Husband No. 1 read my previous post about Rules for Living. He felt empowered to make up one of his own. I am now officially forbidden to write about what he does when he is in the basement. So, I won't. My lips are sealed. (Cheshire grin ensues....) For all I know he is saving mankind, which would be fine by me since we can no longer leave it to the Republican Party. (Have they ever met a tax loophole they didn't want to drive through?) So, fine, no basement stories but he hasn't forbade me writing about anything else in this comedy we call our life together. At least not yet. This is where fiction comes in. Change the names, let others call it a roman a clef and you're off the hook! Memoir, memoir? We don't need no stinkin' memoir!
About that fire.
After I left Brooklyn in 2008, His Wonderfulness (HW) did an entire gut rehab of our house. Architects and designers will tell you that there are many kinds of renovations. For instance, there is 1) renovation by acquisition: I just got the Eames couch of my dreams but it doesn't fit through the door so we'll just widen the opening and put in a new front door and while we're at it move the south wall out 3 inches so that the room is balanced and ... There is 2) renovation due to aging or disablement: now that we're middle-aged let's move the master bedroom downstairs and raise the dishwasher, and while we're at it, make sure the doors are big enough for a wheelchair or a coffin ... There is 3) renovation by fire (which I recommend you only do once): Step 1. Burn the house down. Step 2. Rebuild from the basement up fighting with the insurance company every contractor's bill along the way. Guess which one we did in Brooklyn?
Fast forward to 2012. We are here in New Haven on our own (which I've written about previously). We are old -- our knees point in opposite directions and our backs bark. What do we do? We start with the smallest room in a small house. The one once occupied by the Beloved Niece. Proud of myself that the wall paint for the room was stashed in the closet, I blithely started patching holes and cracks. Couple of days at the most, I told myself, a few patches and I'll touch up. Install new curtains, wash floor, et voila! One down, 4 rooms to go. On day 2 I picked up the gallon paint can which felt as light as cotton candy. And mutual perversion set in. What's that expression? In for a penny, in for a pound. We have now plastered that room within an inch of the original sheet rock almost to the point where you can scarcely see the original paint. Another expensive gallon of bitter lemon (indeed!) sits downstairs waiting to be applied to newly skimmed walls and you know that when the walls are done we'll look at the floor which we've virtually destroyed with dollops of joint compound and before you know it we'll be sanding and polyurethaning. And the original door? Oh my, it's got paint on it! Don't we want to strip it to release the oakiness of the oak?
After the last time, in 2009, where my sister and I spent Our Summer Vacation rigging ladders and scraping 50 year old nicotined-stained wallpaper off walls, I swore I would not be caught dead painting sanding scraping finishing a house again. And here I am. You'd say I need to have my head examined but I'm already having my head examined and still I do this.
Life ends, renovation don't.
About that fire.
After I left Brooklyn in 2008, His Wonderfulness (HW) did an entire gut rehab of our house. Architects and designers will tell you that there are many kinds of renovations. For instance, there is 1) renovation by acquisition: I just got the Eames couch of my dreams but it doesn't fit through the door so we'll just widen the opening and put in a new front door and while we're at it move the south wall out 3 inches so that the room is balanced and ... There is 2) renovation due to aging or disablement: now that we're middle-aged let's move the master bedroom downstairs and raise the dishwasher, and while we're at it, make sure the doors are big enough for a wheelchair or a coffin ... There is 3) renovation by fire (which I recommend you only do once): Step 1. Burn the house down. Step 2. Rebuild from the basement up fighting with the insurance company every contractor's bill along the way. Guess which one we did in Brooklyn?
Fast forward to 2012. We are here in New Haven on our own (which I've written about previously). We are old -- our knees point in opposite directions and our backs bark. What do we do? We start with the smallest room in a small house. The one once occupied by the Beloved Niece. Proud of myself that the wall paint for the room was stashed in the closet, I blithely started patching holes and cracks. Couple of days at the most, I told myself, a few patches and I'll touch up. Install new curtains, wash floor, et voila! One down, 4 rooms to go. On day 2 I picked up the gallon paint can which felt as light as cotton candy. And mutual perversion set in. What's that expression? In for a penny, in for a pound. We have now plastered that room within an inch of the original sheet rock almost to the point where you can scarcely see the original paint. Another expensive gallon of bitter lemon (indeed!) sits downstairs waiting to be applied to newly skimmed walls and you know that when the walls are done we'll look at the floor which we've virtually destroyed with dollops of joint compound and before you know it we'll be sanding and polyurethaning. And the original door? Oh my, it's got paint on it! Don't we want to strip it to release the oakiness of the oak?
After the last time, in 2009, where my sister and I spent Our Summer Vacation rigging ladders and scraping 50 year old nicotined-stained wallpaper off walls, I swore I would not be caught dead painting sanding scraping finishing a house again. And here I am. You'd say I need to have my head examined but I'm already having my head examined and still I do this.
Life ends, renovation don't.
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