When I tell people I am married to a Carpenter, I often hear how lucky I am to be with a spouse who can do work around the house. Yeah right; hold on to that theory.
It is said the shoemaker’s children never had new shoes. Well, the Carpenter’s wife never has a finished renovation. Somewhere in the fine print of my marriage contract I must have agreed to unfinished projects, sort of like how in that same fine print, the Carpenter agreed to let me publish his mishaps in the free press. I suppose it is all fair in love and war.
Speaking of battles, you should see my house. It looks as if war has ravaged every level of our humble home. Like, for instance, the unfinished bathroom now in its 14th month of naked reality. It is the second room visible from our main entrance, and to the untrained eye it looks like a haphazard hockey gear closet with indoor plumbing pipes sticking out of the ground. Come to think of it, it looks like that to the trained eye, too.
There is no drywall, no flooring to speak of, and the toilet left standing alone functions purely for the brave users who don’t mind the hole in the wall that makes all personal doings visible from the laundry room below. Peek-a-boo-on-the-loo. Lovely.
I confess that I was very aware the bathroom renovation was at a standstill when I supported – encouraged even – the second renovation project: master bedroom demolition. Located in the partial basement, our bedroom had succumbed to water run-off below ground level, resulting in a mildew odour that grossed us both out. For the sake of our health, the room had to be gutted. In the meantime, the Carpenter and I had to relocate. In a house the size of ours, the only place left to go was the dining room.
Yep, that’s right, we sleep in our dining room. My tiny home office is bursting with furniture and fixtures from the dilapidated bedroom. Our clothes are in various rooms throughout the house. The microwave clock is my night-light. And yet, the Carpenter and I have still not managed a single breakfast in bed.
You would think that the utter inconvenience and discomfort of sleeping in the dining room would make the bedroom reconstruction a high priority, especially for one who is so capable of doing the renovation work, wouldn’t you? Of course you would, that being logical and all.
You must be as delusional as I am. The bedroom has been trumped by the construction of the ever-important hockey rink. Yes, you read that correctly; I said hockey rink. It’s September.
The grass is still green. The leaves have yet to turn orange and fall. We’ve not even had our first hockey practice yet, but already the boards for the four-foot walls of our mini-arena have been set in place.
It gets better. The boards have been painted. Yep, painted. The living room is still the ugly burgundy of the previous homeowners four years prior, but never mind that. It’s not a priority. Hockey boards are a priority.
To support the Carpenter’s much needed therapy and reno-rehabilitation, I am now selling advertising on those rink boards. What else can I do? There’s plenty of real estate. Any takers? Help me help him.