It’s been a rugged six weeks what with Al doing the DIY thing in the upstairs bathroom of our tri-level home. For a week, the toilet’s been in his office, between me and my printer. I’d take pictures but it ain’t pretty. The sink and countertops have been ripped out since I got home from Texas, also the lighting. There is one bare bulb hanging by some wires, which made it sort of hard to paint yesterday.
I truly marvel at men like my husband who can plaster, sand, paint, replace plumbing, rewire electricity, and lay flooring. (He fixes cars and computers, too!) They are golden–or so you’d think. Maybe if he didn’t work 12 hour days at his normal job. Maybe if he wasn’t meticulous to the point of weeks and weeks of sanding and three coats of new paint (four if you count primer), maybe if he didn’t expect me to work as hard as he does.
Meanwhile, I’ve been brushing my teeth in the kitchen, stumbling down two flights of stairs in the middle of the night after drinking one too many glasses of liquid before bedtime, and my manicure’s splotched with what the paint chip calls Tabu but looks to me like a light, mossy green.
After three days, I finally finished the jobs I was assigned: three passes at trimming and cutting in corners, also three coats on the the doorway and window frame, plus rolling one coat of paint. Oh and I think I’ve vacuumed and dusted up all the grit from Al’s obsessive sanding. The hardest part of remodeling is living with a perfectionist while he rolls one more coat over my already pretty good second pass. Can I help it if we ran out of paint and the second gallon didn’t quite match the first?
I am fed up with this project and out of patience with Mr. DIY and the work is only half done. No luck on the toilet going back to its proper place tonight as Al has golf, which naturally trumps all other activities. Tomorrow night, we have dinner plans with friends. It’s his birthday, so I have to give him a break, plus there’s the side benefit of not having to cook. I’m hoping he takes the weekend off, but can’t count on it. That man sucks up overtime like I drink Chardonnay.
So now you know what I’m doing. What about you? If you sent me an email in the last week or so, I didn’t get it. At first I was thinking everybody was on vacation or away for the weekend but several people called to tell me their emails to me had bounced. Mike fixed the problem so cindy@cynthiaharrison.com works again, but let me tell you a secret: for years, that email address has fed into another account at harrison.cynthia@gmail.com. So you can always reach me at gmail.
Leave a Reply