By Kerri Havnen Gordon
At long last, our family has finally moved back into the home we have owned for 22 years. Whew! What a project this has been. Here are some notes I wrote along the way.
Pre-remodel: Time to purge. In the master bathroom, I’m tossing old prescription drugs, expired cold medications and duplicate bottles of lotion. Gone are a dozen useless hair-styling products and an unopened pregnancy test with an expiration date of 1994. After two hours, I had bagged 25 pounds of stuff to throw away. I know this because I actually weighed it. Twenty-five pounds gone from our lives and hundreds more to go.
Month three of construction: Stucco or siding? Shake or composite? Hardwood or carpet? Decision after dizzying decision. All this is tough on a gal who at the market has a hard time choosing between paper and plastic.
Month four of construction: It seems so simple. You go to a store and pick out windows, a fireplace, mouldings, a garage door, appliances, light fixtures, etc., and while it is a luxury to get all these new things, it is also difficult. “Pick out what you like,” friends say, but the problem is that I don’t know what I like.
When I was stressing about cabinetry one day, my friend Ann laughed and said, “Girl? You’ve got rich people problems!” She’s right, of course - not about being rich but about the problems - and her voice chimes in my head whenever I get overwhelmed.
Month six of construction: I’ve pretty much concluded that we will never actually live in the house we’re rebuilding. This process will instead go on forever, a perpetual remodeling purgatory from which we’ll never emerge.
Month seven of construction: The most important thing in a remodel has got to be a great relationship with the general contractor. Thank goodness for Dave, who is calm, ethical, detail-oriented and delightful. And aside from a cranky plumber, we like all the subcontractors, too. Time to bake some cookies for the crew.
Month eight of construction: If I wanted sympathy, I barked up the wrong tree. After telling my 17-year-old son that I had troubling sleeping because I was worried that I picked the wrong stain for our hardwood floors, he said, “There you are, lying on your memory-foam pillow under your down comforter on your queen-size bed and worrying, ‘Oh, are my floors too dark?’ while a woman in Africa is lying on her tribal cot, pregnant with her eighth, dying of AIDS and worrying about her four children sick with malaria.” Well, dang, when you put it THAT way . . .
One week after moving back in: Although we only added about 600 square feet, we walk around in awe and can’t quite believe we get to live here. Now it’s time for me to get a job to help pay for all this fun we’re having.
One month after moving back in: I woke up one night worried that if “something happened” to my husband, I’d have to sell the house even if I have a good job, so we met with our life-insurance agent to up our coverage. This afternoon is the resulting doctor visit and fasting blood draw. It has now been eight hours since I’ve eaten, four hours since I returned from a hike in the hills, and I’ve been fantasizing nonstop about a pasta salad in the fridge.
Soon I will bury my face into that bowl, and I might never come out. It’s a small price to pay for a remodeled home and peace of mind.
