This Damn House

There are numerous sites on the web that will provide a "how to" on any sort of home repair topic. But how many will give you a "how not to"?

Here at This Damn House we lament this gap in information, and herewith do our part to fill it.

When recaulking a tub, do not...:

• use cheap caulk, unless you love caulking so much you want to do it over and over and over again (I now swear by GE Silicone)
  
• use "easy to use" caulk tubes instead of a caulk gun
  
• forget that even when you release the trigger on the caulk gun, the caulk will continue to ooze out, thereby covering your bathroom floor in a gooey pile of silicone while you are carefully examining your completed work
  
• be fat extra voluptuous, lest the moaning and groaning you'll do when you climb in and out of the tub 532 times prompt your family to call 911 because they think you have had a stroke
  

When repainting a bathroom, do not...

• use a cheap paintbrush that leaves a trail of paint brush bristles where ever it goes
  
• fail to realize that mildew-resistant bathroom paint contains nasty, toxic, smelly mildewcidal chemicals that will give you a rip-roaring headache in 5 minutes flat
  
• have a bathroom with no windows
  
• do the painting on a 98 degree day, thereby requiring you to have to choose between opening the windows in the attached bedroom (to release the headache-blasted mildewcidal toxic mayhem) or keep them closed (to keep in the heaven sent blessed coolness from your central AC)
  

• visit your wife while she's just putting the final touches on the second coat of paint and nigh unto death from toxic mildewcidal mayhem and point out spots that really ought to have been more thoroughly sanded before painting, and suggest that further sanding and a third coat of paint might be in order