I’m not a carpenter; I’m a painter. But every once in a while, I am required to do a little carpentry work along with the painting job. Well, it just happened that in the job I’m doing now, there is this area on the exterior siding that needed some desperate help. It needed to be torn out and redone because of water damage. At first, I was going to try to find someone else to do it; then I said, no I can do it; I’ll figure it out.

As I began to tear out the old rotten wood, I told the client, “I think I will just tear out the rotten part half way up and put a new piece in and patch it.” She (the client) had her doubts about what I was intending to do and said, “Won’t it show?” But I said, “No problem, I’ll make…