A physics lesson hits home (improvements)
One of the more interesting aspects of physics, if you can
remember back to high school, is the concept of entropy. Or, for
those of us who don’t remember physics, it’s known as
”
why things fall apart.
”
A physics lesson hits home (improvements)
One of the more interesting aspects of physics, if you can remember back to high school, is the concept of entropy. Or, for those of us who don’t remember physics, it’s known as “why things fall apart.”
A classic example of an increase of entropy is ice melting. As the ice warms up, its molecules disintegrate. Bingo: the ice falls apart and becomes water.
I have been thinking about this a lot lately because entropy seems to be taking over my life. Things are falling apart.
I was thinking about entropy the other day when I was looking over the outside of the house. I saw a rotting board, trim that needed painting, and lots and lots of spider webs. There is siding that’s become mud-splashed, windows that need washing, a patio that needs sweeping.
Sigh. That darn entropy.
When it comes to houses, it seems like they fall apart overnight.
After all, it was only two years ago that it was painted, and a few months before that, everything had been caulked and repaired and replaced.
And everything was fairly clean about two weeks ago. What happened?
It doesn’t take very long for deterioration to set in.
I seem to have a list of little house things to do that’s as long as my arm. My fix-it guy, Jim Stone, is great at all these mini-jobs, stuff that would take me hours to do that he can pull off in five minutes.
So right now there’s molding to be replaced, a bath bar that needs repair, and tile work that’s been on hold.
And then there’s the painting. Don’t get me started about the painting.
When you first buy a house, you don’t realize how many things can potentially go wrong with it. A house like mine seems to have infinite possibilities for falling apart because it wasn’t built great to begin with.
Over the years, it’s become a better house through sheer will and, of course, money. Improvements have been made. Now, after living here more than 20 years, it’s time to improve all over again.
The funny thing about home improvement, too, is that once you do something to make something look better, it makes everything else look shabby.
Say you paint a room. You’re glad because the room looks so much better. But then you start noticing other things, like how the baseboard doesn’t line up right. Or how your carpet is permanently dirty. Or that there’s missing outlet covers or dents in the door.
Then you feel obligated to do more home improvements to bring the rest of the room up to snuff.
So at this point, you finally have one nice room, and you can go around feeling happy and proud about that. But then you’ll become aware that the one nice room makes the rest of the house look lousy by comparison. And so it goes.
Letting everything fall apart is not an option, at least not for me. But it’s a constant struggle. I have paint, still in cans, that needs to be on walls. I have a major front yard project that is betwixt and between. I have a collection of weeds in the backyard that is gradually taking over.
There’s more than enough to do here, now that spring is in the air.
And entropy. It’s always with us, no matter the season.
