Last week we went through something in our house that I swore we
would never do again: We did a bit of remodeling. There are
people
– very sick people – who love to remodel. They buy old homes and
renovate them. I am not one of those people.
Last week we went through something in our house that I swore we would never do again: We did a bit of remodeling. There are people – very sick people – who love to remodel. They buy old homes and renovate them. I am not one of those people.
I hate the dust, the noise, the cost and the inconvenience. But after a few years, the carpet in the living and family rooms had developed huge black streaks that made it look like NASCAR had built a new speedway in our house.
And when the nice carpet cleaner looked at our little racetrack and said something to the effect of, “woo-hoo, I’ll be here for months getting these stains out, and you’ll be paying through the nose for it,” Harry and I decided to get new floors.
In theory, this only takes two days. In reality, this is a home-improvement project in the Sontag house, which means it can take years to complete. You see, we’re easily distracted, so we usually get about 90 percent of the home-improvement project completed, and then we get move on to something else that is vitally important – like watching TIVOed episodes of “The Sopranos” or “Footballer’s Wives.”
But the black streaks had to go. And once we got the carpet guy’s quote, we realized we could keep cleaning the carpet over and over again – or we could just put new floors in and be done with it.
Of course, I knew even then I should have just put the carpet guy on permanent retainer. You see, with every home-improvement project I’ve ever done, there was a great deal of pain. Our pain started the day before the carpets were to be ripped out. That’s when we had to move the furniture out of the rooms.
Normally, because we live in California, we’d just shove the couch into the back yard for a couple of days where it could enjoy the sunshine. But because South County has transformed into a soggy rainforest, we had to move all the furniture from the largest rooms in our home to the smallest rooms in our home.
Fortunately, it all fit, even though we did have to leap across two dining room chairs and a stereo speaker every time we wanted to shower.
The next day, our carpenter – Harry’s dad – showed up, and we ripped out the old carpet, revealing several places where the dog had apparently mistaken the carpeting for an indoor restroom. Let me just take this moment to say, “Eww, yuck.”
Then we lugged the carpeting out and dumped it on the driveway for the world to see. We had no choice, really. For one thing, there was no place else to put it. For another thing, it is an unwritten law of suburbia that when remodeling, you must dump all items that are being replaced onto the driveway so that all your neighbors can see what you are doing.
This way they understand that you are improving your home and that they’d better get their butts outside and snoop around so they can a) verify that you are not copying any of their previous home-improvement projects; or b) watch to see what you are doing so they can do the same thing in their home.
After that I did what any home improvement-hater would do: I vacuumed the cement foundation until it was completely void of any dust whatsoever. This was handy, because the next thing I knew, Harry’s dad was cutting wood and sawdust was everywhere. It was in the house, on the porch, in the flowerbeds outside and up my nose.
And that’s how I spent the next two days, in sawdust land. Everything I owned was covered with a layer of dust. I was eating allergy meds like they were candy corn, and I was a desperate trick-or-treater. I no longer spoke English; I just sneezed twice for yes and once for no.
But two days later, the floors were in, and I banished the sawdust from the house. And I must say, the floors are lovely, although I think NASCAR is wondering what happened to their new speedway.
And that 10 percent we still have to complete? That would be retiling the kitchen, since we broke a few tiles. But that will have to wait until I catch up with my missed episodes of “The Sopranos” and “Footballer’s Wives.”
Hey, I have my priorities, you know.
Laurie Sontag is a Gilroy writer and mom who wishes parenthood had come with instructions. Her column is syndicated. She can be reached at la****@la**********.com.
