Hey, I got a power drill! And get this, you can use it on screws, too! This is a big deal; up until this point I’ve been screwing in everything by hand, twisting and turning the screwdriver until the skin came off said hand. Then I’d get a hammer and just bang the screw the rest of the way in.
So, after puttering around with a couple of smaller jobs that seem to magically appear when you have a house, I decided to take on the big job I was putting off: attaching house numbers to the front of the house. Okay, maybe it doesn’t sound like a big job if you know what you’re doing but I don’t have that advantage. I mean, after I got the power drill, it was a week before I realized they don’t include drill bits. Fortunately, the drill is heavy and can be used for pounding screws into the wall. But now I hit a brick wall. Literally. The front of the house is brick. So I would have to get drill bits, including masonry bits.
See, now here’s the thing, when we bought the house numbers we purchased these sharp looking gold ones. Then the wife wanted them attached to a plaque, so we bought a nice one. Turns out the plaque and the numbers are from two different companies. The plaque numbers would be the peel ‘n’ stick kind and our à la carte numbers were meant to be drilled into the wall. So, after playing around with caulking, glue, screws, a metal bit, some rubber washers and nuts, I was able to attach the numbers to the plaque. This took about 2 weeks. Not including research. Now I was ready to attach it to the house.
I took the plaque, figured where I would put it, measured it off, marked where the holes would go and then had lunch. After that, I pulled out my new masonry drill bit and locked it into my power drill. That only took twenty minutes or so. And then we began.
Now, as I expected, drilling into brick is somewhat different from drilling into wood. For starters, brick is way, way harder. So I’m drilling and drilling and drilling, all the while thinking to myself, “Hey, that 3rd Little Pig really knew what he was talking about it.”
Then came an interesting question, how do you measure a hole you’re drilling in brick? I can’t put the plastic anchor in for fear of it getting stuck. I have to make sure it’s deep enough, the hole, because I sure as heck don’t want to spend an extra second having to push this stupid drill into the wall in a spot over my head.
So, after dinner I hit the required depth. I was able to quickly and snuggly insert the anchor. And in a matter of minutes I screwed in the plaque. Task completed! I proudly looked at the golden numbers glistening in the rays of the setting sun: 35.
Unfortunately, I live at 53.