I’ve been busy here at the beginning of the summer and haven’t been able to get to writing this blog. So, like so many of your favorite television shows, I will be using “reruns” to fill this spot. Hopefully, I’m going back far enough so you won’t recognize the earlier work. Now off to the beach.
A few weeks ago, I thought my wife had a great project for me to do. She announced that she wanted to do a complete redo of the kitchen. Before she could finish, I was out of my chair in a flash and into the garage to assemble the tools and materials I needed to execute this extensive remodel. I started checking off the items I needed to help create a modern kitchen design—screwdrivers, saws, nails, band-aids, antiseptic, duck tap, and a hammer. If you can’t fix it with a hammer and duct tape, it can’t be fixed (That’s an old fixer-upper proverb that, if I’m not mistaken, goes back to ancient Greece).
While I was going through the 35 cans of old paint from past projects that go back decades (I’m sure there is a color that will work somewhere in those old cans), my wife charged into the garage and burst my bubble. She intended to use a professional designer and contractor to handle the job. I was shocked that I was being denied the chance to flex my do-it-yourself muscles. I was crestfallen. Bring an outsider in to do the job I was meant to do? I could feel the testosterone draining from my system.
She started to explain all the things she wanted and felt only a professional could do them properly and to code. She wanted new cabinets. What, there’s nothing wrong with the ones we have that a little paint and Spackle couldn’t fix. She wanted the sink moved to the other side of the kitchen. I can do plumbing. I don’t see her protesting when I’m trying to unclog the toilet with a plunger. She also wanted to “refresh” the electrical and add several plugs. That would be the easiest part of the job. Just run a few extension cords with power strips plugged in, and presto, there, you have your extra plugs. As for being up to code, what the city doesn’t know won’t hurt them. That’s why we have the fire department, emergency services, and the coroner since I’d be playing with electricity. Why pay taxes for them if we try to avoid using their expertise?
Being the real man that I am, I gracefully relented and headed into my den so I could sob while hugging the latest copy of the Harbor Freight catalog. I didn’t want to make a scene when the construction workers showed up with their cool tool belts and steel-toed boots.
My wife, being the loving person she is, invited me to help her choose styles and colors for her redesign. I think this is payback for me wanting to decorate the living room in knotty pine with animal trophies on the walls. For the past few weeks, it has been sample after sample of cabinet styles, backsplash designs, countertop materials, and endless color samples. Once you say one looks good, she says, “But don’t you think that one would look better?”
If I agree, she pulls out four more samples and thinks they may be better. I would tell you how it ends, but it hasn’t, and I am pretty sure she will be dropping color samples in my coffin, trying to get one last thought on them.
She has hired a capable designer and contractor to do the job, but he looks nothing like those people I see on the HGTV Network. You know, good-looking designers in tight jeans who talk people into buying a house just on this side of the line from demolition. When they start renovation, they pepper them with issues they “never imagined would occur” and the over-budget costs to repair them. When finished, they march them through the interior they designed that looks right out of a showroom catalog. Yeah, if I saw my house repainted, with new floors, and filled with stylish furniture and appliances, I would seem excited until the kids got home from school. In a week, it will look just like it did before the renovation.
I asked for one thing from the contractor. I would like to have several old cabinets so I can put them in the garage. My wife thought that was a good idea and said we could pay the contractor to install them for me. She might as well castrated me right there on the spot. Once I used the “C” word, she relented. Great. I’m really excited about getting started on the garage. I need to pick up some more Band-Aids, a few more extension cords, Neosporin, and a bigger roll of duct tape. Want to do the job right.
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