Far be it from me to offer home improvement tips — there’s a reason this column is at the back of Abode, not the front — but the truth is, I’ve actually learned quite a bit since taking on the renovation of my parents’ onetime rental property, especially when it comes to patching and painting.

For example, I know you should never hire anyone who describes herself on her answering machine as a “faux painter.” I know that painter’s tape is as invaluable as it is expensive and that a drop cloth is only as effective as it is wide. I know you should crack your first Schlitz, crank the Deep Purple and visit the pisser before you dampen your brush, not after. Finally, I know that regardless of what the structural engineers say, even the most profoundly cavernous hole can be filled with nothing more than spackle.

Indeed, I’ve developed such a talent for spackling the cracks that I recently agreed to apply my know-how to my parents’ primary residence, which has been deteriorating under the less-than-watchful eye of my older brother since our folks moved to England for a two-year sabbatical and forgot to take the spare key from under the mat.

Now that my fugitive parents have finally repatriated, of course — now that they’ve seen firsthand what happens when you leave the care of your home to a freeloading 40-year-old with a PhD in philosophy — I guess even an undernourished, out-of-shape, malcontented, freelance newspaperman can start to look handy.

Obviously, I won’t know the full extent of my brother’s custodial neglect until the middle of next month, when I drive up to Chicago with seven gallons of unresolved sibling rivalry in my trunk and a putty knife tucked in my belt. I won’t know if there are new holes to patch or old ones that have expanded, or if the Collected Works of Søren Kierkegaard he hurled at my head in a fit of existential angst last Christmas even left a mark. At the moment, I only know what the wife and I have dealt with for the past 20-something months here in Columbia, and that when it comes to that other house, a job more easily undertaken by the son who lives just down the hall has somehow fallen to the son who lives clear across the country.

Needless to say, Mom’s thrilled — and not because I offered to brick-in my brother’s bedroom while he’s inside, contemplating his Plato. She’s thrilled because I’m neither licensed nor bonded nor certified in anything that requires lifting more than 15 pounds, and I therefore come remarkably cheap. I agreed to do the job for a case of beer and a couple more months of rent-free living.

It’ll be like a working vacation, I tell myself — at least until my brother reads this column.

Of course and to be fair, as much as I may bitch about the never-ending nightmare of reconstruction — as much crap as I give my folks for tricking my wife and me into semi-permanent exile in their bizarre suburban labor camp — the truth is, Mom and Dad have been pretty damn good to us. Except for a brief period last year when Dad needed to finance a weekend jaunt to Tuscany, the only rent we have so far shelled out has been in the devalued currencies of sweat equity and lost sleep.

As an undernourished, out-of-shape, malcontented freelance newspaperman, I do know a sweet deal when I see one, and I don’t mind pitching in where I can. In fact, I look forward to it, whether my freeloading, 40-year-old, philosophizing brother picks up a brush or not.

Craig Brandhorst is a freelance writer. To read more  visit his blog at deconstructionfables.wordpress.com.