Hobson's Choice
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summer season on the brink
With the caveat not to speak too loud and alert any of the functioning household appliances (or cats), I would like to quietly announce that another summer cycle of home improvement has been completed. I don't know if this is true for most everyone, but in academic households, summer is the season for home improvement. Only emergencies can come calling between September and April.
I'm always amazed by the way that home improvement projects change my vision of the way the world works, how renovation/repair clues me in to adult knowledge. I can't say that I remember any of the significant life lessons from the summer of Digging A Huge Trench in the Yard for the New Water Line or the subsequent summer of Tearing All The Old Shingles Off The Roof. But I do have some fresh bits of wisdom from this summer's horrors. Here's what I've learned.
(1) I learned why our bathroom continued to sport the theme of "Doctor's Waiting Room Circa 1985" despite the previous owners' having prettified every other room in the house. The taupe paisley wallpaper had been applied directly over plaster, no primer, no paint. For once I got to utter the catchphrase of home repair professionals: "I don't know who did this, but they didn't know what they was doing."
And that led to the following lessons.
(2) After removing approximately 2 square feet of stubbornly adhering wallpaper, you realize that you really could have lived for a while longer with "Doctor's Waiting Room -- Mid 1980s Edition."
(3) After removing 8 square feet, you spend a lot of time wondering if you could convince anyone that this rugged look was the one you were going for. And then you think about whether you could just stop working and institute a "No One But Immediate Family in the Bathroom -- Ever" policy.
(4) Wallpaper is evil.
(5) After two full days of wallpaper removal, you give up on alternate plans and begin to look forward to painting.
(6) Painting a room is a little bit like sewing. Everyone surely has heard my theory that "sewing" should really be called "ironing" because that's how you spend 99% of any sewing task. Equally "painting" is really a misnomer for "preparing to paint."
(7) When the new color is finally on the wall and it's just as glorious as you imagined, you are not a petty person just because you are too excited to fall asleep (although you will question this lesson when your toddler decides to awaken at 4:30 a.m. for the first time in months).
And then just a couple of lessons from our other major home repair this summer:
(1) Replacing your furnace and a/c is the ideal home renovation because it requires next to no sweat equity on your part. After all, people have to go to school and get certificates in putting in furnaces and air conditioners. You are not expected to try to do it yourself; even my parents-in-law, the handiest people in the nation, do not install their own heating and cooling. Second, furnace replacement shoots your home improvement wad for years; you don't even have to think about what major renovations your house may need because you can't afford it. The only major repairs for the foreseeable future are going to be driven by life- and home-threatening emergencies.
(2) And as a child, I wondered why my parents worried about money so much. Now, having experienced the 48 hour recovery period from having written a $4000 check for the new furnace, a time in which I didn't want to eat and generally felt like life was anxietizing and unprofitable, I understand.
Tomorrow, we participate in a multifamily yard sale; more summer lessons to share later.
8:53 p.m. - 2005-07-14
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