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  • Hi, I’m Emily

    Emily Fazio

    I'm a home improvement enthusiast, living a very merry DIY lifestyle.

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Mother- and Power Tool-Related

May 9, 2011

Mom’s easily the handiest woman I know; she and my Dad bought a 100+ year old farm house complete with barn, garage, inground pool and 4 acres for less than what I paid for my house (granted, it was 25 years ago). They’ve spent the last 25 years upgrading, adding on, gutting, and painting.

She visits me from time to time, bringing me perennials and usually lunch, because she thinks my fridge is barren (no comment). Here we are last summer:

And I’m posting this a day after the celebrated holiday because Mom’s a stud and worked until 8PM (probably got overtime pay, well planned). Since she opened her presents via phone with me at 8:45PM, I couldn’t risk posting day-of and having her (or chatty Dad, hi Dad) see the awesomeness that was about to greet her Mother’s Day evening.

Let me say this: she loves power tools, but her arsenal isn’t as loaded as it could be. She gets by using her steady hand for painting trim and manual (traditional) tools for makin’ her awesome, awesome garden grow. And try and imagine this: she’s sanded and painted the house’s cedar siding multiple times by hand. As in, with a paint scraper and piece of sand paper. It’s annoying and repetitive a process, she lets us know it, but it’s something that needs to be taken care of every 7 or so years and she’s probably going to disagree, but she seems prideful (and the rest of us are prideful) of her drive to do it solo. It’s kind of badass.

Next time it (and other sanding efforts) should go smoother. Literally. And figuratively. Because I bought her this baby for Mother’s Day.

Hi there, Skil OCTO power sander.

Yep, that’s a Skil Octo Multi-finishing sander and not only was it a reputable brand, but it received good reviews, a good price, AND came with enough attachments and sandpaper to last her, oh, who knows how long. I tend to like this shape sander better than circular or square since it fits well into tiny spaces. She also has this thing about hand-painting the wooden fence that surrounds the pool piece by piece, and I think this will help immensely to expedite the process.

It’s not a rental backhoe (which she’s been asking for for years to make her pond deeper – a pond she’s only dug by hand to date) but I’ll have to get her one just for fun sometime.

Happy Mother’s Day.

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Emily
I'm a home improvement enthusiast, living a very merry DIY lifestyle. You can find me writing for HGTV and DIY Network, follow me on facebook and instagram, or drop me a note if you'd like. I love notes.

4 Comments


Cait @ Hernando House
May 9, 2011 at 10:42 am
Reply

Oh wow, that is a lot of hand sanding! I think the Skil sander will come in very handy next time!



    Emily
    May 9, 2011 at 10:53 am

    And wouldya believe that she still sounded skeptical about it’s abilities? It’s a life changer. Hopefully she tries it out :)

    Cait @ Hernando House
    May 9, 2011 at 1:59 pm

    Haha too funny! Definitely a life changer!

Ashley @ DesignBuildLove.co
May 9, 2011 at 4:47 pm
Reply

LOVE it! Handy moms are the best. I happened to be blessed with one of those as well. You’re gift is awesome too! Wouldn’t mind having one of those bad boys in my arsenal!

PS- that sounds like a ridiculous amount of hand-sanding!



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  • HI, I’m Emily

    Emily Fazio

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