The Fixer Upper House and Garden

Floored!

Yesterday was one of those dreary, wet and muggy days that make me wonder why anyone would chose to live where I'm living. I went to the gutterless house in the morning, fearful the melting icicles and slush had seeped into the new basement overnight...they had not! The house was drier than the Arizona desert, and just as dusty. The floor guys were already at work sawing and buzzing, and they made great progress. Here are some shots of the house as of today, Wednesday:

One view:

View from another angle:

And another view:

Dry Run

Though he was trying to be nice, the Sears appliance guy was nothing like the fictional Maytag repairman. The Maytag repairman is like a jolly bartender who wants to solve your problems and/or introduce you to his mother. The Sears guy is more like a waiter who just wants you to finish your dinner so he can get the tip and give your table to the next people.

It's true the Sears man was all business when he showed up at my house today. Clean, too...even eager. It's just that he showed up an hour early. I was told he'd arrive "between noon and 5 p.m.," so I had a million things packed into the morning. I was racing out the door at 11:00 when he called to say he was on the way.

"What? Why are you coming now?" I asked. I didn't mean to yell; I was just trying to be heard over the din of the excavator's back hoe.

"Because you're next on my list," the Sears man said.

"You're not supposed to get here till noon," I said.

"Well I'm either coming now, or I'm not coming at all," he said without emotion.

He had to come. I've been without a dryer since Tuesday and the laundry pile smells like...well...it smells like a wet basement. But C was desperate for me to drive her to her friend's house. I had to chose between my middle daughter or the dryer.

I delegated, putting M in charge of all appliances and repairmen. But before I left, I checked on the dryer to be sure it still was half-broken. The light worked and the drum got hot, but it still wouldn't spin around.

Ten minutes later when the Sears guy got here, the spinner was spinning just fine. He still charged me for the house call.

                                                   ....................

Here are a few pictures of "excavation day."

T watches the first few digs from the second-floor.

Lunch was a little bit surreal. (These are not my curtains btw; they came with the house)

 

Milo was on guard. Doesn't he look cute with his new haircut? (Again...not my curtains)

The excavator prepares the hole for "the dead man's wall." This wall, which will be poured tomorrow--weather-permitting-god-help-me---will connect the new foundation with the old. Fortunately, our house sits on hard-packed clay. This is good news for the house, bad news for the future garden.

Here's another picture of the girls and dog watching all the action.

Buckle Up

When I was 11 years old my father bought a brown Pontiac Catalina that had four doors, velour upholstery and an obnoxious alarm that buzzed accusingly until all the seat belts were buckled. I learned to drive in that car--among other things--but I never liked it. Not the metallic color, not the roll-up windows, not the AM radio you had to bang with your fist to change stations. The heating never worked very well--a huge deficit when you're driving carpool to the a.m. swim practice in the suburbs of Chicago. My father called the car "Old Paint", a phrase cowboys used to describe elderly horses; even he had issues with the Catalina. Still, I was sad to see the car go when it finally died and was towed to a scrap yard. It was like commiting an old nanny to the nursing home.

I feel this way today about the piles of sodden books, photos, old letters and toys that were ruined in the flood.  Nothing terribly useful was lost; in fact I'm glad to be rid of much of the stuff--although it would have been a lot easier to simply donate to Good Will. No, I don't feel sad about the stuff. But I do feel violated---similar to how I felt when an uninsured teenager slammed into the rear of my Mercury Sable station wagon when Miss M was a little girl. She was buckled securely in her carseat---I've been a meticulous seat-belt-buckler since the days of Old Paint--and none of us was hurt. All M remembers of the accident is that "the strawberries went flying" (I had been holding a bowl of strawberries with marshmallow fluff dip at the time of impact). Turned out the car was even fixable.

So it worked out well. All was fine. All is fine. But I've never felt safe in cars since then.

Recipe for Fluffy Dip, from Cooking Light circa 1995:

With a fork, mix together 1/2 cup low-fat sour cream; 1/2 cup peach preserves; 1 7-oz jar marshmallow Fluff; 1/4 cups Bit-O-Brickle or Heath bar crumbles. Use as a dip for 4 dozen whole strawberries. If taking this somewhere in a car, store in plastic container with tight-fitting top!

Rain Rain Go Away!

It's going to start raining any minute and I can't bear it. I called Husband to say good bye, in case I float away.

I'd like to float away from this house, this life. Away from the wet-dog smell, the dried mud, the flies that buzz through the open doors and onto my arms and legs and face, the tired/whiny children, the empty fridge, the massive backhoe in the middle of the yard, the fridge-sized dehumidifier that's clogging the hallway...

I felt much stronger yesterday, when floodwaters were coursing through my basement at 2:30 a.m. I felt capable, decisive, light on my feet. I literally sprang into action.

"You know, you hold up much better in a real crisis than you do in a perceived crisis," Husband said to me later, as we trudged to bed at 11 p.m.

And it looks like I shall have to become capable again for now the rain is coursing down.

(OK--if I float away I'll take the tired children with me. The dogs, too. We can meet Husband at the other side of the lake.)

Prayers, vibes and smoke signals

On the eve of demolition, please say a prayer for the Fixer Upper House. It's having a most serious operation tomorrow.

It was prep'd for surgery yesterday: the electrician cut off the electricity to the family room; the plumber capped off yards and yards of copper tubing and the demo crew severed the roof from the original house. At 7 a.m. tomorrow, men with earth movers and other large machines will beep beep beep down the driveway to demo the circa-1961 addition and haul it off as refuse. It'll take all of 30 minutes.

I want to honor the family that built it and to acknowledge the love they shared in that room. I want to pray that the old part of the house survives the operation without complications. And I want to bless the new space that will rise from the crumbled brick, broken glass and mortar ash (That brick wall you see on the right of this picture ---that's going to be the new kitchen).

So in honor of my Irish heritage, I'm offering up a house blessing (which I found at islandireland.com):

God bless the corners of this house

And be the lintel blest,

And bless the hearth and bless the board,

And bless each place of rest,

And bless each door that opens wide

To stranger as to kin,

And bless each crystal window pane

That let's the starlight in,

And bless the rooftree overhead

And every sturdy wall

The peace of man, the peace of God,

The peace of love on all.

Let There Be Light Not Stuff

A solution to the mudroom dilemma has been reached. The exterior wall will have four cubbies, a bench and a row of four windows above the cubbies. On the interior wall, we moved the closet to the center, and placed open shelving behind where the back door and kitchen doors will be opened. This makes sense when you are standing in front of the plans, but it's hard to describe  in writing. Guess I'll never get a job writing technical manuals! Thanks to all who e'd or commented with suggestions!!!!

Please Come Through The Mudroom!

Would anyone in the blogosphere like to comment on my mudroom? Here's the layout for the mudroom, which is 10-feet by 8-feet/6-inches. Originally, the plans showed the shelf-and-pole closets

on the interior wall and a row of four built-in cubbies flanking a bench on the exterior wall (one cubby per child and one for Husband and I to share), with four or five small windows set above the cubbies. But the back door and the kitchen door opened right into the closet doors, so I asked Miguel (our architect) to flip the walls. In doing this---see larger layout at left--we lost the row of windows above the cubbies, which we like a lot, and we lost a floor-to-ceiling shelf for shoes and stuff. The original layout is at right---can you see how the doors open into each other? Wouldn't that be a nightmare? Or do I accept the trade-off of night-mare doors for better natural light and more storage options? The kids will primarily use the cubbies for backpacks and seasonal coats, etc.--the things they presently just toss on the floor or over the back of a couch. The closets mostly are for my coats: I have a lot of coats: Hey--the weather's awful here!

Um ... I mean Omm

I stood against the wall, my shoulder pressed into white, nubby cinderblock. My legs pointed toward a ballet bar at one side of the room while my upper body turned to the windows behind me.

"Twist at the waist not the hip," said Kristy, the yoga instructor. She spoke in a soft voice, like a nanny reading Good Night Moon at nap time. She approached me stealthily; pressed her index finger gently into my left hip.

"Try to flatten your lower back against the wall," she whispered, sliding her hand through the arc of space where my back was definately not flat against the wall. I twisted some more, tried to flatten that space. A slow pain oozed through my lower back as if the discs were caught in a garlic press.

"I have back issues," I said through rigid jaw bones. "I have issues with my whole left side."

"Why do you think that is---that it's only your left side?" Kristy asked in that nursery-school voice. She is older than me, thinner; an empty nester with curly hair in clips like mine and luminous skin. Large, soft-looking breasts swayed beneath her yoga top.

I twisted more.

"It's the hip I carried my kids on," I said. I didn't admit that by the time I could no longer carry my youngest child, she was long past needing me to.

The cinderblock chafed my bare shoulders.

"What we give and what is taken," announced Kristy to the class. "We are givers!"

And then to me more pointedly, softly: "It's interesting it's your left side, because the left is the feminine and the right represents the masculine."

She pronounced all three syllables slowly, distinctly. "Mass Cue Lynn."

"Your masculine side is strong," she said with her finger pressing into my hip again. "Something to think about."

She walked on to the next person and I thought: I didn't know I had a masculine side. I wondered why it was so strong...so well and rested...so together...while my poor, martyred, nurturing, feminine, left side sank slowly and painfully into the ground. How had this happened? Why? I thought of freshly showered Husband reading the New York Times on the blue couch when our kids were small, as I changed diapers, mashed bananas, folded laundry and asked him things like "do you want some decaf coffee?" while holding the cup's hot side so he could grab the handle.

(As I wrote that sentence, a coyote howled, a dog barked and then there was an indistinguishable murmer, high and grounded: "nyee! nyee! nyee!" It's 3 a.m. But back to the yoga class:)

Or had my right side gained muscle and agility by compensating always for its injured sister...an able leg grown stronger when the other is braced?

I twisted against the cold wall, my mind full and most certainly not empty, and the pain in my lower back released. The pain that moments before had made me wince was gone and I felt relief in my lumbar spine: an itch scratched, a muscle loosened; the welcomed punch on swelling dough.

(Now there is a pungent stench through open windows: Skunk.)

Kristy coaxed the class into straighter poses ... and moments later I was back in the minivan wondering about my kitchen counter. Lately I've been visualizing a butcher-block island made of end-grain mesquite. (This photo is from the folks at www.livingelements.com; click on it for a larger view) The end-grain mesquite countertop is different, which is good. It reminds me of gardening, which I love. It'd go well with my new-but-looks-like-old kitchen's exposed brick wall and bead-board ceiling. It's dark and hard. Strong. You could cut the stalks off brocoli and mold clay bears on that counter and it'd be no worse off. It's so masculine.

Maybe too masculine, for now I'm thinking I should shore up the feminine. That I should nurture the nurturer with soft colors and gentle materials in this kitchen where my daughters will finish growing up and where, quite possibly, Husband and I will grow old. Um, well, given our proclivity toward moving, at least older.

And back to square one on the countertops I go!   

Take A Deep Breath

A "certified arborist" arrived before breakfast in what looked like a ride-on mower with a huge chain-saw for a tongue. He sluiced through the hard earth that is our backyard to "root-prune" the sugar maple in preparation for the excavation. The kids had trouble understanding why a very clean, nicely dressed young man was digging a 3-foot moat around our tree. So I explained that he needs to cut the roots to prevent the tree from a. getting ripped out of the ground or b. toppling over when the excavator digs the basement. To this T nodded her head vigorously and said with much enthusiasm:  "It's good he's saving the tree! We need that tree for our oxygen!"

The first dig on the long road to reconstruction:

C and T supervise from a safe distance.

Even certified arborists tuck their shirts in here.

Just Beet It

Lately, I've been purging stuff from the kitchen like a person preparing for a colonoscopy. It was easy to throw out last month's half 'n half, the almond paste from Christmas and the boxes of almost-empty elbow macaroni. But what about the week-old beets, which our neighbor left on the porch before she went to Italy? Were they trash ... or salad?

This morning seemed as good a time as any to boil the beets. I set them on the counter: they were red and round, like polyps. It would take a good half hour to boil them; they were that big. And wouldn't you know it, but those boiling beets almost killed my children?

Before we get to that, I want to share a horrible joke I played on those children whom I love so much. After I scrubbed the beets, severed their tips and set them on the stove to boil, T wandered into the kitchen and stuck her head into the cereal cabinet, which is inches from the stove. "What's that on the stove?" she asked suspicioulsy, nearly scalding her early morning/rockstar hairdo. I shrugged and motioned to the thing that was sitting on the counter; the thing that's pictured to the left of these words. I held it up for examination. It was red at the stump.

I said: "We had a visitor."

T's eyes filled with horror as she jumped to the only conclusion a 7-year-old who recently saw "Rattatui" could jump to; the very same conclusion that I, her mother, had just implied.

She cried out: "MOM ARE YOU COOKING RATS?"

Then C hollared down the stairs, always alert to drama or gossip: "What's going on down there? What are you guys talking about?"

I said: "Come see what Mommy's cooking!"

OK ... it was a sick joke, and I'm a horrible, horrible mother. Probably Mrs. Bundy played these kinds of jokes when Ted was a kid. It's just that the long stringy thing was so....was so...so...reminiscent. And the stress level in our house is so thick you could pring it with a fork; as with a beet. We could all use a joke, or 20.

Karma got me back though. Because after the rat joke, I did something truly stupid. At 8:30 a.m. sharp I went to Village Hall to pick up the permits for our renovation. I left the kids at home because they were---for the first time this summer---playing quietly. I told them to cell me if they needed anything; I'd be back in 15 minutes.

Then I left, with the beets still boiling on the stove. ...

T buzzed me of course, just as I was writing out a fat check at Village Hall. "I think you need to turn the stove off. It's making noises," she said, so sweetly innocent of the potential horrors I was instantly certain awaited.  I gasped: "I've got to go!" and fled home in the minivan, just three blocks, where I found the children playing quietly, the pot rattling angrily and the house filled with an odor of burning steel and produce.

I'll try to do better tomorrow.