W: What are you doing today? H: I need to install that last 4x5 area of insulation in the attic.
Seven hours later I come home to a skeptical wife. Seven hours because:
To install that 20 square foot of insulation and finish the attic portion I need to first install the bathroom vent duct.
To install the duct I need to locate the fan assembly. To locate the fan assembly I need to trim some plaster. Before I can trim the plaster, I need to cover a hole in the floor to minimize the mess.
And I went ahead and installed the fan to hold the duct in place.
Women think differently than men. It is much better that they both just operate on their own systems and not try to get the other to change over. So, nothing....
I've had two instances recently where a woman gave up on a task that took me less than a second to complete. No explaining that! Not without no end of expaining and no satisfactory end result.
From my experiences, women just want to see results.
I built a house. I'd take my wife there daily or every other day to see the progress. What I was seeking was her approval. During the framing process, she could grasp nothing except that the workmen had left their lunch sandwich wrappers and Coke cans on the floor. She did not notice that they had framed several walls, or put the trusses on, etc. It got worse, with her picking apart every minute detail, every scarred stud, every hanging wire that was awaiting a receptacle. I finally just had to bring her once a week, or at the end of a stage of construction where she could see a final result, i.e. after the drywall was up, after the painting was done, after the cabinets were hung, etc.
When we explain or even describe what we are doing, it's just a search for approval, and that's not going to happen because most women don't understand that it really does take seven hours to put in a little insulation when you run into things that you never expected before you popped the first bit of sheetrock off. So stop seeking it, and bring them in when the job is done enough so she can see definite progress, or that stage is covered up, and there's just some sort of finished work to cover the internal exposed parts.
And don't turn it over to her until you say so, or she'll have the pots in the cabinets before you even have the range/stove/oven installed.
AND tell her not to talk to the hired help. That's your job.
Well, why didn't you tell your wife when she asked, rather than leaving her in the dark?
Balls.
Sorry, I mean, "It depends on the wife".
Although I don't fully understand every detail of a project, and my husband's skills are far superior to mine, I'm right there with him on every project. I've got pictures of me working concrete, using the pneumatic nailer or the compound miter saw. Usually it's faster and easier for him to do stuff himself, so I hand him things, run out to the workshop for something he forgot (or didn't know he needed until he was into it), run to Home Despot for something neither of us could find in the mess that's his shop, etc.
Because I don't understand all the details, I sometimes get a little panicky when things don't look as I expect, but sometimes when I say "Hey, that doesn't look quite right", he says "It isn't. Thanks for pointing that out." More often he says, "It's right; just wait until the next bit is done. Here's how they'll fit together..."
He wants to put in a pulldown attic stair and estimated one hard weekend for the installation and another, easier one for the paint and trim. I said, "Nothing in this house ever goes to plan; let's count on four weekends." If I'm wrong, we get a weekend or two off.
Show me a statement like "Wives don't understand..." and I'll show you someone who has a sexist, one-dimensional view of the world. Are there women who don't understand traditional male roles like construction? Sure. Are there men who prolong adolescence well into retirement? Sure. Stereotypes always have at least some small element of truth. But those who focus on the stereotypes miss most of the real world.
In my experience, narrow, uni-dimensional people do not pair up with enlightened, multi-dimensional people. I'm quite sure that men who complain about their airhead wives are more or less equally uni-dimensional at the other end of the spectrum. Conversely, women who complain about their immature husbands, are more ur less equally uni-dimensional at the other end of the spectrum.
These people find each other for a reason. The more enlightened people won't have them.
No, not quite :o) Hubby and I WOULD do things the same way IF I were as strong as he and IF he cleaned up the mess I made :o) I can do a lot of stuff around the house, but have to "engineer" it a lot more because he was much stronger than I. And more patient. He fiddled around trying to solder a new outside faucet for FOUR HOURS, but couldn't get the water out of the pipe. I would have offered help sooner, but really wanted to see how dang long he would mess with it. He had the faucet open of course, but I finally went out and opened one that was lower than the one he worked on :o)
Nope, sorry. Saying that a woman's place is in the home is sexist, saying that women generally don't understand construction is not.
You go get a pool of 1,000 randomly selected women and see how many in that pool understand construction. When you find the answer is -zero- expand your pool to 10,000 and perhaps you'll find one or two. Do the same for any other common generalization and you will find similar truth.
Her: What are you doing today? Me: I need to install that last 4x5 area of insulation in the attic, but before I can do that I need to first install the bathroom vent duct. To install the duct I need to... Her: Nevermind...I'll see you when you're done.
or
Her: What are you doing today? Me: I need to install that last 4x5 area of insulation in the attic, but before I can do that I need to first install the bathroom vent duct. To install the duct I need to... Her: Hold on...do you think you'll be done by 3? Me: Don't know. Why?
...then we discuss what's going on and come to some sort of compromise.
It's been working for 25+ years so no need to change it now.
These days, you could randomly select 1,000 males and see how many understand construction, you may find more than with women but you also may find very few. The same with car repairs. Those who have never done construction nor auto mechanics will have no concept of what it entails, no matter their sex. Women often base their decisions on visual appeal -- e.g.. makeup, house decorating, color of a car, clothing while men often ignore these things and look behind the facade. The problem with these "often do's" is that it fails to apply to everyone, we are all a mix of emotion, logic and reason and what we think applies to one may not apply to another.
My wife understands construction because I taught her about it, now she enjoys participating in all parts of it, even to mixing concrete and helping in the pour, but now because she has health issues and little physical strength, she will now work mainly on planning and support.
"I need to install that last 4x5 area of insulation in the attic"
He gets up there, discovers some stuff that he didn't realize needed to be done, and is up there for most of the day on a 30-minute project. That gets me hollering up the access hatch, "Are you ok? Anything I can do to help? Do you need a drink of water?"
That feature creep is especially common in an older house. Ours is 62; not terribly old, but not a spring chicken either. At least it's only had four owners (including us).
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.