Entry #36
February 12, 2024 — 11:45 AM
I meant to start the small room at the top of the back stairs today. It makes sense on paper: it’s between the bath and the east bedroom, and if I’m going to rerun that side’s wiring and replace the cracked lathe, I should do it in one sweep. But I ran the east bedroom baseboards instead. A straighter job. Better light.
Sequencing matters. Anyone who has done this knows you don’t open all the wounds at once. The back stair room is still closed because the plaster there is powder and the floor lists toward the landing—I’ll need shims and a brace before I bring in the ladder. Also, the breaker for that corner is hinky; I don’t want to be up a rung with a dead lamp. The heat doesn’t quite reach there either. No point in fighting cold joint compound that won’t set.
It isn’t much of a room. Maybe it was a sewing corner once. One window, bubbled glass, paint on the panes like the last person got impatient and smeared the edges to be done with it. The wallpaper—thin stripes—peels off in strips that curl in my hands and smell faintly of paste and mice. The threshold has a dip from feet that stepped over it a long time ago, then stopped. If I stand on the landing, the air by the door is colder. It’s just the way these old chimneys draw, I tell myself. On the quieter days you can hear the narrow stair settle by degrees, a lazy tick-tick from the risers as if a tiny nail is changing its mind inside the wood.
I have been taking the front stairs up more often. It’s not avoidance. The back tread needs repair, and why risk an ankle when I’m hauling tools. Plus, walking dust through that hall makes more work for the end-of-day sweep. I keep a rolled towel at the bottom of the back door to keep heat in; it happens to keep plaster grit from migrating too. The door swells toward evening and the latch sticks, so I leave it as it is and work elsewhere until the wood gives up its damp again. Practical.
Last night, before I shut down, I stood at the landing longer than I needed to. The bulb over the back has a soft hum that wanders in pitch. I could see the thin line of light under the door, yellow as old paper. When the furnace kicked, the gap breathed a little, in and out. Dust moved inward, just a shade, as if the room were taking it. The same hum turns to a dry hiss on my radio if I bring it near that wall. Probably the wiring loop spliced wrong behind the lathe. I penciled a note to check it, then put the note in my pocket and took the front stairs down.
There are letters in the jamb, under the paint. Not clear. Could be an E. Could be just the grain. When the sun comes through the bubbled glass you can almost read something there. Almost. I will sand it when I do the casing. No reason to stand and stare at it now when there are baseboards to run and a list a yard long.
The house decides the order more than I expected. Or the weather does. Or the tools I have in my hand. I move around it the way water moves around a stone and tell myself the path is smarter this way. I am getting things done. The piles on the porch prove it.
Tomorrow is a better day for that room.
— Thomas Hale