Editor’s note: This is a new column for the Home and Garden section. The author is Rebecca Kilby, a 1997 University of Georgia graduate currently remodeling portions of her home in Atlanta.

It all started with me tearing up in the dining room of my 1920s home, clutching a screwdriver and calling out for my husband.

I was attempting to remove the door knobs and plates from the doors, despite 90 years of paint covering all the screws. I just couldn’t get it, and my dear, patient husband came in and gave me some tips (yes, apparently there are tips to unscrewing paint covered screws), all while attempting to calm me down.

Then I lost it.

I am an educated, grown woman, and I need help to unscrew something? I have always been very crafty and have a full arsenal of crafting tools and supplies combined with a MacGyver-esque ability to create. However, I have never been handy. That is my husband’s domain, and he often seems stunned at times that I don’t intuitively know how to change a miter saw blade.

Well, things are about to change.

It began with me asking him questions while he was doing something. Soon I started asking if I could try whatever he was in the midst of. He gave me tips on spray painting and I used them to refinish a cool, old retro clock we had picked up at a yard sale. He taught me the best way to use a shovel and I helped dig a hole for a new sump pump in the basement. It was like I became the five-year-old kid who thinks shining dad’s shoes or helping mom in the garden is so cool because she has never done it before.

Plus, my husband was thrilled that he now had a designated hole digger.

Then came the big leap: we bought a door from 1910 at a yard sale, and suddenly it was my job to strip and repaint it. Being a TV junkie, I distinctly remember the public service announcements about lead- based paint. I figured if I was going to scrape the first few layers of chipping paint off, I would need some serious protection. Armed with a respirator and yellow swim goggles, I started scraping.

Now, we all know how hot and humid summer in Georgia is. Soon enough my yellow-tinged view got a bit foggy. The goggles had to go and were soon replaced with some other, less stylish protective eyewear.

My husband thought it was hysterical.

After the scraping was out of the way, it was time for some chemical warfare – paint stripper. We had picked up some paint stripper with my husband’s insistence that we were now set for supplies.

Big tip here, ladies: even if they think they know it all, don’t rely on your husband without reading the directions first.

After the first attempt was thwarted by a makeshift scraper, I made my way back to Lowe’s to get the plastic scraper recommended in the unread directions.

What a world of difference!

I became the paint-removing queen, carefully cleaning the elaborate trim, diligently going over tough spots caked with almost a hundred years worth of paint. It was time-consuming for sure, but I had a method going: a surefire and efficient system. This system was of course ignored when my husband came over to help. I found myself having to correct his technique and tell him how I would do it.

How did he not instinctively know my way, which obviously was the best way?

Eventually he backed off and let me go to town – after all, he must have recognized that this is now my domain.

Better watch out, honey – I think the miter saw is calling out my name…

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