When will ChatGPT paint my house for me?
I'm ready to outsource everything, but it's not happening here...
Welcome! I'm Sara Ramsey, a novelist and former/future tech worker who recently moved back to rural Iowa. I write about my wild and weird #smalltownlife, as well as anything else that strikes my fancy. If you haven’t subscribed yet, please join me!
Hi friend,
I’m not a DIY’er, but I’ve been forced by circumstance to become one.
My house was built in the 1980s and has barely been updated since. The only previous owner was a retired trucker named Marvin. I’m guessing he spent the 1980s doing uppers and evading weigh stations, which didn’t leave a lot of time for reading design magazines. But Marvin did quite well as a trucker, and the house he built is one of the newest/nicest in town — even if the floorplan makes no sense and thirty years is way too long to keep the same carpet.
I’ve slowly painted every room, including the garage, over the last year or so. This has been a chore — my bedroom alone is over 500 square feet (see: Marvin’s questionable floorplan). Admittedly, I had a bit of help1. I also bought a paint sprayer — the pros don’t recommend using a sprayer on a single room at a time, but it saved me from wrecking my shoulders with a paint roller. And I’ve gotten good at making Dexter-style kill rooms with perfectly sealed plastic sheeting so that I can spray paint without destroying everything.
This is where I should wax poetic about the pride that comes from making something yourself, or the sense of satisfaction after a day of physical labor. This is where I should embrace the DIY ethos and start a TikTok. This is where I should pretend that I love this.
But honestly, screw that. The lack of people to outsource to is one of my least favorite things about living here. While I have come to loathe late-stage capitalism, I still believe in the value of specialization and division of labor. I would happily pay someone to paint my house so that I can get on with more important things, like writing my book or drafting Substacks or drinking Spindrift on my balcony (Marvin’s questionable floorplan got at least one thing right).
The problem is — in a county of 6000 people, half of whom are under 18 or over 65, there truly aren’t enough people to do everything a population needs to maintain itself. It goes beyond the volunteer economy that I talked about in my last newsletter. The population is too small to fully specialize, so people are stuck as generalists, doing everything they need to do to maintain themselves.
I used to think that the reason why everything looks decayed here is poverty and general economic collapse. That’s still true. Poverty is a real problem; there aren’t enough people to live in the abandoned houses; and that means a lot of buildings are slowly degrading.
But it’s also true that you can’t create the “Instagram aesthetic” without help. You might be able to do it in your late twenties, with endless energy and joints that don’t creak yet. You might be able to do it if you have an equally energetic partner, and maybe access to takeout when you don’t have time to cook.
If you’re not that perfect DIY’er — say you have mobility limitations, or parents or kids who need care, or a demanding job, or even just suck at painting — then you’re stuck with whatever issues you have with your house. Most elderly residents can’t keep up with their houses without help, and they’re completely screwed if they don’t have local family who can fix things.
And I’m not even getting into the problem of finding licensed electricians and plumbers. That’s a story for another post, but I’ve heard multiple people look at a plumbing or electrical issue here and say “that looks real southern Iowa,” which means it was done illegally by an unqualified individual for lack of other options. Not that “illegal” means anything, since there usually aren’t inspections here anyway.
Even if you can afford it, it’s hard to find anyone to hire for any task.
And when you do find someone, you have to get comfortable with them knowing your business.
I got lucky with my kitchen remodel. My dad’s friend Randy agreed to do it, which was a real coup, since he’s regarded as the best. He would not have taken me if I didn’t have serious connections (thanks Dad!).
Randy is a one-man operation; he spent two months in my house. We talked about his daughters, whom I went to school with. He kept me updated on key findings from his daily gossip sessions at the lumber yard. My dad showed up with homemade peanut brittle for Randy; Randy made a gift for my mom for Christmas. Randy even fielded letters for me from a guy at the lumber yard who tried to ask me out (hard pass).
It feels almost impossible to have a transactional relationship in this town. I couldn’t simply hire Randy and ignore him; I know about his family, his house fire, his wife’s death, his poker nights and woodworking skills and coffee preferences. It can never be purely transactional when you know someone’s history, even if it’s a transaction by definition.
In the same way, getting a dress shortened by a woman named Melvina costs $6 — but it also costs 45 minutes of catching up on Melvina’s kids and grandkids, explaining to her why I’m not married, getting into a side convo with her daughter about book publishing, etc., etc., etc. Melvina is 82, and has a son in my dad’s class and another son who is my age. She also altered 40+ prom dresses this year because no one else is doing alterations.
When I got my car detailed, I took it to someone I knew in school — Jim Bob, who started a side hustle to supplement his job as a sheriff’s deputy. I know what he’s been up to because his brother is married to my friend (who is also my third cousin). Jim Bob has been in business for less than ten weeks. He’s already booked a month out because there aren’t enough people in the detailing business.
Any service you can think of is the same. I can’t get my nails done; I saw a rumor that someone might start doing nails, but if they do, I’m sure they’ll be booked forever. I had to find someone 40 miles away to service my air conditioner, and pay a distance fee to get them to come over. I got exactly one recommendation for someone to paint my house — but she’s over 70 years old, which shamed me into doing it myself. You can sometimes hire Amish women to clean your house, but you often have to pick them up. I managed to get new carpet installed, but it was a two month wait and then I spent three days talking to the guy while he did it (he did have excellent stories of getting shot while hunting, so that was worth it).
And you may have to get a Pap smear from someone you’re in a volunteer group with, which is a whole ‘nother level of “get comfortable with them knowing your business.”
#smalltownlife may be off the grid, but it’s not exactly private, especially if you’re trying to improve things. I’ve got a list of projects this summer and no idea how I’ll get them done.
But if you need a Dexter-style kill room, I guess I’m your girl.
Cheers,
Sara
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My brother bizarrely thinks a vacation should involve manual labor, which probably comes from our ancestor who came over on the Mayflower to embrace a life of mirthless toil. I want to disabuse him of these Puritan ideals…but it’s not really in my best interests to encourage him to live his best life. So I’ve gotten some major DIY help from him, which is great because my short T-Rex arms aren’t well suited for most physical tasks.
Unfortunately? It's not great in big cities either. The WaPo had an article about it this week. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/home/2023/05/16/getting-contractors-to-return-calls/).
I got a lot of stuff done in the last ten years, the last renovation in January 2022. I'm just crossing fingers that nothing goes bad, or needs to be fixed. You're in good company. A lot of the writers we know are doing it themselves now because we have time...and YouTube.
OMG, I'm laughing so hard!