It's Holiday Time? No, It's Remodeling Time

by Cathy

This past weekend I pretended I was a visitor in my own home - I did a walk-through. I forced myself to look at my house from the perspective of a stranger; someone entering my house for the first time. Have you ever tried that in your house? Or are you afraid of what you will discover?

The reason I put myself through this stressful experience is because I am hosting, like I do every year, Thanksgiving dinner at my house. But each year, our house, like us, changes, evolves and well...ages. Every year, we have something new to contend with like the toll of the normal wear and tear of everyday, commonly used things, stains, breaks, cracks, spills, dirt, results of accidents and what have you. As you go through your day-to-day routines, you eventually no longer see or forget that there is a huge nail polish stain on the living room area rug...

No amount of acetone will take this off.

...or that we have turned one corner of the living room into a music area complete with guitars and keyboards, or that half the lights in the bathroom and kitchen have gone out or that the shower curtain bears the streaks of marker-stained little hands which attempted to pull it back to take much needed baths.

How about the piles of papers everywhere? Or the fact that our living room table sometimes doubles as a desk? Between my husband and I periodically working from home, the girls' schoolwork and projects, bills, brochures, mail, 'to file' piles, 'to review' piles, etc., we are begging to go green. Then there's the belongings from the girls' room, which trickle out and find themselves in every single room of the house: books, binders, clothes, stuffed animals, belts, hair accessories and last but not least, the fact that snacks and food are being had in every room that contains a television. Mix all of these together (things that really, you don't have the time to fret over as you go through your daily grind but stand out like flies in milk when you're out of that mode) and you have a house that you will be most critical of than the normal guest. After all, we all tend to be harder on ourselves than others.

So in addition to my cooking shopping list this week, I am making a "get it together" list for my house. Cleaning and tidying up of major areas aside (which is most of the work), I need to replace some light bulbs, spot clean some rugs (although I fear the nail polish is there to stay) and perhaps, if time allows, spring for a new drip coffee maker since ours now apparently, has sprung a leak. And while I'm in the kitchen, how about taking down all the papers that are tacked on the fridge like a shield of armor so I can actually see it?

In order to get my house guest-ready for the holidays, I must first, think outside the house.

Death by Disposal

by Patti

Last night, as the thunder roared and the lighting did its little flashdance outside, M washed the dishes as we talked about our respective days. I was sitting at the kitchen counter across from him as he scrubbed, my head barely propped up by my hands. This getting up at 5:30 AM crap is literally for the birds, not humans who get caught up in back episodes of Celebrity Apprentice. Yes, I realize I could go to bed earlier, but when your kid goes to bed at 9 PM, and your husband gets home just before 10 PM, you tend to live your life on the Night Owl side. Plus: Celebrity Apprentice is addicting. That Donald is such an instigator.

So, as M scrubbed and I swayed to the lullaby in my head, and the thunder clapped and the lightning danced, and the dog snored in his bed, and the waterfall waterfalled... Wait. WHAT? The waterfall? M suddenly let out a string of Ricky Ricardoisms and jumped back, flinging the sponge in his hand across the room. "Chuta, que paso? Que es esto?" That's when I saw a hearty stream of water snaking its way across the kitchen floor, and then, within seconds, that stream became a river and then a lake and then an ocean. Our entire kitchen was covered in water. And that water was seeping under the breakfast bar out onto the dining / great room area. It was under the refrigerator, the oven, and making its way into the formal dining room.

As I sat there dumbly, watching the water work its devious magic, M sprang into action, lifting our 900-lb utility rug off the kitchen like the Incredible Hulk lifting a car off a kid. He grabbed all of the dish towels out from under the cabinet and plastered them all over the floor, trying to stop the water. "Towels!" he yelled, and I finally woke from my stupor and ran for the basement to get extra towels. As I ran past S's room, she popped her head up from the pillow. "What's going on?" I responded with some gibberish about water and broken things, and trampled down the stairs. Once in the basement, I noticed that the water was dripping down from upstairs onto the laundry room floor. I grabbed one of the 396 foil roasting pans I keep stored down there just in case and stuck it under the leak, grabbed a handful of towels,and sprinted back up the stairs. "What's going ON?" S demanded again as I raced past her door.

In the kitchen, every countertop was covered with what had been under the sink. Oh, there's the oven spray. Scanning all of the items, I was amazed that all of that had fit under the sink. I was also amazed at how quickly M managed to dismantle our entire kitchen. "It was the garbage disposal", he told me. "It broke."
"There's water in the basement."
"Of course there is. It'll dry. Help me take this rug out."
We lifted the 900-lb rug and stood there, both realizing it was pouring outside, thus reducing the chances of the rug drying outside by a few hundred percent. And then we continued to stand there, also realizing ther was no place for it to dry inside, either. So, we rearranged our covered back deck and laid the rug across the table. Klassy. All we needed was an old couch and a tire to complete the look.

Back inside, M plugged in an industrial fan that blew the bajeezus out of the air around us, and then  he instructed me that we could not use the kitchen sink until Sunday, when he would finally have time to fix it.
"Are you insane?"
So, to round out the klass, he stuck a metal bucket under the sink and called it fixed. 'Til Sunday.

Then, we went to bed and fell asleep, the fan screaming, the rain falling, the water dripping.

When the Cat's Away....

by Patti

I'm getting ready to hang a new chandelier and maybe even spray paint a blackboard onto my kid's bedroom wall, and I'm going to do it because my husband is out of the country.

I have this thing: whenever M goes out of town, I simply have to redecorate in some way. Sometimes it is something as simple as buying an old, $4 desk from Salvation Army, slapping some stain on it, and decking out my dining room with the "new wine glass hutch that looks expensive":

Sometimes, it can be as elaborate as buying and assembling a new bed - complete with bedding - a new rug, hanging new curtains, and sanding and repainting an old dresser - all in one day.

It's not that I can't do these things while M is around, but when he is, I have to deal with the Questions. "Why are you doing that?" "Are you sure you're doing that right?" "Why don't you pick this color instead?" "Are you going to leave that there?" When M is around, he is privy to my process - which I will readily admit ain't always pretty - so I get where those questions and doubts come from. But I know my process; I know that although it might appear during that process that a creative bomb exploded its overzealous guts all over whichever room was victim to my whims...

in the end - it will look amazing. And that is why I prefer to do these things while he is gone. I can just "process" away without having the constant interruptions of his annoying doubt.

Poor M - the second he booked his ticket, he saw that gleam in my eye. He gave me The Look, the one that begs me not to knock down any walls. But I reassured him I only planned to change out a few light fixtures (with the help of my roof thatchin' Greek), stain some wood to yank its grainy self out of the 80's and into the 2012's, and try to re-purpose an old table into a TV console. That's all! And I might paint a wall turquoise. (Well, he doesn't know about the turquoise wall - yet. But, you know, process!)

I remember years ago when M was out of town, I suddenly hated, but hated, our pewter wrought iron bed. There it stood, rather un-majestically, in the middle our bedroom sticking out its tongue at me. So I immediately ran out and bought some black spray paint, came home and disassembled the bed, laid out some drop cloths, and went insane with "Jet Black". Never mind we lived in a condo on the 19th floor and the windows in our bedroom did not open and our carpet was cream colored, I sprayed the shit out of that wrought iron bed right then and there in our bedroom and, completely high on fumes, transformed that pewter nothingness into a glorious, glossy masterpiece of black. And while I was at it, I kind of spray painted our cream carpet black, too. Once I realized what I had done, I died a few thousand deaths, hearing M's scolding, "Oh, Lucy!" voice in my head, and desperately tried to figure out a way to cover it up. Laundry basket on top? Too obvious. A plant? I kill plants; we all knew that. A fake plant? Too retired-in-Florida. OH GOD WHAT WAS I GOING TO DO? So I called M and told him how amazing and incredible our "new" bed looked, and then I casually slipped in the tiny little speck of black I'd gotten on the carpet, ha ha ha, oops, isn't that hilarious?  He did not think it was hilarious. He "Oh, Lucy'd" me to death, and I nodded along, knowing he'd get over it once he saw how incredible our bed looked.

And he did get over it, as he has gotten over many other of my redecorating mishaps, because he has no choice but to admit that I kind of kick ass at coming up with ways to reinvent the old into new, over and over again.

I am shaking a can of spray paint as I type this, the familiar sound of "beads in a can" like music to me. You see, M is already gone, and I only have two weeks to tackle this round of "husband's away" redecorating. I'm going to miss that man, but I have my kid and the promise of a turquoise wall to keep me company.

Or maybe orange?

Process!