Projects

  

I adore big windows. I crave natural light. I love to invite nature into my home through large expanses of glass. That is why I was so hot to have a six-foot patio door in my dining room. So now I have one. And it is swiftly lining up under the heading of, "Be Careful What You Ask For, You Might Get It."

Ah, the marvelous properties of natural light!  Every crumb, animal hair, or dust-bunny---on furniture, floor, or upholstery---fluoresces like dandruff under a blacklight. Okay, I’ll admit, I haven’t dusted in awhile. But between that and the "construction" dust, in the bright white daylight, it looked like everything in the room had been flocked (as in, like a Christmas tree…)

And then, you have to realize that where there’s a window, there’s a view. I now have a spectacular "view" of three weedy gardens, a four-foot mountain of dirt, and the gravel "parking lot" where Big Red the Concession Trailer and our smaller travel trailer live during the off season. Yay. I suppose this isn’t ALL bad. Maybe it will be just the kick in the butt I needed to get out there and start spending some "quality time" in the yard. But I’m kinda stumped about how to screen out the view of the trailers. I feel like I’m living at Big Jim’s RV World…

We have done a LOT of DIY (DUI???) home improvement work over the years. If there’s one thing I should know by now, it’s that there’s always a downside to the project once it’s "in the can." Six months down the road, you find that those beautiful skylights get full of pine needles and bird crap. You finally get rid of the shit-brindle-brown, seventies vinyl flooring in the kitchen, and discover that your brand shiny new WHITE vinyl showcases every footprint, dog slop, sliver of bark dust, and coffee ground---the ones that you could leave on the old floor for days and never see. That Pergo that you coveted for so long and looks SO 21st century…ooops! You’re living on an ice-skating rink! Your most massive pieces of furniture glide effortlessly across the floor, with barely the touch of a finger. Which is handy when you WANT to move the furniture, but not so great when you try to lean on the arm of the couch and it goes sliding across the room. (My niece and nephew thought it was really cool, though…) And speaking of Pergo, it also wasn’t too great to discover that I had to get down on my hands and knees and buff it after mopping, or it would dry hopelessly streaked.

Yep, home improvement is pretty much a crap shoot. There’s no way to get the low-down on the downside of a project before you do it. Is the guy at the home center going to tell you that Pergo is a pain in the butt to clean? How would you know that putting a giant window in a room would turn it into the Munsters’ parlour? "Hey, honey, why don’t we cut a giant hole in the wall and see if we like it?" You just rolls the dice and takes yer chances.

I do recall one project that turned out perfectly, though. In one of our homes, we had to replace the old, worn out carpeting in the living room and hall. We chose, on purpose, a shade that was the exact color of cat puke. It was called "mollusk"…kind of a brownish, grayish, not-too-light neutral. It was perfect. Never regretted that purchase for a second.