Yep. It’s that time of year again. All the projects we have stored up for “warmer weather” are coming home to roost. We have a couple this year that, as usual, for which I thought I had months to prepare. Now, you guessed it – they’re starting today and I’M NOT READY.
The first is creating an “accent wall” in our bedroom. Another brilliant idea snatched from HGTV. Thank you, Property Brothers. We picked out wallpaper that we both liked – that’s a negotiation not unlike Yalta. The project evolved from there. There were old borders on two sides of the room – the accent side and the one opposite. So, down they came. Unwillingly. You know how sometimes wallpaper just peels off in long, large sheets? These didn’t – they pretty much came down in pieces the size of a quarter, with multiple spritzes of stripper and hard scraping. In fact, I went through one scraper and had to get a new one. In touching up the non-accent wall, I discovered that the paint was all dried out and useless. The hardware store told me the paint was too old to match, so now we’re going to have two “accent walls”. Of course, that required a third roll of wallpaper, which fortunately just came in the day before the paper hanger is due.
Two things about a renovation. One forgets how much “stuff” you’ve collected in the “renovation” room that needs to be moved out. Now, every other room looks like a warehouse. The dining room and spare bedroom won’t be available again for a few days. The other thing is that you can’t put all of the old stuff back. It looks “old”. So, we have new curtains coming in a few days, and new curtain rods arrive tomorrow. Nobody in their right mind puts up new curtains on old curtain rods. We also need to rethink “decorative accents”. The pictures aren’t quite right – maybe the ones in the bathroom will look better, so we’ll swap them. Another needs a new frame – somewhere along the way, the glass broke and wasn’t replaced. Then, of course, there is just too much stuff. Every corner, nook and cranny, is full of furniture. We’ll put some in the basement.
No, wait . . . . . . The basement needs to be cleaned out because they’re coming on Monday to replace the central air conditioner. They’re running lines across the basement, rebuilding the furnace that was put in three years ago. I’ve stacked some stuff under the circuit breaker panel, so I’ve got to move that too. Then, of course, when the Princess moved home four years ago, she filled the basement with her stuff. Got to consolidate that. I have about a dozen old cans of paint that I intended to take to the dump. I’ll have to put those in the corner until the next HAZMAT day. Can’t just flush it down the toilet or toss it in the trash, as they did for generations. It’s toxic and dangerous. Will take it to the town’s trash transfer station, where some contractor will take it and dump it in the woods someplace, to be found in twenty years, and an EPA clean-up will begin. But I digress.
As most folks do, we could furnish at least one more house and an apartment from the surplus in the basement, so I’ll have to rearrange that. It’s all too good, or has special memories, to just be given away or thrown out. So, we’ll rearrange and stack it all. If it stops raining, I can bring up the porch and deck things – that will give us some space. I’ll get to that on Sunday. They’re not coming until Monday morning. Plenty of time. Of course, I had all winter, months and months to do all this, but still . . .
Went out to breakfast with a friend this week. He and I get together every couple of weeks. He told me about his projects, which are much more ambitious. He owns a house in a neighboring community and a summer home on Cape Cod. He just had the house here painted inside – had a crew come in and go through it room by room. There’s a project. Then, the house on the Cape will get a new heating / central air conditioning system, which it hasn’t had before, and he’s planning to finish the attic space into two bedrooms and a bath, so visitors don’t need to sleep on air mattresses and pull-out couches. Now that’s ambitious! Now I feel badly complaining about the accent walls.
Our in-laws, Her Ladyship’s sister and her husband, will no doubt have multiple projects this summer – either at home here or at their summer cottage at the lake. They currently have someone coming to rip out and replace their spare bathroom. New shower and commode. They redid the master bath a year or two ago, but their philosophy is, “If the paint is dry, it’s time for change.” The cottage has had multiple renovations – new floors, new ceilings, painting until the rooms are at least a n inch or two smaller. They are perpetual motion when it comes to renovations. Last fall, they had a heat/cooling pump installed, because they’d have to leave when it got too hot.
I’m reminded a bit of the year that we had to replace the hot water heater, only to have the furnace die shortly after. Such fun! Then the clothes dryer gave up its last anguished gasp, so we had we had to get a new one. As the old one was being removed, we discovered that the plug needed to be replaced too, so I called the electrician in to get that taken care of. Better not to burn the house down, which in a condo would really annoy the neighbors. In a similar fashion this time, I was going out yesterday to pick up the mail, and discovered that the garage door went up about half way, and then slammed down. It gears were somehow disengaging. Fortunately, neither I nor the car were under it at the time. I called the repair place, and they sent someone over yesterday. He thought it might be a spring, which would be an easy fix, but no, it’s the chain mechanism from the motor. They could order the part, which is twenty years old and might take a while, or they could just replace the whole thing. They’re coming next week to install a new system. Meanwhile, I resort to the completely vulgar method of opening the door by hand. I know, right? It’s like getting up and changing channels on the tv. Of course, with the television, you can’t do that anymore because there is no knob to switch channels. We also have to figure out what to do about the fireplace. When the chimney sweep came to clean this past fall, he told me that the chimney and firebox are rusted out and unsafe to use. So, another project for which we’ll get estimates and decide what and how much we want to invest.
So, our renovations are in full swing. The paper hanger is at work on the accent walls. I’m off to find new picture frames and other things we might need as we await the new curtains and curtain rods. I have new paint for the bathroom, which I’ll get to as the air conditioning is being installed next week. Then we’ll make a list of other things that need to be done. The dryer vent should be cleaned, the screen door on the side door needs to be replaced. The porch has woodwork that needs to be painted – I’ll do that myself, and of course, the gardens need a great deal of attention. Then there is the little stuff – refilling the tank on the grill for warm weather grilling – right now it’s still a bit chilly, I tell Herself. No grilling until at least early May. This list has exhausted me. I think I’ll start my nap a bit earlier.
I'm Thinking...No! 