Why is it so-called \u201chome improvement\u201d projects always on look like little dances through the tulips. So easy. So uncomplicated. Swing your right foot this way, raise your arm, adjust your hips, smile and then spin. Weeeeee!
\n
\nSomewhere along the line (right about when you start) the dance turns into a little dragon that curses, spits and laughs at you. \u201cEasy?\u201d it barks. \u201cIt\u2019ll take 15 years to finish, three times the money you expected and I\u2019ll make you bend every nail and flatten your thumb with a hammer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Home improvement. Try home deprovement.<\/p>\n
I distinctly remember my wife asking how long I thought it would take to get the baby\u2019s room \u2014 a converted guest room \u2014 done.<\/p>\n
\u201cAhh, no time at all,\u201d I said. \u201cIt\u2019ll be easy. Couple of weekends. A jiff. Little of this, little of that, spin around and it\u2019s done. You\u2019ll see.\u201d<\/p>\n
The dragon in the bushes laughed. I hate that dragon!<\/p>\n
Six months later and I\u2019m only now adding the finishing touches. Which isn\u2019t to say I\u2019m done. It\u2019s what you might call a soft opening. It\u2019s done enough to allow people to see it, but by no means can we signal a grand opening. Please little girl, don\u2019t come too early.<\/p>\n
I was so sure it would all be over in a matter of weeks, mainly because while I have accomplished numerous major construction projects at home, that is balanced with the fact that I am a complete imbecile with no grasp of time and the complexity of tasks.<\/p>\n
A couple of new outlets, re-do a closet, some crown molding, paint the floor, plaster, build a monorail connecting downtown, install a solar heating unit that has a back-up fission reactor and paint a mural of all the world\u2019s nations with a secret code in it.
\nYeah, only a couple weeks.
\nWhat was I thinking?<\/p>\n
But it is coming together beautifully, I must say, and in comparison, the wife, the dog and I will be living in relative squalor (like a refugee tent) next to her baby palace. Oh, the rest of the house is fine. But the difference is I might actually finish her room before she has grandchildren. I cannot say the same for the rest of the house.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve done it all in here over the years, including a pretty sizable addition on the back of the house in which I did everything from the piers to the roof. And while it\u2019s not level, that\u2019s more due to the fact that nothing in my nearly hundred-year-old house is. (It\u2019s actually unlevel in 62 directions and at least three different dimensions.)<\/p>\n
It\u2019s solid, and looks great, but not finished, if only because that one corner of caulking I could never reach to paint is still hovering up there \u2014 like the dragon! \u2014 laughing at me. \u201cYou\u2019re so short, midget boy.\u201d<\/p>\n
But even while it might have taken a while, I\u2019m actually working like a deranged lunatic chased by hornets to get it done. Weekend after weekend. Hour after hour. Late into the night and from early in the morning. I\u2019ve been relentless and methodical and single-handedly have kept hardware stores afloat.<\/p>\n
And now, after all these months, it\u2019s finally (almost) done. The curtains are hung. The windows are wiped clean. The caulking is painted, and there\u2019s no random spot of unpainted plaster forgotten for eternity and bulging out like a hunchback\u2019s hump \u2026 laughing at me.<\/p>\n
It really is a palace in there, a virtual dream room compared to the shantytown that is the rest of my house. And I\u2019m so proud and excited. All for a kid who won\u2019t appreciate the details until she\u2019s 33, which is probably about the time I\u2019ll get to that bit of caulking left in the study. Go away dragon, I\u2019m painting here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Why is it so-called \u201chome improvement\u201d projects always on look like little dances through the tulips. So easy. So uncomplicated. Swing your right foot this way, raise your arm, adjust your hips, smile and then spin. Weeeeee!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2","category-parenthoodandchildren"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}