style="font-size:15px;"> “Lead paint. That there? It is lead paint, lady. Not the top layer. Probably not the last three or four or five coats. But underneath? Definitely lead. Lots of it. Big believers of it in the 1880s. So we got to contain the dust, and use breathing masks, and then properly dispose of it...that won’t take that long. Say, three weeks?”
“Three weeks? Just to get rid of the lead?”
“And the plaster. Might do it in two. But you want it gone. Trust me. And it’ll be gone when I’m done. And then we’ve got it all nice and bare and we can see the ribs of the old girl. Do some checking. Make sure that condensation hasn’t messed up the framing. You do get it sprayed for termites, right?”
“Every year. Gran has a contract with a pest control company. She loses the discounted rate if she skips a year.”
“Good. Good. So probably no big surprises under there, but I can’t promise. And while we’ve got it out, we can put in some insulation—that’d be real good to cut down on the utility bills, keep the old girl nice and toasty, help with that condensation problem, too. And we’ll check on the wiring, of course. No telling how they wired this thing when electricity came on line here. It’s probably pretty scary to look at.”
“And you’d...you’d do all this?”
“Well, I’d be the lead contractor. I’d subcontract part of it, a job this big.”
“Two walls? Is big?”
“No. The whole house. You gotta do the whole house. Wouldn’t be right. Like giving an old lady half a face-lift. Or putting in one new hip joint when she needs both replaced.”
“Jerry...Jerry.” Allison smiled at him. It was, to Kyle, the most angelic, heart-melting smile he’d ever seen. “I don’t have that kind of money. And my grandmother, she’s in a rehab facility and needs to come home. I don’t have a lot of time. So...what’s a...”
Kyle could see her lips change from “cheaper” to “work-around” to finally “an alternative way. You know. Out of the box.”
Jerry swiveled his head toward Kyle. “Kyle? I thought you said this was a restoration job?”
“You didn’t exactly give me time to explain. Can you help her with this? She’s trying to do a lot herself.”
Jerry’s face crumpled. “Dang. Got my heart broke. I thought for sure...”
The three of them stood in silence, with both Allison and Jerry staring at the wall in question.
Suddenly Allison brightened. “Hey! Hey, I know! Why can’t I just put in drywall? You know, over the plaster? I could do that, right? Smooth surface. It’d go up quick. No patching. No disturbing the lead. And it would be easier to fix later on.”
Jerry practically hissed. Kyle rubbed his forehead again. “Allison,” he began.
“I’ll have no part in putting drywall in a 126-year-old house,” Jerry told her, his back ramrod straight.
“But—but why not? Just because it’s not authentic? I can’t afford authentic! Not in time. And certainly not financially.”
The contractor opened his mouth, started to speak, stopped, started to speak again. Finally, he growled at Kyle, “Tell her. I’m too—too...” He couldn’t finish his thought.
“Jerry is saying... Uh, what he means is it’s not going to solve the problem. The issue is the unstable plaster underneath. From the condensation. And...if you put drywall up, the plaster may hold. For a little bit. But then it will come down. In chunks. And cause cracks. And mess up the drywall, since the moisture in the plaster is probably still there. But Jerry would put a vapor barrier up when he removed the plaster... Are you listening? You are not listening, Allison. Allison? Where are you going?”
But she had left. She stalked out into the hall. He thought she was going to march down to the front door and throw them out, but no. The footsteps were on the back stairs, not the front, and they were going up, not down.
So what was he supposed to do now?
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