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Friday, September 17, 2010

Death by home renovation

When my sisters and I were growing up our parents had a great hobby. They loved to buy old houses and lovingly renovate them. They would spend every weekend working on some major project. There was nothing they couldn't do. From small additions, to gutting rooms and starting over, to completely rebuilding chimneys and fireplaces, my parents did it all. Sounds quaint, doesn't it?  Well the reality of it was a little different. One house we lived in had actually been on fire. It didn't have a single window that hadn't been broken. The children in the neighborhood referred to it as the haunted house. That didn't scare my parents, though. "Bring it on" was always their attitude. After about ten years of moving from room to room and living in drywall dust, it was finished and it was beautiful. What to do now that it was a gorgeous historic home? Why sell it of course! Aarrggg!
That was the last house my parents renovated together. After they sold it, we moved into a newly built house. My father only lived there with us for about six months before my parents divorced but my mother remained there until her death twenty-three years later. I will always love that house because of the memories it holds for me. That being said, however, I have always longed for a really old house in need of renovation. New houses are nice, don't get me wrong, but there is a sort of romance to an old home. I can get lost imagining the families who lived there over the generations, the history that has taken place both inside and outside those walls. Just thinking about it gives me chills. I also possess a romantic notion of restoring it. After all, how hard can it be? My parents did it over and over again for years and they made it look easy.
Fast forward to today. Brian and I own a home built in the mid 1980's. Absolutely not our idea of our romantic historic home but it will do until we can find our "forever home".  Both being completely addicted to HGTV and the DIY stations, we always look for home improvement things we can do ourselves. Recently, we found mold growing behind our walls in the basement. We have had to completely rip out all the walls and insulation and re-do everything. While the finished product is looking quite stunning (we are only about half finished so far), I have made another shocking discovery. Apparently, I did not inherit my parents natural talent for renovations. As it turns out, it's really hard, we have had to learn a lot of things by making mistakes that usually end up costing us valuable time or money or both and it's really not as much fun as I thought it would be. I have learned I hate having the furniture shoved all over the place. While I have become quite proficient at putting spackle over nail heads and drywall seams, I hate the drywall dust. The mess of the entire project in general leaves me feeling all out of sorts and kind of pissy.
Since I have always been a big one to shoot my fat mouth off about how easy it is (what? it's my parents fault - they made it look easy!) and how much I would just love to completely gut a house and renovate it myself, I really feel as if I have painted myself into a corner, no pun intended. While I know beyond a shadow of a doubt my husband would still love me and think no less of me, I feel like I can't tell him just how much the reality of home renovation now scares the pants off me. I work hard to keep it to myself, though. I wouldn't want to be seen as a quitter or a wimp. After all, I come from a family where a little basement renovation is seen as nothing.
The other night, Brian and I were again watching a home renovation show about putting in bathrooms, something we have wanted to do in our basement for sometime. During a commercial, my dear husband turns to me and says, "You know.... I'll bet I could just rent a jack hammer, demo the basement floor and lay all the pipes for the bathroom myself. I just know we could install the bathroom ourselves!" A wave of panic came over me. Does he really think we can do this or does he know my secret fears and is trying to kill me?
There are very few things in life my husband can't do. He is an engineer for NASA so he is, quite literally, a rocket scientist. He sees everything as a challenge he can't wait to take on. Honestly, I'm a little jealous of that attitude when it comes to things like this. His "bring it on" attitude is very much like my parents. As it turns out, I don't have much of that attitude. I'm kind of a wimpy girl in brave girl clothes but I think Brian may be on to my secret. I'm also pretty sure he is trying to kill me by way of  first degree home renovation.

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