My old adobe wall needed 27 bags of stucco mix to finish, which felt like a lot more than I remember.

I was patching up a section of my house's original adobe wall last month, the one on the west side that gets all the afternoon sun. I remember helping my dad with a similar job maybe 20 years ago, and it felt like we only went through a handful of bags from the hardware store. This time, my little project just kept eating up mix. When I counted the empty bags at the end, it was 27. It really hit me how much more material it takes to maintain these old places now, and how the work seems bigger as you get older. The wall looks great, solid and smooth, but my back definitely knows the difference. I guess materials and my memory have both changed over the years. Has anyone else been surprised by the scale of a repair on an older Albuquerque home compared to when they were younger?

2 comments

2 Comments

burns.richard22d ago

Did you check if the bags are smaller now than they used to be? I swear they shrink the packaging every few years.

elizabethwhite22d ago

Noticed my favorite chips now look like they're sold in sample bags. The weight on the label is a full ounce less than it was last year, but the price jumped up fifty cents. They're betting we won't notice while we're watching TV.