I know every shape, wrinkle and freckle.
I know why the tip of my left index finger tapers to a peak, why there's a pea-size scar on my lower right wrist, why the middle joint of the right index knuckle has a smooth callous and why the nails on my right hand are noticeably longer than those of my left.
Respectively they're as they are due to a misguided power shot with a hammer, a wayward tap from a chisel, a gash from a jagged rock as I rushed a shot at a paua while running out of breath and, lastly, because I need longer nails on my right to pluck guitar strings. Yet this week my hands are unrecognisable.
Oddly enough they're appreciably larger. My fingers are dry and gnarled. Small pieces of skin are missing from my right hand and it hurts to make a fist with either.
They're the craggy result of six straight days of home renovation.
Hoping to reduce the inevitable invoice from my builder I took a week off work and found myself on the end of a concrete breaker, nail gun, hammer and, in my case, the ironically named skilsaw.
Of all the tool toiling, the saber-saw is my new favourite. This reciprocating puppy cuts through nails and wood - or anything else that gets in the way of my wife's plans for our tiny 1920s bungalow.
I love this little bungalow.
It's a sculpture in matai and rimu. Whoever described these period houses as "character" homes hit the nail on the head.
The noise of my kids' bare feet slapping soft matai floorboards is a unforgettable sound bite of their upbringing.
Our fireplace's mantelpiece is both solid but baroque. It sits atop a brick hearth, below exposed-beam ceilings, next to a reddish-rimu door that glows the colour of a tangerine in the Hastings sun.
Like my hands, I know the place intimately. I could walk around it blindfolded and not knock into anything. I know which child is up by the unique sound of every doorknob, which floorboards whimper, what parts of the ceiling yelp in the heat.
That's why renovating its person this past week was at times sombre. For some reason during the many times I cut 2.7 metre native timber studs from the wall I thought of the doomed Albert Hotel.
At about 130 years old Hastings' oldest building is lauded for its longevity.
Yet when you consider much of Europe's architecture is measured not in hundreds, but thousands of years, it underscores how young this building and country are.
Paradoxically the only thing we have to rival the history of Europe's built environment is the very timber that holds this establishment up.
The revered hotel now faces major renovation - or the wrecking ball. Many say it should be saved.
With my saber-saw blazing last week I wondered, philosophically, if the majority of its structure was replaced - would it be the same building?
Maybe some think memories are stored in the walls, floating high amid the trusses or forever kept in tongue-and-groove.
Either way, I wasn't without guilt as I ran a saw through the expired native timber into firewood-sized lengths.
Like flowers that are at their brightest just before they die, the rimu in my fireplace warded off the frost as it glowed fiercely one last time.
I consoled myself by thinking it'd left an impressive legacy.
In some unknown corner of our indigenous bush these slow-growing giants lived for hundreds of years - if not thousands - before reaching milling age.
Untreated, the timber selected for my house then spent almost another century acting as the ribs and backbone of this little whare.
It was my dubious honour to fell them for the second, and final time. I can tell you it caused me some grief.
But if they could talk, I'm guessing they'd prefer not to rot away in some landfill.
Rather cremation than burial for these grand old ladies of the forest.
Mark Story is assistant editor at Hawke's Bay Today.
