Run for the hills
When Suzie-Q gets that look in her eye, no not that one, and carries it with her throughout the house my gut instinct tells me to run for the hills. And to not come back for at least a month. My instincts were confirmed when, after her walk about, the conversation began in silky tones with “Yobo don’t you think….” By then, it was way too late to jump in the truck and peel rubber.
Now this old house is about to undergo phase 15 or so of the fundamental transformation. All of us know the pain associated with fundamental transformations. Similar to a transformation we all know about, this one began with one way conversation. The fireplace is ugly. You have to clean it up. We need to paint – everything. We have to change the carpet – in every room even in the mostly never used rooms. We must rearrange the furniture and get rid of some of it. There is so much stuff in the living room it looks like your garage. The one you have never cleaned. “Can I go fishing?” That warrants a different look and it is not the dreamy one. More like simmering rage. Men you are clear about that look?
Unlike the transformation we all know about, Household 6 and I engaged in serious debate about what the desired result was and how we could achieve it. Cleaning the fireplace will only produce a fireplace that is clean, but still ugly. I know a brick mason who would love to reface it and replace the mantle. OK. I know a reliable painter, and it is not me. No more one room a week of moving furniture, spackling holes, masking, and getting paint speckles all over the floor. OK. New carpet? No. We want hardwood. Wood? Yes wood. Well OK.
That is the condensed version of the debates. I left out the painful parts. The silent moments and the smoldering hair moments, but the facts of the matter are that we sat down. She did allow me to sit part of the time. Together we arrived at a solution with which we were both happy. Her vision along with my input and the deal was sealed. Just the way a household (or a representative government) should function. We managed to create some jobs too. A brick mason and his helper. The brickyard from where he acquires the materials. A painter and his helper. The store from where he will buy his materials. The flooring crew and the place from where they will purchase materials.
I was standing there being proud of how well this all worked out. Just like a household (or a free market representative republic) should work. Right in the middle of patting myself on the back, I heard a lingering question, “What about the furniture?” We have to get rid of some things. Things that we do not need or use that are just clutter. Stuff holding the house back from what it could really be. When Suzie-Q starts talking about clutter, she is clearly looking at my stuff. You know stuff. Stuff I need.
Both of us have collections of stuff gathered over 42 years of blissful marriage. Much of it collected during our three tours of duty in Germany defending the Fulda Gap from the Russian horde. She has red bird crystal and little crystal do-dads and Hummels squeezed into every crack and crevice. Living so long in the beer capital of the world, I have quite a collection of beer glasses, beer mugs, beer steins, and beer coasters. All of mine relegated to a cabinet we have had for 40 years that sits in the basement TV room.
And we have Adolph’s revenge. For many of you who during your lifetime or military service may have traveled to Germany, you know what I am talking about. It is that humongous piece of furniture that you just had to have. Everybody had one. Could not get along without it and if archeologists dig it up a thousand years from now they will be convinced they have finally found Noah’s Ark. Sort of reminds me of one of those federal agencies. It has been around for so long and been so burdensome that we forget why we needed it in the first place and definitely regretted ever getting it. Now we are not quite sure what to do with it or what its original purpose was.
The beer mug cabinet got the boot. Good bye old friend.
I felt like doing it with a chain saw, but instead I had to disassemble Adolf’s revenge the traditional way – purposefully and methodically one piece at a time. We fundamentally transformed it into smaller manageable and more functional pieces. Washington, if you need some advice on how to manage things like that let us (the people) know. I can bring the chain saw. And maybe a brick mason. Suzie-Q and me, we can fix it. Fundamentally restore it. Make it work.
© 2015 J. D. Pendry American Journal
Category: Politics
I blame those TV shows. My wife’s favorite is Fix ‘er Upper or something like that. And women do not appreciate that stuff collecting dust hither and yon on the property might one day be useful. Besides, it has sentimental value. Try to put a price on that! Well, my wife can. The price is what it costs to pay the dump fee. Once, I put out the garbage and saw that the number of bags of trash had nearly doubled. Turns out that I was the victim of a conspiracy. When I departed that day, my wife and our neighbor black-bagged stuff. Good stuff. Like toys. Well, it didn’t work. I hauled the extra bags into the garage and pulled the stuff those two thought they were ridding me of. Good luck.
I have gutted 10 houses all the way down to the studs, cut the window holes, did the complete plumbing, built the deck and all the electrical work.
I live in an RV in an RV park in Houston TX now and will NEVER buy another house !!!
E*V*E*R, and I do NOT miss it either !!!
Thunder, your idea is intriguing. Unfortunately, we don’t have much in the way of RV parks in my state.
I feel your pain… Mrs. T has just ordered new windows for the house, you know because these are six years old windows are worn out. So there goes 10K, and now she is looking at these six year old carpets speculating we now “need” new hard wood floors…FML.
Have a wonderful football day…mine’s been ruined.
What are you guys bitching about?
I need a new kitchen. The kitchen drawers can’t be repaired any more and keeping them on the roller tracks is a real trick. I need a new stove. The repair estimate for replacing an oven ignitor was half the cost of a new stove, for a $20 part. I could really use a bigger fridge, and mine has 4 inches of empty space between itself and the utility room wall. And I need storage space, so that means extra cabinets in the nook, and redo the dividing wall between the living room and the kitchen so that there is more cabinet storage with a breakfast bar counter on top.
I don’t know what you’re complaining about. I’m not going to fix the stove myself or do the cabinet/cupboard replacement, but I want what I want. I have no idea what you’re complaining about. You just don’t appreciate how much these things can improve the quality of your life.
might be true. I do understand how much NOT doing them will injure the quality of my life.
MMMM, sounds like we have some DHT’s Domestic Honeydoo Terrorists, in our country. I will call and report it to Homeland Security.
I have a 30 year old house. My i̶n̶t̶e̶r̶i̶o̶r̶ ̶d̶e̶c̶o̶r̶a̶t̶o̶r̶ s̶o̶c̶i̶a̶l̶ ̶d̶i̶r̶e̶c̶t̶o̶r̶ f̶i̶n̶a̶n̶c̶i̶a̶l̶ ̶a̶d̶v̶i̶s̶o̶r̶ girlfriend wants to rip out the carpeting and put in wood floors, replace the kitchen, new windows, new doors, new front and back porch, paint, etc…
I’m going to have to clone myself and get a few more jobs to pay for all of this.
OAE, wouldn’t it be more expedient to get a different girl friend?
Just sayin’.
OC
I’m currently doing a renovation on an old ranch house in California that’s about 100 years old. I say “about” because the nearest we’ve been able to date it is by the remnants of old electrical system using separated two-conductor wire with ceramic insulators.
One of the interesting things about working on old houses is that it’s like peeling layers off an onion. You can tell when somebody was really good at swinging a hammer, and other time when somebody was as dumb as a bag of. Basically what I’m after is to put the place together in such a way that it can stick around for another 100 years without somebody wanting to tear it down.
I tend to pay almost zero attention to current styles; there are a lot of people whose underpants seem to get gooey over hardwood floors and granite counter-tops, but I know from experience that hardwood floors can be a maintenance pain, particularly if you have a large dog who needs to be brought in at night when the coyotes are in full howl. Still, I might spring for soapstone counters if I can find a decent vendor.
One of the other interesting things about the place is that it has a seasonal creek running out the front door which stays dry about 363 days a year. If I ever decide to sell it, I’m going to make sure the real estate guy mentions that it’s waterfront property.
My experience with hardwoord floors in the kitchen is that if they aren’t painted, they look like crap after a couple of years.
I have porcelain tile in the kitchen, utility room and both bathrooms. It is 1 ft square tiles that cost $.66 (sale price) and I bought extra for repairs, if needed.
If you don’t consider laminate countertops, which look like stone but are low maintenance and cost 1/3 the price of stone, you’re going to spend far more than you need to. Nobody had stone countertops 100 years ago. They had wood counters, and when Formica becamse popular, that replaced wood.
YMMV, Ex. One of the reasons I’m leaning toward soapstone counters is because if they ever get scratched, they can be sanded out and re-treated with food-grade mineral oil. It’s basically the same stuff you probably had in your high school science lab.
What’s planned for the bath, kitchen, and high-traffic area flooring is 8×8 inch unglazed terracotta that gets sealed after it’s put down.
All of which is somewhat distant; where we’re at so far has been demo to the point that we now know exactly what we’re working with. Generally a good foundation and good bones. I’ve got something of a tricky roof framing issue that’s going to take sign-off by an engineer, but knew that going in.
A point being, I suppose, that houses can be a huge money sink if you let them. I would never have gotten involved with this one if I thought what needed to go into it wasn’t eventually going to come around on the back-end.
Good point, Perry.
I have a small house, not glamorous, but it meets my needs.
Making extensesive alterations isn’t what I want, just making the space more comfortable and replacing aging appliances. And in my case, I can’t see spending the money that stone counters cost at up to $40/sf if stone-mimic laminates cost $17/linear foot and look just as good. I bought new countertops 10 years ago when I moved here – granite mimics, and they still look new, because I take care of them.
I’d rather put money into extra cabinets for storage space.
15 years ago my wife and I bought a condo.
When ever these discussions come up here, I usually resort to the old ” the condo committee would never approve it”….
😉
LOL. 🙂 Part of my divorce settlement was that she had to take the shrunk. 😀
Yep, JD, at one time we had an Adolph’s revenge (shrunk),but it went bye-bye on the move from Colorado to Wyoming 17 years ago. My definition of it was always:
S-Super/Stupid
H-Huge/Heavy
R-Reason for getting one
U-Unknown
N-Never ask for another one
K-Kick me in the ass if I ever talk about getting another one.
Why is it that when you look at something in the showroom, it’s just gorgeous but when it arrives and is set up in your living room, the first thing you think is ‘what on earth was I thinking?’
It’s gorgeous because of the lighting,the bells and whistles and that new car smell that is being vented into the showroom by industrial blowers.
Our first house was brand spanking new. The master bedroom was huge. Painted it three times. Then came the six-month anniversary of our owning that house…
The wife and I are looking at buying a house now. With two kids and a third on the way we need a larger place and renting just isn’t cutting it anymore.
I want to be able to say “Let’s put a built in bookcase here” or “Let’s get rid of this tile” and when you rent, that seems to be a no go.
I hear your misery., But, it’s music to my ears. See I make my living turning that idea/look that your wife gets into a reality or your nightmare. And I know when the lady of the house decides it’s time to add that room, fix that basement, or build that new home, she means business! No turning back, or avoiding it. Get the check book out, sign the loan papers, cause your worse nightmares coming, carrying a bag tools. Remember a happy wife, makes for a happy marriage. Gotta go, I think I hear my phone ringing!!!!
Whenever the no 6 gets into those “discussions”, being the sole wage earner, I just tell her I/we can’t afford it, and I’m too busy working to do it myself. End of discussions.