Naomi – Author at Plaster & Disaster

There is a funny story (mostly debunked) that you can follow the march of technology all the way from the size of two horses butts as they pulled a roman war chariot, to the size of passenger carriages, to the width of railroad tracks, to the size of the solid rocket boosters on the space shuttles that they transported by train. It is funny because even if it isn’t literally true, it is mostly true – small details and decisions lead to another and sooner or later you have no choice but to paint your hallway white.

But let me back up.

With Sage hard at work on her kitchen makeover, and contemplating some high-stakes beam questions, I thought it would be a good time to talk about a similar decision made back during my renovation: keeping a beam and wall segment between my living room and dining room.

I did a post on the renovation a long while back, but because I did it all before we started the blog, I just gave an overview rather than sharing all the details. Essentially, the biggest change we made to the house was taking out some walls between the kitchen, dining room and living room (marked red in the below).

It was a clear call. The dining room was cramped and it made the kitchen very dark. The pattern on the built-ins was pretty overwhelming and definitely dated.

I’m all for built-in shelving, but it was excessive. I can only imagine how cluttered and oppressive that little room would feel if those shelves were filled with stuff.

But while deciding to take down the walls was easy, we had a lot of details to figure out. (Seriously, when I bought a fixer-upper, I had no idea how many decisions I was about to make.)

One issue was that the wall between the dining and living room was load bearing, so to remove it entirely would have required adding a lot of structural support, which was an expense we weren’t prepared to take on. Instead, we left a small wall segment (in blue in the above floor plan) and the built in that is in the right in the above photo (and in yellow in the floor plan). We also kept the beam that ran along the ceiling. Keeping the built-in but removing the beam would have been difficult.

This was a great plan. We still gained a lot of light and openness, but saved money and kept some separation between the kitchen and living room (which we like). However, it was also a little awkward.

The wall segment was strangely in between a large area that we wanted to have feel like one room. Painting it blue (to match the wall color in the front) would just chop up the space, and a strip of blue along the ceiling would look pretty weird. Painting it white to match our ceiling and trim was the only solution. That way, it would blend into the ceiling and, being light, would hopefully help keep the room feeling bright and open.

However, the beam and wall segment also connected directly to the wall in the hallway.

This was a bummer, because I had big dreams of an intensely colored hallway (red? magenta? navy?) filled with art. Hallways are not quite living spaces, so I thought it would be the perfect place to go a little crazy. Dreams dashed. With no natural stopping point, I had no choice but to paint the hallway white, as well.

(Yes, I DO still need to properly decorate it.)

To follow the chain a little farther, this is actually why I painted all my doors bright yellow. With so many doors in this long hallway, I thought this was the perfect trick to get the vibrant look I was going for.

The beam also connects directly to the built-in in the dining room. It was an obvious choice to paint that white, as well. However, less obvious was the finish. Usually I would go with satin or semi-gloss for a built-in piece which looks more like trim and functions more like furniture. However, there was no natural stopping point for the paint finish all the way from the hallway, and the hallway walls were in no shape to be semi-gloss, so I painted it eggshell like everything else (and the interior yellow to match the doors).

I love the way it looks in white – and I am crazy about the pattern now that it isn’t symmetrical with its partner – but I do think it would have a bit more presence if it were in the right finish.

And, to tie it all together, when I made over a wall cabinet to be a sideboard in the dining room, I painted it the same color as my doors to bring some of the yellow into this front space.

So, because we were too cheap to remove a ceiling beam, one thing led to another and we have a white hallway, an eggshell built-in, bright yellow doors, and a matching yellow sideboard. This is the view that sets the tone for the house the moment you walk through the door. I love it, but it’s funny how it all came about.

High stakes decision making for sure! Hopefully Sage is thinking farther ahead with her renovation than I was…

A couple of weeks ago we shared a post that we had been sitting on for some time, and talked about our experiences with subtle, “helpful” sexism and micro-aggression in home improvement stores.

We were a little nervous about how it would be received, but WOW did you guys respond. We heard so many good comments and stories, as well as some ridiculous strategies that folks are forced to use to be taken seriously. It’s clear that this experience is not unique to us.

In case you all didn’t follow the comments with the same rapt attention that we did, we thought we’d round up a few of the stories:

Refusing to Admit Defeat

Michelle shared a hilarious story about a time she struggled at a home improvement store.

I may not be the best ambassador for women in those type of stores though, because a few months ago I DEFINITELY became the story at least one person went home and laughed about and told their friends – I bought a large piece of lattice and thought FOR SURE it would fit inside my hatchback car (and it honestly was very close) and ended up needing to get some of their rope to tie to the roof. I was exhausted and getting over a cold and not thinking clearly, so I tossed on the roof and then rolled down my windows and spent a few minutes tossing the rope back and forth through the open windows tying it to the roof feeling like a badass for handling it at all without help. Nope. I tied my doors shut. Refusing to be admit defeat, I lifted the trunk as much as I could (about halfway) and climbed in that way. I had to climb over my back seat, then into my front seat (and I’m not a tiny person, so this was awkward as all hell to watch I’m sure) Had to call my husband to come outside and cut me out of the car when I got home, haha.

But we maintain that she IS in fact the best ambassador for women at these types of stores. She solved the problem on her own and got that lattice home just fine. You know that at Plaster & Disaster we certainly don’t pretend to know how to do all of the things that we try to do… it is about having the guts and trusting yourself to be able to figure it out as you go along. If everything turned out perfectly, this blog would be boring.

Michelle, send us a guest post.

The “My Cousin Vinny”

Anne reminded us that a little (or a lot of) knowledge is the ultimate weapon:

My favorite was when I was looking at new doorknobs and oogling the Baldwin (I wish, right?) A man who didn’t work there came up and asked if I needed help, because it can be confusing with all the different options and you have to make sure you get the right ones. He actually pointed out the difference between interior and exterior knobs. That was when I gave him my sweetest smile launched into a long speech about how I was just lusting after the Baldwin, the Estate series is really the ultimate in hardware, but even their Prestige line was worlds away from the garden variety hardware of other brands. I told him I was currently debating the options because I love the handle from one set and the rose from the other. Then I explained what a rose was, and he ended up asking me for help! Score one for the ladies.

I’m imagining it playing out kind of like this:

Many readers noted that when they’re in a home improvement store with a male partner or friend, employees typically address their companion even if he’s not the one asking the question. As Susan describes,

I’m not an avid DIY-er, but I have done many projects out of necessity, and enjoy doing lots of research. What I notice (and point out to my husband) is that when we go together, even if I ask an employee questions, the employee will typically address their response to my husband.

We’ve both experienced that a lot, and it also helps explain why it’s so unsettling when the two of us are in there together — there’s no man to focus on!

Turning a thrift store plastic cactus into a chic side table - super cool kids at home depot - Plaster & Disaster

We only *sometimes* have a plastic cactus with us, so that can’t be the reason

“Than Most Ladies”

Several readers pointed out that the issue isn’t unique to home improvement stores, but is also a problem for any sort of contractor who comes to do work on the house, like this experience of Mary Anne in Kentucky:

Plumbers! Yes! When I had to have all the 1938 galvanized intake pipe replaced a few houses ago the two young men gave me the estimate and I said “…Well, I could always do it myself, but I guess I’d have to take a month off work so it would cost about the same, and besides I hate working in crawl spaces.” After they finished the job, during which I occasionally got questions while I was at work, and made suggestions, they said “You seem like you know more about plumbing than most ladies” (!) and I said “I expect most people you work for, men or women, didn’t have a father who put the first bathroom into the house he bought just before I was born. I grew up thinking every house should have a set of pipe-threading dies. Remember when I said I could do this myself, but it would take too long? I meant that.” Their mouths kind of fell open.

What’s wrong with “you seem to know more about plumbing than [most people who are not professional plumbers]”…?

There must be a man involved

And several others reminded us that this sort of experience can be found in pretty much every industry.

Stacey a shared a satisfying comeuppance story:

My favorite incident of all time happened at Micro Center in 1997-ish: I wanted a copy of Linux, so I asked the first person (male) I saw where the operating systems were. He took me to the Windows OSs, and I was all, “no, I’m looking for Linux.” Guy asked me if it was for my boss or boyfriend. Instead of punching him I flipped my hair and said, in my best bimbo voice, “I admin over 100 UNIX servers for work, so I figured how hard could Linux be at my home?!” Guy turned beet red, pointed to the aisle where Linux stuff was located, and quickly excused himself.

Bobbie shared an entertaining exchange with someone in her very male-dominated industry:

I recently had this exchange with a young man:

Him: I don’t mean to me sexist, but you’re girl…
Me: Gosh, that’s not sexist at all, just very observant.
Him: …..

And Dorothy got our blood boiling with some experience working at boat shows:

In a physical work context, like building docks at the boat show, I’ve had men take a tool right out of my hands and take over what I was almost finished doing. I’ve had the group leader ask me to go catch some boat’s lines, then had another guy from the group run over as the boat comes in, stand right in front of me and take the lines.

Thanks for reminding us that there’s sexism pretty much everywhere, Stacey and Dorothy!

Now that we’ve shared just a few of the many commiserating, hilarious, and infuriating stories we received, we also wanted to share some of the coping strategies some similarly fed-up readers have adopted.

Have a standard line. If you find yourself constantly needing to fend off the same kind of help, you might consider a one-liner that gets you out of the situation and on your way as quickly as possible. For example, Carla described how she responds to frequent offers of help lifting things:

My least favorite is when someone wants to help me because it is heavy. Now they are not going to be at my home when I get there to help me unload it because it is heavy so I really want to do it myself to be sure I can. I’ve actually said that a few times “well you won’t be at home with me to unload it will you?”

Vote with your wallet. Sometimes it seems like there are condescending men everywhere we turn in the home improvement world, but the reality is that there are people out there who are able to look past your female appearance and treat you like an equal human being (gasp). You can reinforce this (and have a more pleasant experience) by giving your business to these folks.

As Shadlyn describes,

Talking to the SO is the worst! Can’t do much about it in stores, but it’s now a rule that if a potential contractor addresses answers to my questions to the man by my side, he will not get the job. You can divide your answer between us, or you can answer the asker, but ignoring me when I’m the one taking notes and asking questions is not good manners OR a good business decision.

Speaking of which…

Shop local! Several readers noted that they steer clear of the big box stores and frequent local home improvement stores where the staff actually recognize them. Building a personal connection over time seems to be a good way to move away from the “Oh my goodness there’s a woman in here she must need my manly help!” impulse towards actually helpful advice.

Bring a (male) toddler. We’d never thought of this one before, but it seems to be working well for Gretchen:

Now I feel like maybe people don’t like me because no one ever offers to help me at Home Depot. Or maybe it’s because I usually have my three year old with me, and they just figure he has everything taken care of because he’s a boy? Or maybe I just go to either an exceptionally enlightened and progressive or an exceptionally unhelpful Home Depot.

Thank you again for all your amazing advice and stories that reminded us we’re not alone with this! Time to find a friend who will loan us her son for our next trip to Home Depot.

Why Keeping a Beam Made Me Paint My Hallway White