We are in full swing of the renovation on our house. Walls have been razed and raised, floors leveled and tiled and bricks exposed. In the six months since my last project I have gotten very impatient. As a professional renovator I am spoiled by the streamlined process of buying a house and tearing into it the next day. This one is different since I’ve already been in it two years. Two years of love and hate it’s, seven hundred plus days of “That’s not right’s”, “I’d like to do that’s” and “What the %&$*’s” of someone else’s craftsmanship (term used loosely in a voice dripping with irony). Big hammers have made short work of the ill conceived walls chopping our gracious home into the tiny boxes and narrow trails of an oversize Skinner box. Beautiful flowing spaces created, warm wood and trustworthy stone materializing every time a saw buzzes or drill whines. Cheap carpet peeled away to free wooden floors, stains gone and smells purged. The clean scent of Murphy’s oil soap wafting across the breeze (we still have the original windows and its February in Colorado so it’s a cold indoor breeze but it smells of hope none the less). However, a dim shadow occasionally casts itself on the warm sunshine of this renovation, faint and fluttering, but a flicker now it will grow and eventually, engulf the project in darkness like permanent night. The object choking the light is nothing more than a thought. The dark culprit is the thought that lurks behind every check written and dollar borrowed – THIS IS NOT MY HOUSE ANY MORE.
I have to remember we don’t like our mortgage (and it will be bigger now). We don’t like the city trash and dog poop sidewalks (and spring is coming). We don’t like our school choices (and Middle School is coming). We don’t like traffic jams (and road construction season is coming). I have to remind myself that unlocking the beauty of a wonderful houses interior won’t stave off the outside forces that made us want to sell it in the first place. Luckily there is a powerful medicine available to battle the frustration of living in a dusty construction project, the angst passing a fabulous dream house onto a new owner, the anger of dealing with lazy electricians and overbooked tradesmen. Medication to sooth your tongue after cursing the big trucks blocking your parking spot and double cursing the ones who didn’t show to block your driveway. Pharmaceutical corporations don’t own its patent and you don’t need to check in advance to see if it’s on your insurance company’s formulary. It is powerful medicine and it is free. It is the internet (no not the spam ads- your penis is big enough, your weight is good and your hair looks fine). It comes in the easily digestible form of red barns in Iowa, farmhouses in Wisconsin and pumpkin pine floors in Maine. Consumed via the cool 1800’s stone bank converted to a home in near the beach, the $85,000 restored Victorian walking distance to main street parades or in the liquid form of choosing between an in ground pool, stocked pond or trout stream behind your property. These e-dreams relieve stress, provide hope, breath clean air into your lungs and race your pulse in a healthy fashion. When the hammering makes your ears pound there it’s always peaceful in a corn field. When paint fumes and floor sealer makes you queasy there is the fresh smell of salt-air on the beach. When I get conflicted at giving up my big (and rapidly becoming amazing) home, irritated by gently and not so gently prodding surly plumbers and electricians and unsettled by the cost and at odds with the chaos of construction I can google the small town diners and bakeries out the back door of my new dream homes. There is always peace in pie.
~Jeff
I have to remember we don’t like our mortgage (and it will be bigger now). We don’t like the city trash and dog poop sidewalks (and spring is coming). We don’t like our school choices (and Middle School is coming). We don’t like traffic jams (and road construction season is coming). I have to remind myself that unlocking the beauty of a wonderful houses interior won’t stave off the outside forces that made us want to sell it in the first place. Luckily there is a powerful medicine available to battle the frustration of living in a dusty construction project, the angst passing a fabulous dream house onto a new owner, the anger of dealing with lazy electricians and overbooked tradesmen. Medication to sooth your tongue after cursing the big trucks blocking your parking spot and double cursing the ones who didn’t show to block your driveway. Pharmaceutical corporations don’t own its patent and you don’t need to check in advance to see if it’s on your insurance company’s formulary. It is powerful medicine and it is free. It is the internet (no not the spam ads- your penis is big enough, your weight is good and your hair looks fine). It comes in the easily digestible form of red barns in Iowa, farmhouses in Wisconsin and pumpkin pine floors in Maine. Consumed via the cool 1800’s stone bank converted to a home in near the beach, the $85,000 restored Victorian walking distance to main street parades or in the liquid form of choosing between an in ground pool, stocked pond or trout stream behind your property. These e-dreams relieve stress, provide hope, breath clean air into your lungs and race your pulse in a healthy fashion. When the hammering makes your ears pound there it’s always peaceful in a corn field. When paint fumes and floor sealer makes you queasy there is the fresh smell of salt-air on the beach. When I get conflicted at giving up my big (and rapidly becoming amazing) home, irritated by gently and not so gently prodding surly plumbers and electricians and unsettled by the cost and at odds with the chaos of construction I can google the small town diners and bakeries out the back door of my new dream homes. There is always peace in pie.
~Jeff
