home improvement | Random Misanthrope

It is a crack home.

Forgive the silence. We have had a lot of home improvement activity going on at the House o’ Dock and Kang for the past few weeks.

Years ago, when we first moved into the house, I had this wild idea of building in the deck and transforming it into another room. Like everyone else in the world, one more room is always needed in a home. Just. One. More. Due to budget constraints (ie: complete lack of money) and trepidation, we decided to table that initiative for a long time. The idea of someone removing walls, adding a foundation and rebuilding walls is just a wee too much for us right now.

We decided to stick our toes in the renovation pool by taking care of some things that we are incapable of doing ourselves due to lack of talent, patience and inclincation. The foyer and hallway (upstairs and downstairs) has needed a new coat of paint since we signed the closing papers back in 2004. The living room walls had been painted the week after we moved in. Dock promised to take care of the trim. Seven years later, it was still the same color.

Also in consideration, the hideous color of the exterior. It was (note: was) a lovely shade of brown with green shutters and cream trim. That needed to go away. Forever.

We had only hired a contractor once before and that was for a very small flooring job. Hiring someone to rip siding off your house and repaint was unchartered waters for us.

Everything had been humming right along until the tornado ate Raleigh. Very, very tragically, some of the crew was directly impacted so work stopped for a week. But now it’s back on and almost done.

One of the most peculiar things I have noticed is that the moment you make an improvement to one part of your home, the other areas become, well, painful to look at. Our home is now a happy shade of white with black shutters. Just the way any good Yankee would have it. It’s lovely. Incredibly lovely. Alas, the gardens look pitiful in comparison.

If I had to identify one take-away from this particular exercise it would be – just leave your house looking like a dilapidated crack house. Sure – your neighbors will be very unhappy. Sure – you’ll lose any potential value you have in your home. But – you won’t have to sit there and look at part of your home and think “Gee…it’s so lovely. How unfortunate that (insert problem area here) sullies the improvement.”

How many of us have watched people drunk blog? Or read drunken writing? How about reading something written by a woman stoned out of her gourd on paint fumes?

So Jose and his get-fresh-crew (really…his name is Jose. If your dark mind is going to that place where it makes some sort of stereotypical comment, leave the room now. I do not want to hear your voice. Lalalalalalalalalala.) is in the hallway and the living room transforming dull suburban to less dull suburban. It’s a rip roarin’ good time for them. They’re getting paid. For me, trapped in my bedroom without food – not so much. Particularly when you factor in my stupid dog’s incessant barking from below. Makes you want to take off his tags and open the fence gate, I tell you.

Where was I? Oh. Right. Stoned on paint fumes. :inhales deeply and twirls herself around the bedpost: Strong aromas and I do not get along. Perfumes and colognes make me blind with rage. Cleaning supplies make me cry like a little girl. The only strong aromas I like are gasoline, skunk and certain foods. Don’t you want to take me on a date, now?

As if life weren’t freaking enjoyable enough with the hell that is known as spring in The South, I’m no longer safe in my own home. To facilitate the drying process, I have turned down the AC to a brisk 68 degrees and we have opened the windows. Paint and pollen! OH. BOY! Wasting electricity! Bonus!!!

My head is spinning, my nose is starting to run, my eyes are weeping and puffy, thoughts are not jelling in my head. I feel itchy. My mouth feels furry. There is nothing to slap. Even if I wanted to hurl a small, annoying animal across the room – I couldn’t. I cannot see straight.

Even worse. I have to watch CNN.

Earlier, I was thinking about writing some sincerely sappy piece about being able to get in your time machine and have a do-over. Not a do-over to change the course of your life but a simple do-over so you don’t end up treating really nice people in a less than nice sort of way. Then the paint high settled in and I find myself feeling unusually not-wistful. As a matter of fact, I’m feeling quite evil. Fortunately, the paint has rendered my mind to gelatinous goo so I’m fairly harmless. For now.

Yay! The painter just opened the door to the bedroom. My bedroom. My bedroom where I’m swinging from the bedposts, pecking out this post with my toes. My bedroom where clothes, books, magazines, pillows and various electronic devices (not those, you dirty boy) are strewn everywhere. I’m really hoping the nice gentleman doesn’t peek around the corner and see Mount Laundry in the bathroom. It’s hungry, too.

The meows (as my son calls them) sought shelter in my closet. Serves me right for leaving the door open. Now my clothes will be covered in pollen and cat and stink of paint. The only things that will draw the kitties out of hiding are a sack of french fries and the promise that I will send the dog to live on a farm.

So there you have it. Nonsensical, quasi-intoxicated ramblings assembled with the greatest amount of care for your reading pleasure. Wishing I would just go back into my head and overthink the ever loving shit out of something, are you?