Really Big Job

Most of you know the emotions that accompany a strenuous, disruptive home remodel project. Because I have my finger on the pulse of human psychology (was that a mixed metaphor?), I'll tell you the three stages of Remodeling Psychosis:

1. Anticipation, or fanciful imaginings about how great your house is going to look. For some reason, this emotion happens first.
2. Denial, or the reluctance to admit that making your house look great will take gigantic amounts of work.
3. Resignation, or that dawning upon the human soul that YOU and you only (plus immediate family) must start the work. Today.

For us, Resignation set in on August 1, when the Total Package announced that work had begun.

Our project was to replace ugly, smelly carpet. Our house was built in 1975; we're the third or fourth family to live here. Judging from the doghouse that sat in the backyard when we moved in, at least one of those families had a stinky pet, and we did too.

We re-floored a few downstairs rooms with a wood-grain laminate, which looks great. Still, every time we left the house for a while - hours or days - we walked in and smelled the funk of many humans and a few animals, settled into the carpet for who-knows-how-long.

On top of that, the carpets were just plain ugly, and we lived on them for nine years. These photos gives you an idea how long:

Now Henry is gone, and the boys are 11 and 13. Imagine their joy when we told them they would pry carpet-staples out of the subfloor. They were so ecstatic that they began toiling,  and bitterly bickering, immediately.

"Make only positive comments to one another," I said.

That did not work.

"Stop talking to each other," I commanded.

That did not work.

"Stop speaking. Do not say a word. Ever." I barked.

Beautiful silence ensued, punctuated only by nasty scraping noises as screwdrivers pried at staples. Soon, Happy Meal approached with a piece of paper.

The next few days were filled with such family togetherness, but finally, rolls of hideous, stinking carpet and pad went to the dump.

I had to paint, of course, before new flooring arrived. If you look closely at the bedroom photo above, you'll notice that my bedroom walls were pink. Also, when we moved in, none of the interior trim was painted - only primed, and the few doorways with paint were chipped.

The Total Package dropped me at the paint store while he dumped the carpet. He helped me spray our room (our way of hiding old popcorn ceilings is to paint them the same color as the walls, then stop acknowledging their presence), and I spent the next several days painting baseboards, and door/window trim in five rooms, hall and stairway.

I had deadlines: The installers announced their arrival date and I had to be finished painting by then. We had them install in stages so we could live & sleep downstairs while bedrooms were finished, etc. The process took all of August, no joke. We began ripping carpet on 8/1, and the installers left on 8/31.

New bedroom:

Boys' bedrooms (Grandparents contributed bedroom carpet, Ikea bed, gigantic bear, longboard, etc.):

Old stairway:

New:

Old living room (in case you haven't visited my house, this room is L-shaped; the green wall extends into the dining room):

New:

We felt as if we finished a marathon, but the effort was worthwhile. Years ago, while we slowly gutted and updated our little Everett house, I lamented all the work to my friend Patty.

"But you're doing it together!" she said, with her sweet Patty-smile. Of course she was right.