So, it’s been a week. In fact, it feels like six and not just one.
We occasionally saw an ant or two in the house this spring. Nothing big, just one every few days. But just one is a problem, honestly. Plus, we were seeing them in an unusual place. Not the kitchen or bathrooms. Instead, it was in my husband’s office. My husband’s office with the beautifully installed, hand-rubbed shiplap ceiling (that will become important in about three sentences).
On Monday, my husband went to adjust the chair in his office when he noticed it: a small pile of foam dust in the corner. Less than a quarter cup in size, it was a mighty bad omen. He had found the ants and unfortunately for us, it appeared that they had built a nest in our spray foam insulation that we had installed on the ceiling. It was the same ceiling on which we had placed the shiplap. A ton of google searches later, the news got a tad worse: carpenter ants love spray foam as they can tunnel through it easily and build nests. It would also be difficult to get rid of them, because their networks can get large fast due to the ease of chewing through the foam.
That kicked off our week. By Tuesday evening, we had moved him out of the office (and into mine), covered the new hardwood floors with paper and dropped half of the ceiling. Thankfully, the ants practically put up a sign that said “Nest is Here” with a big bullseye. It wasn’t hard to find. After consulting with an exterminator, we learned that we didn’t want to use insecticide but instead use bait and allow the ants to take the bait back to any other nests to kill the queen, just in case we hadn’t managed to find her. In the meantime, we could keep cleaning up what we could, treat the outside of the house (because the main nest was likely outside) and rebait the opened areas for few days to make sure all of the ants disappeared. A small nest, we were told, will usually die off in 2-3 days. A big nest can take longer – up to 10 days – to kill the colony. But because we had found the heart of the indoor nest (believe me, the ant eggs were proof) and had vacuumed them out along with baiting them, we had done what we could. It’s now Saturday and we haven’t seen an ant in two days. No one around here is getting too excited, but it appears to be working. (The exterminator also told us we were lucky. We noticed the nest fairly quickly and it was likely small enough in size that we wouldn’t have to replace the whole ceiling.)
The next step will be to re-insulate and re-install the ceiling sometime next week. To do that, however, we had one somewhat minor problem: one of the boards ended up split in three places when we removed it. Since it was an end board and difficult to cut, that was a problem. Moreover, my hand finish? It meant that the wood was allowed to patina. Cutting a new board was going to stick out like a sore thumb.
But that’s when my not-so-genius idea came in: I would glue the board back together. I tested my theory. The board had split with some fairly jagged lines, but when together well. Further, those jagged lines? That made a good place for wood glue to go. Finally, my husband had invested in one of those clamp sets that Home Depot must sell a ton of. I had all of the pieces to attempt a repair.
Now, my hubby was a “let’s just start over” kind of guy. He wasn’t excited about the prospect of attempting to glue the boards. So rather than tell him what I was doing, I decided to just do it. The worst that would happen was that it would be a failure but that we would at least have a template of what the new board should be. Surreptitiously, I took the wood glue, pieces of board and clamps to the basement. Twenty minutes later, I had done my best and proudly showed my hubby my efforts. Today? The board looks just fine, thank you very much. The splits are hardly noticeable as the edges came together well and I’m perfectly pleased with it. Moreover, I’m celebrating a little victory. That was the only board we had to outright replace. The others were a tad wonky but certainly usable. Now? Well, we have everything we need to re-install as easily and simply as possible.
Moreover? (And yes, that’s my word of the day.) I’m glad we didn’t waste the board or another board we would have had to basically rip the entire length to fix the ceiling. I’m also stupidly proud of myself. This week was a killer. I didn’t sleep on Monday night as I was so upset about the extent of the ant issue and the difficulty in removing them from foam insulation. I was also mentally defeated as it seems we are ALWAYS working on this house and never getting that far ahead. Finally, the timing absolutely sucked. We have friends coming in a little over a week and we now had half of a ceiling’s worth of boards stacked in our upstairs hallway. My “bounce back” attitude was completely deflated. I was ready to sell the house, move into a condo and walk away from all we had built here. A little dramatic? Yes. But it also represented my sense of defeat.
Now, with my board healed, so too, is a small part of my psyche. The ants do appear to be well and truly gone. I wasn’t going to trust it after just a day but we’re over two days now and no ants. Make it 3-4 days and I will truly believe. Plus, as much as I wanted to just let the whole ant-thing send me into a complete tailspin where I did nothing all week, I managed to trim and mow the grass, clean my downstairs well, make some good meals, and ultimately clean up my husband’s office last night so that he could move back in. This included uncovering the floors, vacuuming and cleaning everything and restacking all of those boards along the far wall so they’re out of our hallway. (He did his fair share in managing the ant removal, cleaning up all of the tools and working full-time this week.)
I’ve heard people say that something is “stuck together with glue and duct tape” and I took it to mean that it was barely held together. In fact, when I use the saying I’m effectively trying to represent the same sentiment. But today? Well, the saying and the sentiment have new meaning to me. Yes, it does still mean that it is a tenuous situation. But instead of the implied gloom of that statement, I now see hope. Candidly, at the beginning of this week, I needed rhetorical duct tape and glue to hold myself together. But now that I’ve had the smallest of successes? Well, I’ve got the tiniest bit of momentum and just enough hope to be dangerous.
The Yuppie Homesteader 