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Friday, July 10, 2009
I Love My Husband - MORE Magazine
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WooHoo & Oh My
The time has come-I’m both thrilled and dreading the whole situation. What is it?
Bathroom re-modeling. Not just one-two. And no, this is no “touch up” and move on job.
OOOH NOOO. It’s a summer’s worth of full gut jobs and all four of us sharing a bathroom. Unless our son and future daughter-in-law find the home of their dreams and close escrow before the end of all this fun.
Why are we doing this during a recession and after I lost my “day job”, you ask? Simple. We have absolutely NO FREAKIN’ CHOICE.
It really started about 4 years ago. Our son’s sink cracked during an earthquake and my husband did a “Band-Aid” fix by using clear caulking on it. That worked out beautifully until a couple of months ago when another really good jolt caused several more cracks in the sink. Then my tub starting leaking into the garage. There were also several other little signs of eminent demise that were staring us in the face, so we decided to do a re-finance and bite the proverbial bullet.
After 5 years of selling designer plumber I figured that this is providence-you know, what goes around comes around?
So I now am telling myself every morning (starting this week): you will hate the process but love the outcome.
Day 1: crew was not informed that we had 2 very indoor cats. So my job was to stand at the front door from noon until 4:30 and open and shut the darn thing. Not that the cats wanted to show even the tips of their noses, but there was always that chance.
Plus, Sunshine may be the equivalent to 80 years old, but suddenly she was the biggest baby on the face of the planet. She kept hiding either behind me or in-between my legs and crying. Seems she may have been attached emotionally to the old tiles and tub.
Somewhere during the first hour of demo-a major leak was found. The water was cut off and the guys told me they’d be back in a ½ hour with some new shut off valves. It was an hour, but what’s 30 minutes between friends???
Sunshine was also frantic because no matter where she was looking her cat was not there. He finally came out of hiding 45 minutes after the crew left. She couldn’t have been happier. She picked him up and after making them comfortable in her bed spent about 10 minutes cleaning and kissing him. He didn’t seem to mind the attention. Our son’s Maine Coon found a place to sleep the day away.
Day 2: I was informed by the project manager everyone would be back between 11-12. Guess they decided to have lunch first. Only one guy showed up at 2:30 and asked me where the tub was. Gee, I don’t know-I only asked 2 people 4 times if they needed the blasted tub.
It’s coming any moment-Friday. This means that it will be installed on Monday, along with the new valves.
I’ve been promised it will be “go, go, go” from that point on-we shall see.
This could be a great place to log my feelings this summer. I’ll try to make it as interesting as possible. Per the “guesstimates”-the small bath will take 2-3 weeks. The master will take 4-6.
LOL-like I believe any of that!
And it does pay to have friends in the industry and to have a major design center go out of business for just such occasions as this. We bought the stuff for the kids’ bathroom at the EXPO fire sale. The rest from my former office mates and one of their vendors.
The bad part is the dust, mess and wait time. The best part-I finally get that tub I’ve been dreaming of for about 5 years.
This is week 1-anyone want to make any wagers as to how much writing will be getting accomplished in the next few months?
Bathroom re-modeling. Not just one-two. And no, this is no “touch up” and move on job.
OOOH NOOO. It’s a summer’s worth of full gut jobs and all four of us sharing a bathroom. Unless our son and future daughter-in-law find the home of their dreams and close escrow before the end of all this fun.
Why are we doing this during a recession and after I lost my “day job”, you ask? Simple. We have absolutely NO FREAKIN’ CHOICE.
It really started about 4 years ago. Our son’s sink cracked during an earthquake and my husband did a “Band-Aid” fix by using clear caulking on it. That worked out beautifully until a couple of months ago when another really good jolt caused several more cracks in the sink. Then my tub starting leaking into the garage. There were also several other little signs of eminent demise that were staring us in the face, so we decided to do a re-finance and bite the proverbial bullet.
After 5 years of selling designer plumber I figured that this is providence-you know, what goes around comes around?
So I now am telling myself every morning (starting this week): you will hate the process but love the outcome.
Day 1: crew was not informed that we had 2 very indoor cats. So my job was to stand at the front door from noon until 4:30 and open and shut the darn thing. Not that the cats wanted to show even the tips of their noses, but there was always that chance.
Plus, Sunshine may be the equivalent to 80 years old, but suddenly she was the biggest baby on the face of the planet. She kept hiding either behind me or in-between my legs and crying. Seems she may have been attached emotionally to the old tiles and tub.
Somewhere during the first hour of demo-a major leak was found. The water was cut off and the guys told me they’d be back in a ½ hour with some new shut off valves. It was an hour, but what’s 30 minutes between friends???
Sunshine was also frantic because no matter where she was looking her cat was not there. He finally came out of hiding 45 minutes after the crew left. She couldn’t have been happier. She picked him up and after making them comfortable in her bed spent about 10 minutes cleaning and kissing him. He didn’t seem to mind the attention. Our son’s Maine Coon found a place to sleep the day away.
Day 2: I was informed by the project manager everyone would be back between 11-12. Guess they decided to have lunch first. Only one guy showed up at 2:30 and asked me where the tub was. Gee, I don’t know-I only asked 2 people 4 times if they needed the blasted tub.
It’s coming any moment-Friday. This means that it will be installed on Monday, along with the new valves.
I’ve been promised it will be “go, go, go” from that point on-we shall see.
This could be a great place to log my feelings this summer. I’ll try to make it as interesting as possible. Per the “guesstimates”-the small bath will take 2-3 weeks. The master will take 4-6.
LOL-like I believe any of that!
And it does pay to have friends in the industry and to have a major design center go out of business for just such occasions as this. We bought the stuff for the kids’ bathroom at the EXPO fire sale. The rest from my former office mates and one of their vendors.
The bad part is the dust, mess and wait time. The best part-I finally get that tub I’ve been dreaming of for about 5 years.
This is week 1-anyone want to make any wagers as to how much writing will be getting accomplished in the next few months?
