Off Balance

Work ground to a halt yesterday when our painter failed to show up. After a couple of hours, LK finally rang the project manager to be told that although our painter is 'an artist' he also suffers from vertigo, which can keep him in bed.

That seemed to me like a potentially bad condition for a painter - especially one who may need to climb up ladders. I knew nothing about vertigo other than the Hitchcock movie and its weird pinwheel effects every time James Stewart looked over the edge of a tall building - which he seemed to do an awful lot for a guy who had vertigo.

So off to Wikipedia, which has in just a few years become my preferred source of knowledge.

Vertigo 

(from the Latin vertō "a whirling or spinning movement") 

is a type of dizziness, where there is a feeling of motion when one is stationary.

When you phrase it that way, I would have to say that I can sympathize with vertigans.  There's a WiiFit test where all you have to do is stand still for 30 seconds. I always feel I've aced it, only to get the message "Stability: 62%". And that's on a good day.

Actually, reading that definition of vertigo did make me look at the longer entry. It has been weeks since I've added a name to my list of Possible Diseases Based on My Symptoms, and the last few have ended in disappointment when I eventually discovered they are exclusively female diseases.

This search, however, was more promising as it led to the information that vertigo can be caused by Meniere's Disease, which is characterized by periodic episodes of dizziness, progressive hearing loss, tinnitus and a sensation of fullness or pressure in one or both ears. Cool, I have all four. I can add something else to my list of possible explanations for my poor balance.

Deep down I doubt that my dizziness is something to fret about. First of all, it almost never happens. And second,  Wikipedia may have added a more likely explanation:

Excessive consumption of ethanol (alcoholic beverages) can also cause notorious symptoms of vertigo.

 

They even offered a link to an entry on the "Short term effects of alcohol" but I thought that might force me to justify an unhealthy lifestyle, so I didn't bother to click through.

Anyhow, I digress quite badly. When the painter was a no-show, LK's reaction was truly noteworthy. In fact, given that this could easily mean that the renovation won't be finished before we take off on our holiday, her reaction was amazing.

That's because she had virtually no reaction. It will either happen or it won't, she said, while showing zero signs of stress. In fact she was so stress-free that when talking to the others whose work may be pushed back because the painting wasn't done, she kept saying "It's no big deal to us" and "Really, we're not going to be upset if we don't get it done."

Last night she thought about our day and noted that this wasn't her typical, expected reaction to having a tight schedule go off the rails. "I guess I am nowhere near as tense as I was when I was working," she said. I tactfully did not mention the Color and Lighting Crises.

And as a reward for her refusal to get too fussed yesterday, the painter showed up this morning and said he would work through the weekend to get us back on schedule. That has led LK to go upstairs and start working to get some of the rooms in shape. I'd help her, but I'm feeling just a little light-headed and I have a ringing in my ears.

A Crisis of Color

"I'm having a Color Crisis," LK said as she ran into the family room, rummaged through her folder for some color patches, grabbed them plus a sample of cloth and bolted back upstairs where the painter was working.

Turns out Jonathan, our painter, is the sort of guy who does not want to paint cupboards Fair Bianca White if there's a better shade available. In our case, the oven, which looked like a light cream color in the brochure, evidently has more yellow in it than LK had thought. Or so I found out later that night when we reviewed the executive decisions that had gone into resolving the Color Crisis.

LK and Jonathan came to the conclusion that using the shade of white we had originally chosen would make the oven stand out too much. "And it will make it look very yellow," LK told me.

I nodded, trying my best to act as if I too thought it was a bad thing if the oven looked yellow and stood out. I even offered a bit of post-Crisis philosophy. "But if you moved into a place with a beautiful new kitchen with white cabinets and already owned this oven, you wouldn't think twice of just plonking it in. Right?"

I guess that was a Men Are From Mars sort of thought for it merited a befuddled look, a brief pause in LK's conversation and then no response as she made a decision to act as if she had not heard me.

This may have been in part because at one stage of this whole process I had laughed loudly at what I thought was a funny joke when LK told me there were dozens and dozens of shades of white.

Or perhaps it was my earlier decision to decline a seat at the table for the Crisis Management Team. Early in the Crisis, LK asked if I would like to come up and get involved in the decision to switch colors. I smiled and asked her if she thought I would have anything to contribute to such a decision, and she nodded briefly and left the room quickly.

I was able to help with the Lighting Crisis, though. As so often happens when one thing goes off the rails, it seemed as if some other problem pops up. In this instance our lights (also known as the last things we had ordered that had not yet arrived) arrived.

Shortly after resolving the Color Crisis, LK opened one of the boxes and took out the lights that are going over the kitchen island.  "It's supposed to be 30 centimeters," LK said. Even though I still deal with centimeters by mentally multiplying by 40 inches to figure out what that would be like, I knew the little light in her hand was closer to 30 millimeters.

(OK, Yanks. I'll give you a break. It was supposed to be about 12 inches and it was closer to 1.5 inches.)

LK grabbed the invoice, went online and came to the conclusion that the folks in Italy had sent us the wrong lights. This made the Color Crisis look like a trivial problem. She had me look through the web site to see what the light was supposed to look like.

And that is where experience saved the day. Sure, younger people may have more enthusiasm, energy and other stuff like that. But I have experience, and experience trumps youth every time. As I looked at the lights it reminded me of several times in my life when I had panicked because some self-assembly piece was not what it should be. And in nearly every instance it turned out that I hadn't emptied the carton or read the directions.

"Have you looked in the box to see if there's a 30 centimeter part you haven't unpacked yet?"

A few minutes later the Lighting Crisis was officially over as LK showed me the metal shade that looked to me to be just about (.30 x 40) inches wide.

Two crises in one day. No wonder LK was tired last night. But she would have slept well knowing how good her lights are going to look in the kitchen - especially with those cabinets now a creamier shade of white officially known as Milan.

Floor Show

LK cracked first.

She was sitting in our downstairs family room. The coffee table in front of her was covered with a tablecloth, which in turn was covered with all the paperwork of the renovation. Behind the sofa the table was full of stuff we needed for a week without a kitchen - a box of water, paper plates, half a loaf of bread, a bottle of scotch. And there's a bag for trash hanging on the walking machine behind that table.

There is no water or electric in the kitchen area. For a week LK has been cooking on an electric frypan on the washing machine in the garage, and I have been doing the cleaning up in the bathroom sink and storing some of the clean dishes in a space where we moved some bath towels to make room.

So it was not surprising LK cracked. And she did.

"I feel like I'm living in a trailer," she moaned last night. "And I just want to get this over."

(Any readers living in trailers should please direct comments to LK and not me. And in fact you should be aware that LK would think even less of this blog than she already does if she were to find out I actually have readers living in trailers.)

I think her lament was caused by more than just the temporary clutter and loss of space. For one thing, the guys laying the floor made more noise than any of the other tradesmen have. Saws whining, hammers pounding, floors being scraped clean - it was enough to drive us out of the house in search of just about anything else to do.

So we shopped for a few things we need for our trip, but really there isn't a lot to buy when you're unable to cook your own meals. We ended up trying out a little Malaysian takeaway place that disappointed us by having run out of satay. Finally, with just about nothing to do, we made our way back to the house to wait for the floor to be finished.

Silly me, but I had assumed that ripping up old flooring and putting in new stuff would be one of the simpler and least challenging parts of the reno. Of course, I didn't know that the underpad of our old flooring was glued more firmly than any that the tradesmen had ever seen in their whole wide career. It seemed to dampen their enthusiasm for the job, which was already pretty moist because the people who sold us the floor and hired these guys to do the job kind of led them to believe that all they would have to do is take up an old carpet. (By the way, the picture at the top is the kitchen floor after they ripped up the current floor and scraped away the glue.)

The Floor Before - looked like wood to me!

Underfoot Now - It's bamboo timber in a coffee shade

But we're finding great attitudes and a willingness to tackle whatever needs being done by 99% of the people who have been doing work for us (the other 1% = Stuart the painter, but we're so over that and I don't want to rehash that). The floor guys were still pounding the boards in last night around 6:30 so we could stay on schedule.

They didn't finish off the whole job - the dining room will get done Thursday, along with a few edges in the kitchen area. But today we get kickers and skirting and that's the end of any building. Then it's painting, tiling, put in the sink and appliances waiting patiently in the garage and, oh yes, turning on the gas and electric so we will actually be able to use this place.

And I am sure it will be great and well worth a couple of weeks of inconvenience. Which makes me wonder how long it will take for LK to forget what this was like and want to do something else?

Wall Eyed

Joshua fit de battle of Jericho, and the walls came a tumbalin' down

Traditional American spiritual song

Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall.
Ronald Reagan, 1987

We'd really open up this room if we could knock down this wall.
Linda Kennedy, 2010

5 years ago

Yesterday

Today

"Something there is that does not like a wall," wrote the great New England poet, Robert Frost. Well LK and I have figured out what that "something" is. It's called Andrew, and he is the designer for the company building our kitchen.

With all the posts I've written about this new kitchen, I haven't adequately acknowledged Andrew's role in our decision-making. Perhaps the easiest way to explain it is to tell you what was said when we first booked an appointment to have him come out and quote on our renovation work.

"Should I decide the things I want in the kitchen before he comes out?" LK asked the woman making the appointment.

"Sure," she said, "that would be a good idea. You can tell Andrew what you want, and then he will tell you what you're going to get."

If you think that makes Andrew sound precious, you are sharing our concerns before we met him. But once he arrived, Andrew turned out to be funny, intelligent and quite likeable. He had some great ideas about how to design the kitchen. His first - and undoubtedly best - idea was to stand in the kitchen area for a short time and suggest that we would have a dramatically better space if we were to knock out the wall in the middle of the room.

No arguments from us on that since we had already noted that it really closed the room in. And once that seed of an idea was planted in our minds, it was impossible to go back to Plan A. Even though we later discovered that this was a load-bearing wall and it would add about 10% to the renovation to add new support to the roof so the wall could be taken down.

That didn't phase my bride. "Surely we have a 10% contingency plan in our budget," LK said, forgetting briefly that we are now retired and are no longer the budget-obsessive people we were while working.

I reminded her that this notion of a renovation budget was something she was picking up from watching too many home improvement TV shows. Our "budget" was pretty much whatever everything was going to cost once we added them up. So who needs a contingency line when their budget is already a moveable feast? Or when Andrew says something is a good idea.

And so it came that yesterday the house changed dramatically as Justin and Nick, the builders, came in and did their stuff.

Bracing the ceiling, lifting the roof and then doing mysterious builder stuff in the attic, they came down after a few hours and Nick began removing the offending wall.

You can get a sense from the pictures at the top what a difference it makes.

Justin is back today for a little bit of plastering work, and then tomorrow the new flooring comes. After that it's kickers, painting, tiling, plumbing, appliances and electricals. It's close enough to see what it's going to be like. And, I must say, we're feeling really good about it. Especially because so far it's all coming in on budget.

Excitement

We know everyone is different, but occasionally life deals us a hand that makes it crystal clear just how different two people can be.

It's as if the real world has come up with its own Rorschach tests. And we all know how much those classic inkblots reveal about people. LK, for example, looks at these and sees dancing bears, while I see a gay Samurai warrior wearing furry red underpants and staring intently at me in a steamy Japanese bathhouse.

In much the same way, the various events of this renovation are highlighting how different the two of us can be.

It was brought home to me this morning when the woman from the online lighting store rang to tell LK that her lights had arrived early from Europe (where else would you expect them to be from?). They had originally said they were unlikely to be delivered prior to our holiday, but now they are actually going to be here in time to be installed before we leave on our trip.

My reaction was low-key. OK, maybe even a little curmudgeonly. To me, these were things we had already paid for and knew they were going to show up eventually. It was nice to know that we could tick off one more task before we headed off to Egypt, but it was not that big a deal.

LK, on the other hand, acted as if she had won the lottery. She literally jumped for joy. She was excited. I know because she kept saying, "I'm so excited!" Ten hours later she was still saying, "I'm so excited!" and giggling like a little girl on Christmas Eve, And she kept looking askance at me for not sharing her glee.

"Aren't you excited?" she asked. No, let me be precise. "Aren't you excited?" she challenged.

I know the answer is supposed to be, "Of course, dear, but you know that being from Vermont I don't show my excitement the way other people do." But after ten hours of unbridled LK glee, the best I could manage was, "Well, I'm happy you're so happy, but really we knew we were going to get these lights so it's not that big a deal to me."

Glee levels were high, though, and my crankiness wasn't going to bring this woman down to earth. "Oh, you just don't get it," she said confidently. "This is really, really exciting."

And so we ended the fourth day of reno. With the countertops now in place (My mother told me no one in the US knows what I mean when I called them benchtops), LK was able to confidently proclaim that she could really visualize it all now, and, yes, by God, she'd made the right choices. That too, you may have guessed, was exciting. Really exciting, in fact.

And we are now almost halfway through the process. That, I feel, may be the most exciting.

 

LK tests paint colors on the wall we will remove this weekend

The Cupboard Was Bare - But There

Cabinets growing on the grotty walls which really need their tiles

Good-bye pink insulation. And new floor Monday!

They are actually a bit ahead of their schedule, and the guys doing the cabinets are taking today off so the bench tops can be put in.

So far, except for losing electricity for a couple of hours due to a faulty power point plate, it has been seamless. LK and I just sit downstairs on the laptops or reading and when we go up at the end of the afternoon, there's new stuff to look at.

We will probably entertain ourselves today by driving down to the Red Velvet Lounge for lunch. That is if Harvey Norman delivers our dishwasher before noon. The dishwasher was supposed to be here Monday. But the sales guy put in the wrong date and it became Tuesday. The fridge and stove showed up all right, but no dishwasher. Apparently it was lost in the warehouse somewhere, but they found it Wednesday afternoon and we will have it today.

All that remains is the In-Sink-Erator and a new microwave, which have left the warehouse in Sydney but may not get here until the 8th. We are starting to get used to delivery times to Hobart.

In the meantime, I think both of us are ready for all of this to draw to a conclusion. Last night LK plugged in an electric fry pan we picked up since we have no way to cook indoors now, and it was pretty windy to think of a barbecue.

Probably noteworthy, though, is that she was using it in the garage and cooking in it on top of the washing machine. It reminded me ever so slightly of having to do our laundry out of the boot of the car a few months ago.

Sure, we understood that the renovation would be a great inconvenience during the two weeks it was happening. But for me it has brought home just how long it has been since we were sitting in a house that was, well, finished -  no cartons around, furniture in place, no cords and cables around, no holes in the wall waiting to be patched and painted, no stuff in the way that isn't supposed to be in the way. Settled.

Counting the time we got the Sydney house ready to sell, it's a little more than a year, but at least we see the finish line now (even if it is a mile away).

Of course, the long times to get things done are partly due to situations beyond our control and partly due to our travels. It's hard to get your house set up while lounging on the deck of a cruise ship. We understand that and we understand the need to make choices.

Which is why we are heading overseas the day after this kitchen is finished. Lights and painting can wait. We need another holiday!

Notes from the Bunker

Reno Day 1: Gutted

Reno Day 2: Like Spring flowers, cabinets sprout from the bare ground

NOTES FROM THE BUNKER:

LK and I don't fight. We have discussions. You know, discussions where our voices get just a little louder and our sentences get just a little shorter.

Last night's "discussion" went a bit like this:

L: You haven't blogged. You need to blog.
D: I will get around to it.

L: No, you need to do it. You promised to track the renovation.
D: I believe I am retired. You know, as in, no bosses and no work hours anymore.

L: Blogging isn't work, and you need to do it.
D: You know, my mother just guilt trips me about not blogging. You're actually harrassing me.

L: Well, somebody has to. You need to blog about the renovation.
D: When I think of something to write about, I will. Right now, all I can think to say is that on the first day we went downstairs and when we came up later, there wasn't anything in the kitchen except for wall cavities full of pink insulation and dangling power outlets. And on the second day, we actually left the house when the workmen came, and when we came back there were the beginnings of some cabinets in place.

L: There's lots to write about. Write about how awful the first day was - how we were virtually trapped in the family room beause we had to be home to take delivery of appliances. Write about how we had no water for a couple of hours, and just when they turned it on, we lost electricity for hours, so we couldn't even take a shower.
D: Why don't you write it? You seem to have it down pretty well. Besides, you wrote one post ages ago, and it was the most-read post that year.

L: It's your blog. I'm just giving you suggestions for what to write and telling you that you need to post. And also, you need to get over the fact that more people read my post than any of yours.
D: I will write about the reno eventually, but I am tired tonight.

Pause for the evening. Sleep. Wake up the next morning. Turn on the heat in the downstairs room, make the coffee, walking upstairs to get water in the bathroom and milk from the fridge.

Sit down to check e-mail. Take first sip of coffee.

L: I thought of a start for your blog. You ended your last one saying we were going to run away downstairs. Why not start the new one with "Notes from the Bunker"?
D: (No reply. Began typing instead.)

The cupboards are bare. For one day, at least

No, not a toilet in the kitchen. The sink will overlook the Bay.