This Old House

When you have a house that was built in 1927, you come to expect surprises when you're doing minor repairs. Jobs are always more involved than you think they'll be, and they always take twice as long as you think they will. Removing wallpaper turns into a discovery of The Plurb and its companion Donkey Party, for instance.


Tiling the kitchen floor turns into labor and delivery. And a recent ceiling paint job turned into the ceiling falling down on our heads and the discovery of a leaking toilet from above:


It started when we rented a 10-yard dumpster. We had a lot of home-project junk to get rid of. We gutted part of the basement (no more Jersey basement party bar!), tearing out all of the paneling and carpet. Leaving us with this:

It's towing the fine line of "better-than-paneling/worse-than-what-we-had-before," but I'm sure we'll have a stellar after, eventually. While we were gutting, we thought we might as well toss the carpet from our office/den, which left us with a moment of hardwood hope before we decided to carpet. We ordered our new carpet and they called a couple of Fridays ago to schedule the install. (Side note: Avery practiced her "da-da"...with the carpet measuring guy. Ha!) In my boundless optimism, I scheduled for next-day installation. I knew we had to finish painting trim, the ceiling and the closet door, but what's a Friday night working on the house? (Answer: Normal.)

Enter a chunk of the ceiling coming down on Alan, a gaping ceiling hole and a mini meltdown from me. (My meltdowns always seems to involve toilets.) Unable to cancel the carpet install without shelling out $130, we instead had to cover our lovely new carpet with plastic and hope that no toilet water made it through.

I've rolled with the house-punches for the most part. But this last one put me over the edge. I mean, are you freaking kidding me? Why can't a simple paint job just be a simple paint job? Have you seen the oh-so-hilarious movie The Money Pit with Tom Hanks? I feel like we're a part of this scene sometimes. Especially the hysterical laughter at the end.



I don't know why I worry, though. A note on my husband: This man is not afraid of tackling any projects. Where I see a path to destruction, he sees the road to renovation. He's gone from someone who wouldn't fix the toilet to someone who could install one with his eyes closed. When I sometimes wish we'd just call in a pro, he shows no fear and always manages to figure it out on his own and do a damn good job. From built-in bookcases...


...to the kitchen floor...

...to what I'm sure will be an amazing "after" shot of the basement.* For now though, once Ceiling-Toilet Disaster of 2011 is finished (just some sanding and that painting yet to do) we are taking a reno break. It seems like at least one room of our house has been a disaster zone or been completely displaced since we moved in, so for awhile I just want to turn off the HGTV, spend money somewhere other than Home Depot and live with an unfinished basement. Maybe do something really crazy like get some art on the walls or curtains hung. Or maybe just relax.

P.S. We have backyard invaders. A groundhog perhaps? (Check him out climbing the fence at the back, to the left of our garage.)


Marti seriously strikes fear in no one.



*Clicking back on these earlier house links reminds me that I really need to show off some "after" pictures of our house. Ch-ch-ch-changes!