Remodelling your home

Have you ever wanted to change something in your house?  Your life?  Do you enjoy organized and sometimes disorganized confusion?  Do you like dirt, dust and disarray?  If you do, just think about remodelling your house.  Changing anything in your house is like poking yourself in the eye with a sharp stick.  You know its going to hurt, but you do it anyway.

Well my floor is gone, and the kitchen is a mess.  I got a bright idea the other day and decided to change my kitchen.  Now, when you decide to do this big of a job, you should be prepared for the mess that goes along with it.  It is not a place that you walk around without shoes.   There is dust and dirt everywhere, along with nails, screws and the odd chunk of wood.  There are different levels to the floor when building, and you can now see them all.  Lift your feet.  Don't shuffle, you will stub your toes or be on your ass. Everything that was in the sitting room of my kitchen is now in boxes and on the kitchen tables.   Yes I said tables.  I now have both tables in the main part of the kitchen.   All these items are soon to become part of my dining room, till the kitchen is finished. The dining room will become my kitchen for a time.  This will be a little different, but I can put up with almost anything if I can see the results down the road, or at least in my head. 

My husband, for whatever reason, is all for this experiment in pain and suffering.  He has even started to suggest ideas for what he thinks, needs to change as well.  This can be scary, as he has decided to extend the kitchen floor into the back porch entry way, "it will be part of the pantry", he says.  He also informed me that, to put down a new floor, the cabinets that are in now will have to be taken out so the floor can go under them.  Now can you tell me WHY would I want to do something like that? 

Now don't get me wrong, I have a husband that is fantastic at building things, but when he starts making suggestions on changing things I get scared.  He has great ideas, but I am not sure that I can live in this house for the length of time it is going to take to accomplish this undertaking, without going completely crazy.  You see I have been through this once before with a small remodel we did.  My bathroom went without a sink or cabinet for over a year.  I got tired of washing my hands and spitting toothpaste in the tub, so one day he came home to a new cabinet and sink sitting partially put together in the bathroom.  He connected the water and waste lines and helped me put the drawers together(I was not having a lot of luck getting them to slide, or putting the fronts on) and now our bathroom looks great, except for the floor.   That is the next project after the kitchen.
Then there is the male attitude that goes along with any changes that involve power tools.  My husband is one of those men who has a shop full of tools that do everything from cutting to polishing and anything in between.   Most guys have these tools and can use some of them, but my husband is efficient with most of them.  When I say efficient, I mean it.  My husband is a perfectionist.  I love him dearly, but if there is a small problem with something he has built, he will tear it apart and redo it.  Now that is fine if we are talking about a chair, table or small item but if he does that repeatedly while redoing our kitchen I may be into my 70's before we get anywhere near finished.

I can hear it now.  "Just tell me how you want it and I will do it", that is the prelude to the big fight.  I don't want to tell him how to do it, because I don't know or I would have done it myself.   So my response is usually, "just do it the way you want", then the fight is on.  Funny part about our fights, he doesn't fight, so I do a lot of screaming and screeching and he sits and listens, or at least pretends to.  He has a slight hearing impairment and has a hard time hearing high pitched voices(like mine when I'm mad).  Anyway we disagree rather loudly at times or at least I do.  He is a wonderful man that will do anything to make me happy.  He has done that since the first day we met and fell in love.  I am not kidding about that either.  He really will do anything he can to make me happy. 

So lets get at it.  Move the shit out of the kitchen and lets get on with it.  I am ready to make this into the house we want to stay in.  I can't wait.  Just remember, when you see me with patches of hair missing, bloody knuckles or paint on my face, remind me what a wonderful place my house is going to be when we get it finished.  Here's to my shiny new kitchen.  May we both still be alive to enjoy it.