Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Remodeling is NOT a family-affair
Don't misunderstand, I love my husband. But remodeling is not something we can do together. We have proven this to ourselves again this weekend. I have known this for years, but somehow I had forgotten as we have stayed away from the "r" word for quiet some time. After being married for fourteen years we have tried our hand at many remodeling items. To our defense there are many things "wrong" with our house. Many times the remodeling sna-fus have not been totally our fault. So we don't actually "agree" to jump right into a remodeling event - instead we jump in without really discussing it- wrong choice #1. First of all, I wanted to repaint the kitchen cabinets. I'm just really bored with the color and we need a change. Men don't really understand "need a change". I think their definition of "need a change" would be: the baby's diaper. We did discuss the idea of painting the kitchen cabinets and he quickly worked to talk me out of it. He is normally right about these types of things, but since I "needed a change" I quickly worked for another solution. How about taking down the wallpaper and re-texturing the walls? We had talked about this several times prior. Didn't sound too difficult and at-the-time I thought since my neighbor had done the same thing recently I would have a how-to person right next door. That in itself became a major conflict. It's great to have someone to give direction, but when this person is your next door neighbor and Mr.ToolTime himself not-to-mention your husband's fulltime partner-in-crime -- it can become a problem.
Anyway, back to the subject, I stripped the wallpaper on Friday and that was fairly easy so I was excited to get started. Then fear set-in. My husband says I'm the perfectionist of the family, but in truth it's him. He cannot complete dinner much-less a home improvement project without totally ripping it apart and telling me EVERYTHING that is wrong with it. When he makes gravy at Thanksgiving - and oh my gosh it's the best gravy EVER - he spends literally hours making it perfect. So all of a sudden I thought, there is no way whatever I do is going to be good enough.
So Saturday, I did nothing. Totally wasted the day. Actually, Katy got her "need a change" bug at the same time and decided she and her best friend, Nikki, were going to remodel the hall bathroom. Nikki painted a wonderful piece of art for Katy's birthday and Katy decided to theme the bathroom around it.
I was fine with it - the bathroom needed a change as well and more than that - teenage girls need home improvement projects just like mom does :) This already was too much for Dad to handle. I read somewhere that men are afraid of color. This is totally true for my husband. This was true before he only wore brown and drove a brown truck for the past 18 years, but it's even more so now. So needless to say, he wasn't thrilled with the gold and bright blue the girls picked out for the bathroom. It came out beautifully. Some touch ups need to be done, but I think it's great.
Even the little sisters like it - they say it's a big girl's bathroom now. If I thought we had problems with long baths before (Katy - not me), I definitely will now. Anyway, that whole event was going on in between the texturing event in the kitchen which happened late Sunday and all of Monday. At some point I guess Bob decided this was all my project, so he offered a lot of advice :) but no help. And then Monday night he told me he didn't like it at all, which REALLY hurt my feelings, but oh well. What was I going to do at that point? I couldn't stop, I couldn't take the texture off the walls. We were 3/4 finished so we just kept on. Sydney & MacKenzie helped somewhat and I think that aggravated him even more. He cannot stand "messy" home improvement projects. Children painting is not his idea of "fun".
So now it's done, not painted, but the texture is on. The fun painting part will come next weekend.
My new family motto : Families that can make it through home improvement projects will only be stronger.
I remember now why there are years in between these events.
On a better note, a even better weekend project was that Bob got some flagstone rock and made an awesome sidewalk and patio in our backyard. It is going to be beautiful! I am really excited about that and I'm looking forward to spending some qt in the backyard.
Eleanor Roosevelt said: People grow through experience if they meet it honestly and courageously. This is how character is built.
We built some character this weekend!
As long as I don't paint the kitchen bright blue - I'll let you know how the painting goes next week :)
1 Comments:
You're right...the gravy is awesome. Can't believe you made it through another project!!! You guys are the best!
~Tiff
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