Many years ago I came into possession of a lovely home. It was everything I had dreamed of, and it was all mine. To others, it may have not been worth a second look. But to me, it was the place I had always dreamed of.
It wasn’t fancy. Pretty basic really. A diamond in the rough, if you will, that with time, would become a marvel to behold, with lots of room to spread out, plenty of storage and a pretty decent facade.
Of course, there were some rooms that I didn’t have much use for and others that I never wanted to visit. They just didn’t fit into the floor plan well, even though perhaps they once did.
Now, I don’t like to tinker too much with things. I’m handy and can do some basic maintenance, but when it comes to major renovation, I shy away from it. I knew that my house could use a little work. There was some work that I had started but never finished, there were a couple of aborted additions, and now and then it demanded a lot of interior and exterior work.
But it was still home. My home.
Unfortunately, I had some roomies who weren’t so thrilled with my humble abode. Sure, they pretended to like it in the beginning. They thought it was nice, slightly irreverent, in good proximity, fairly well maintained and homey.
Once they moved in, however, they felt it could use a woman’s touch. This, I came to find, was girl code for “major remodel.” It would always start so innocently. They would say they wanted to redo the exterior a bit to bring it up to date. Soon, I’d have a new look, some curbside appeal if you will. That was fine. I’ve never really cared too much about the exterior, except to make sure that the hedges stayed trim. As you know, I let them go for a while, and in the past couple days, the overgrowth had become so bad that a major trimming was required.
So far, so good. But, of course, it wouldn’t end there. While they seemed to be more than happy with the interior spaces when we first met, it turned out that they wanted to do just a little remodeling there, too. They wanted to open it up a bit, perhaps to some new things, take down some of the walls that had been put up, and maybe add on a bit.
Well, a lot. It’s not that a single “contractor” who has taken on the remodeling project has done all the work themselves. Rather, they would see what the previous contractor did and then either rip it back out or try to make it their own. It would happen so fast that I had no time to issue a permit to do the work. One morning I would wake up and a whole section was gone. Everything. In its place was a new framework, one I definitely didn’t approve.
This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. I’m not against progress. The only problem was, the remodeling would start and then stall along the way. I’d wake up to find my home in a shambles, loose ends everywhere and not a worker in sight. I finally figured out that they wanted me to do all the finishing work. They just wanted to get the project started and then shift into management mode, directing the work until it met their standards.
Did I simply cave in and bow to their demands? Yes. For some reason, I would take up where they had left off, making the improvements they wanted. Why? For fear of being condemned.
As we know, no one wants to be condemned for anything they do. If I didn’t try to do my part, I’d find the whole thing red tagged one day with a note that says, “Not fit for habitation.”
And where does that leave me? So, I would dig right in and join in the renovation. I could have probably lived with this, except I had no idea what it was supposed to be like when it was done. I don’t think the contractor did either. So I would plow right along, and just when I thought I was through – BAM! – another change order.
Without even noticing, I had turned into someone else’s remodeling project. It seems that what used to be wonderful just wasn’t working for them anymore. So changes had to be made. Lots of changes. And then changes upon changes.
A never ending remodeling project and as we all know, these end up as hell on earth.
This was certainly true in my case. Before I knew it, my once beautiful home looked more like a House of Mirrors and I never seemed to know my way around anymore. Hell, I didn’t even know which was was up any longer. Worse, some of my brilliant contractors would add land mines that I would readily step on as I felt my way through our joint funhouse.
Thankfully, I fired that last contractor some years ago. She wasn’t working out. While she loved the place at the beginning, she just couldn’t leave well enough alone. She even got me to get rid of the wine cellar for a while. Finally, I just go rid of her.
These days, no more remodels. I’m returning my abode to its original appearance. No more renovation, no more remodels and no more contractors who just want to sit back, tell me what’s wrong and leave me to do all the work.
I’m in charge now. And I’ve decided that I like the idea of a restoration instead. So much more productive and I don’t have to worry about someone pretending to like the place, only to find that they can hardly wait to gut it once they live with it for a little while.
Out on the Treasure Coast, loving the place once again, now that someone else’s shoddy work has been cast aside,
– Robb