What Would Scarlett Do?

I’ve had this disease before. You know, the one where you feel like you’ll throw up if you have to step foot in Lowes one more freakin’ time in the same week. The disease that leaves you begging God to please let this remodeling hell end soon. I’ve suffered through it before. Swore I’d never do it again. And yet, here I am again. Knee deep in more home improvements. However, this time is THE last time we remodel. I mean it. As God is my witness I will never remodel again.

As frustrating as the last three weeks have been, we’ve actually made some progress. The ceilings are finished. Hallelujah, amen. Seeing a good excuse to buy a big piece of equipment, Hubby bought the Bad Bad Leroy Brown shop vac at Lowes and sucked up three-quarters of the dust. There is more to go, but we can walk through the house without risking mesothelioma now. The new garage door has been installed. The roof is fixed, new toilets are in place and all of the old carpeting is gone. We also ripped up the old hardwood in the foyer to make for the new wood, and when I say “we” I mean the band of angels known as the roofers who wanted to earn some extra money and a seat next to St Peter. Yesterday Hubby picked up the hardwood and stacked all 1600 square feet of it in the house so it can settle into the house’s temperature and humidity and not buckle when it’s laid. I can thank the price of hardwood for that sporadic twinge I feel in my colon.

The big news is that we finally hired a contractor for the kitchen and bathroom work after spending three weeks getting various estimates. We were getting frustrated because the estimates were all coming in very high. As Hubby’s granny used to say, they wanted three prices for everything. The last guy we talked to was someone I liked immediately. He wasn’t a bragger. He just told us what he could do and how he would do it. He took all kinds of measurements at the house Thursday, and Saturday we went to his granite yard and picked out granite for the countertops so he could put together the estimate. As we sat across his lovely granite top desk watching him scratch numbers I held my breath that his wouldn’t want three prices, too. He didn’t. In fact, he was 30-percent cheaper than the other folks and I wanted to kiss him on the spot. Instead, Hubby and I exchanged glances and almost bumped heads running to the car to get the checkbook for the deposit. When we wrapped up with him I did the GREAT GERTIE I’M GETTING GRANITE COUNTERTOPS dance all the way to the van. It was soon dampened by the realization that we had to go back to Lowes to order faucets so the contractor would not get held up by late arriving spigots. It was the second time we studied faucets. I’m tired of looking at faucets. As beautiful as they are, I’m over the faucets. So much so that when Hubby called from Lowes this morning with the news that the plumbing guy said the two Brand A faucets I picked Saturday wouldn’t hold up because they have too much plastic inside them and that I needed to pick Brand B, I put my head between my feet and started saying the serenity prayer. And if you think I’m kidding, you’re mistaken. After fifteen minutes of him describing faucets and me trying to guess what they looked like, I finally hopped on the internet, had him shout out item numbers and I viewed them on the web until I found something I liked. And then I took a Motrin. I swear if I have to look at one more faucet my eyes will cross. Anyway, we’re done with faucets. I think. And we have everything in place for the contractor to being. Did I mention I’M GETTING GRANITE COUNTERTOPS?!! So I did.

Did mention I’M GETTING STAINLESS STEEL APPLIANCES?!! That was the other big decision of the weekend, and it’s hard to put into words how much I love the appliances I picked out, specifically the stove. I have eyeballed that stove in Lowes for months, ever since I stumbled upon it by accident one night while searching for a rug. No matter what I’m in there for, I habitually fondle the appliances and on this particular night, there before me in all its glory sat the GE Café stainless steel five burner gas stove that costs as much as my first car. I talked to it. I touched it. I whispered sweet nothings into its ear and wished upon a star that one day I would take it home. That dream lay dormant until we decided to buy this house but reared its lovely head when it became obvious I’d need a new stove. I looked at other stoves, but after surfing appliance porn on the internet and checking out other models in other stores I kept coming back to that same stove. So we bought it. And my life is complete.

It makes all of this remodeling mess a little more bearable, but I can’t wait for it to be over. And if Hubby ever mentions remodeling again, I will tell him that frankly, I don’t give a d*@m.