Monday, October 4, 2010

The future

Living in a house under remodel is like living in a world of endless possibility.  Unfortunately it is also a lot like living in a world of infinite frustration.  As we seem to approach the end of one task, something unexpectedly breaks and another task is added to the list.  For example, we may be nearing completion on the foundation walls, but in removing the cribbing, the house seems to have shifted just enough to cause a leak in a pipe in the upstairs bathroom.  Sadly, this pipe is housed inside a wall.  To get to it will take a significant effort, so instead of fixing it, we simply close the bathroom for use.  If you don't live in a 100+ year old house, this sounds insane.  And it may be, but it comes down to choices.  We fix things in some kind of logical order. The foundation simply has higher priority since there is another functional bathroom downstairs.

Occasionally as I think about the state of the house, I imagine how the boys most likely think this is normal.  They must expect that everyone is similarly dealing with holes in the plaster of their walls and light fixtures left hanging from wires for years on end.  I hope they don't resent it. And I hope they don't expect it will be over too soon.

Lately Big Dog has been talking about painting our house.  The neighbors painted their house about a year ago. It went from a basic cream color to a deep blue.  It is lovely.  We've mentioned that our house will be painted at some point, and occasionally when we pass a house with a nice paint job I'll ask his opinion of the colors.  Last time I did this, he wasn't impressed.  The color was boring.  Another blue house with white trim.  I guess if you're an almost 7 year old, that's dull stuff.  His suggestion?
"Mom, when we paint the house we should paint it gold!" he offered.
"Yellow?  That might be nice."
"No, gold.  And maybe silver too."
I told him he'd need to talk that one over with his dad.  I wasn't going to even touch it.

2 comments:

abi said...

I feel you on this one! We live in a 60 year old cottage, and decided to rip out several walls and redo the kitchen when we moved in 5 years ago. There's a good chance that the "new" kitchen cabinets just got caulked last weekend... We are also pretty sure that one of the supports that was holding up a header broke a few weeks ago, so our ceiling is a little saggy in the front room. Even when it ends, it's not over, and I think kids thrive on chaos. : ) Hang in there!

geekymummy said...

you should totally paint it gold and silver!

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