Monday, August 9, 2010

Working Relationship

I'm tired. And we're still two days away from having our furniture and hundreds of boxes delivered.

We have been doing the preliminary work and I am starting to think that this moving house may just be a very long project. It's not just moving in. Since this is likely to be our home for as long as we can live at home, there's much more to do than just move our stuff in.

LK and I both agree that the kitchen needs an upgrade. And neither of us likes the color the walls are painted, so we've agreed that should be done sooner rather than later. Ditto for the overhead lights. They look like the sort of things landlords put in when they rent a place, which, come to think of it, is exactly what they are.

LK wants a new floor in the kitchen and living room. I have always loved wood and kind of liked the wood floor that was there until she explained to me that the wood I liked was actually linoleum. I don't like linoleum, although it did occur to me that if I couldn't tell the difference perhaps I only like brown things with grain and that even fake wood will do for me.

We both want a patio/deck area outside for barbecues in the good weather. And eventually, if there's anything left in the budget, we would love to have a pool put in. But that's for much later.

As you can imagine, we have discussed and debated all sorts of possibilities. For LK, making her home beautiful is not something done casually. It is something that takes hard work, study, effort and hours of exploration. And that is what she has been doing for months, poring over home magazines and web sites. She has a vision of what the new house should look like, although it's a movable feast as she continues to explore other possibilities and tweak her ideas.

She has wonderful taste and we have always lived in lovely homes that she set up. I, on the other hand, can't tell wood from linoleum.

So it's not much of a surprise that we have evolved a working relationship as we tackle our new home and its many projects. LK makes the major decisions, and I offer my ideas. Then she tactfully explains why my ideas are more appropriate for the sort of place that might be home to legally blind men with poor hygiene.

She's right, of course, but that doesn't stop me from whining. When I hinted that I wasn't having a lot of impact on the decorating decisions, she told me it was not fair for me to say that. Of course it's unfair. I know that. It's a little like me complaining that I'm a Red Sox fan but they won't let me play on the team.

But LK is nothing if not kind. A short while after this discussion she said, "You know what. You can make all the decisions about the pool." Two things happened. First I realized that I had just been given responsibility for a project that may or may not happen and will certainly not happen for a year. And second I realized that I did not want that responsibility.

Damn! Look what complaining got me! I told LK that I wouldn't dream of being the decision maker if we built a pool.

And that is about as assertive as I intend to be from here on out.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Don,

You will be able to use that chainsaw you picked up at the hardware store to rip up the linoleum flooring and trim the new timber floor to size!