Deadlines

Last week Bob told me that he was pretty sure he would be done with the house by this Friday. He said he’d work through the weekend if he had to—he’d be done, which included installing hardwood flooring in the master bedroom. (As it turns out, he did not work over the weekend)

We’ve been under construction since September—even though they haven’t been working all that time, we’ve been pushed to our limits. Dave and I have been sleeping in the living room. Before you say, “Oh.. it’s like camping out” or “like a fun slumber party,” let me remind you that I will hurt you.

My dresser was stored in the back room. The walls and ceiling were stripped to the studs and it was cold, lighting was bad, flooring was the old nasty sub floor, and miscellaneous stuff was piled high on top of my dresser. Dave’s dresser is stored in my daughter’s already very tiny room—I have bruises on my elbows from all the times I pulled her clothes out of her closet. Our hanging shirts are in our sons’ room. So, when getting dressed in the morning you have a few different rooms to go to in order to scoop up your clothes. It’s fun.. it’s like a morning brain teaser.

I can’t invite anyone over to the house—where would we sit? Should we all go in the living room and recline on my bed? How about we all tell ghost stories?

The kids still treat the living room as our living room. They eat on my bed (and I’ll tell ya, smeared chocolate on a bedspread looks a LOT like something else), play on the bed, take my pillows and throw them around the room. At night when I just want to sit down and relax, I have to first clear the slew of wooden puzzle pieces, Mr. Potato head, matchbox cars, Melissa & Doug wooden fruit, Dora china tea set, and oh my god... that’s an uncapped magic marker.

The last couple of weeks I’ve totaled and re-totaled how much I would owe Bob and how much we actually had left. I decided (and Dave said, “ok”) that I didn’t want to tack on the fee of hardwood floors right now. I was worried that it would be one of those things I’ll regret later though.

Putting in floors means taking every damned thing out of the room. When we bought this house we stripped the bedrooms of the nasty cat-pee-stained rugs and left them as sub flooring. I painted all the floors with Kilz (the best thing to get rid of stains and smells) and we moved in. I didn’t want to even CONSIDER the cost of new flooring after having spent so much money on the house.

As it turns out the rooms were small and the cost was not that great. So a year or two later we had the pleasure of moving furniture out of each of the rooms to put in new laminate wood floors. The good thing about installing laminate was that we saved money (Dave could put in the laminate), it is pretty inexpensive & durable, and can be removed and reinstalled. So, now Dave can reinstall it in Annabelle’s room. I don’t know if he knows he’s doing that this weekend or not yet—I’ll have to email him. He’ll be so excited.

I still want hardwood floors in my new bedroom but I don’t want to spend the money on it right now AND to be perfectly honest. I can’t take another day of this renovation. I want to move the furniture back. I’m tired of living like we’re moving—boxes of stuff line all the hallways and surfaces—I’m NOT exaggerating. The kids eat dinner on one end of the dining table since I’m now using half of that surface for the clothes that can’t go back into the closets. The power gets shut off at random (and no alerts are given) times when they have to rewire something. Ever yank the plug from the TV in the middle of a really great episode of Dora the Explorer? The windows are left wide open because the workers are hot, throwing crap out of the windows, or smoking (more on that later). It’s enough already.

Bob said he be done by Friday. This Friday. The one coming up next. He’s been showing up at 7:30am (such fun) and working like crazy all day long. There’s still one more room to be sheet rocked, trim and doors to go up, more coats of spackle, and oh—that pesky vinyl siding needs to go up on the outside of the house. I’m not contractor but I think he means next Friday.

I brought Max home from preschool today and he growled and cried when we pulled into the driveway. Confused, I asked, “What’s the matter?” He angrily pointed at the truck and said, “I don’t want those guys here anymore!” You and me both, baby.