad I already paid three grand for the things. They’ll probably just sit in my garage.”