Home Sweet Home or Domestic Insanity?
by
Lauren Roberts
I will spare my readers the gruesome details, but suffice it to say I have been dealing with serious plumbing problems for nine days now. Were it just the pipes, I might have merely cursed this past week. But this particular story is compounded with dementia (not mine, not yet), long distance financial arrangements, garage-and-hose showers, desperate runs to local stores and sympathetic neighbors who possess working toilets, supposed fixes inevitably leading to more problems and, frankly, a high ickiness factor. (Like pornography, the innards of houses should in my opinion be available only to those interested in them, and not inflicted on the rest of us.)
Alas, I find myself with an approaching deadline and no column. The tears of frustration and anger that have hovered over these recent days have made reading an exercise in frustration. I find I can’t concentrate even when I have more than an hour without someone, somewhere needing me. Men are trooping into the house, the drilling and hammering and clanging noise is constant, the cats are cowering under the bed with (this worries me) no access to their sandbox and the damn dust is over everything. I clean, and I clean again. And it’s still filthy. I feel very close to cracking.
Fortunately, it appears to be nearing an end. Tomorrow night it might (might; oh, how I hope) be finished. I hope I will have a bathroom that doesn’t repulse me, that can offer me joy in the soothing, pounding water of a clean shower stall and the satisfying flush of a well-working toilet. I may be a wimp, but I am a proud wimp. Glory to be to the American bathroom!
Interestingly, just as I reached what I hope to be the final peak of frustration last night, I picked up a book I haven’t read for a while. This Damn House by the late and much lamented Margo Kaufman. It is now out of print, though copies can be found online. And it should be found. It is a very funny, appallingly wonderful, eye-opening account of her and her husband’s journey into, through and eventually out of the home remodeling process.
What I have been having is not a remodeling, but a reactive process to an emergency situation. However, it shares enough similarities to produce the same up-and-down emotions, the stress, the grit-my-teeth-while-I-smile-at-them-because-they’ve-got-their-house-in-their-hand routines. The book was something I dove into last night, and I actually enjoyed it. I even came up laughing—at least for the moment.
Whether you are facing a home repair crisis or considering a home improvement, this is a must read (preferably before, certainly during or at least after your own experience). I can honestly say you will find yourself laughing with pity and—unless you have been there—some disbelief. It truly can be hard to appreciate how much a home in crisis or in a remodel costs in terms of time, emotional commitment (more, much more, than a mere marriage), money, effort and frustration. This story spares the reader nothing of the procedure. Fortunately, it does so with a sense of humor.
Kaufman and her husband begin their maniac journey with a series of engagements with loony, snooty, raw and pricey architects. Among them was Larry whose current—and first—job was a hospital entrance; Maurice (“rosy-cheeked, blow-dried”) who could do it for “only a hundred and fifty thousand dollars”; and Tex who was so unimpressed with their house that he wanted to bring in a bulldozer and level it. Their only commonality was a 12-page contract.
Even after finding the right architect, their nightmare continued: financing, in-laws, an unrelated but not irrelevant broken hip, constant juggling of priorities and costs as well as contractors who rivaled the architects for ego. And all this before the work began.
At times it seems as though the storyline just goes on and on, problem after problem. You can feel yourself becoming a bit impatient—“Get on with it already!” you might find yourself thinking—but in fact, this is how remodeling works. It is, as Kaufman states, “like pulling a loose thread on a cheap sweater.” No remodeling decision is agony-free nor is any one independent. Make a choice, and you find 15 new decisions awaiting you. (I can well attest to this.)
Kaufman is such a vivid writer that it is almost as exhausting reading about her remodel as it must have been living it. But in the reading we get to experience something she did not: the farcical side of it. And that is here along with probably the best advice you will ever get on remodeling simply because it is not phrased as advice. It is real-life experience that should be required reading for those contemplating their own home renovation. But it is also good at other times; you don’t need a home crisis to appreciate this.
Though it would not have done me any good this time—the repairs needed on my plumbing were so extensive they required a professional—I have two other books, also out of print, that I’d like to recommend. Geared to women (and men) who have not had experience with tools and home maintenance, 100 Things You Don’t Need a Man For and 100 More Things You Don’t Need a Man For (both by Alison Jenkins) are amusing books with a serious purpose—teaching you to do your own work and freeing you up from unnecessary dependence on handymen.
They are not just for women—though it does help to have an appreciation for gentle gender-based humor spread throughout the text—but perfect for those intimidated by any tool more complicated than a basic hammer. These companion books (100 Things focuses on indoor maintenance and repair while 100 More Things focuses on exterior repairs and yard maintenance) use clear photographs and illustrations, step-by-step instructions laid out each in its own box, and whimsical and droll comments that entice a smile to teach. Each page is filled with these, yet the design is so clever that it never feels crowded or boring. This is the kind of book that makes you want to fill a toolbox and start working.
In the Introduction area is a project key where symbols representing the length (“very easy to make” to “not for the complete beginner”), cost (“unbelievably cheap” to “not cheap, but cheaper than buying it”) and difficulty (“finished in no time” to “set aside a whole weekend”) of each project is described. A shopping section then lays out recommended purchases. The balance of the book is dedicated to teaching. In 100 Things, for example, the following are chapters and some of the repair procedures you find in them:
- Fixing It: (fixing a sticky door, attaching window locks, fixing a leaky plug, unblocking drains)
- Laying It (repairing a floorboard, sanding a floor, laying a carpet, tiling a floor)
- Nailing It (building a shelf into a alcove, changing doors on cabinets, making a bookshelf, tiling a shower stall)
- Storing It (adding shelves to a closet, boxing a radiator to create shelving space, making a storage box seat)
- Faking It (wallpapering, painting, colorwashing and other artistic effects, stripping and painting furniture)
- Not Doing It (things you should hire a professional to do)
The chapters in 100 More Things include Storage Solutions, Head-to-Toe Maintenance (roofs, gutters, walls, windows, doors, shutters, railings, faucets, pipes, basements and drains), Getting Grounded (lawns, patios, decking), Fencing Lessons, and Making It Great Outdoors (garden fixtures, furniture and lighting).
It is a credit to both the author and publisher that these books create an excitement and a belief in many of us (primarily women) who simply never had the opportunity to see and learn about these things while growing up. Home maintenance books geared to the do-it-yourself types abound. However, few of them have the clarity of these guides. Their advice is more than worth their fair price; the humor is a bonus.
And tomorrow a book with a sense of humor might just come in handy.
Almost since her childhood days of Mother Goose, Lauren has been giving her opinion on books to anyone who will listen. That “talent” eventually took her out of magazine writing and into book reviewing in 2000 for an online review site where she cut her teeth (as well as a few authors). Stints as book editor for her local newspaper and contributing editor to Booklist and Bookmarks magazines has reinforced her belief that she has interesting things to say about books. Lauren shares her home with several significant others including three cats, 800 bookmarks and approximately 1,000 books that, whether previously read or not, constitute her to-be-read stack. She is a member of the National Books Critics Circle (NBCC) and Book Publicists of Southern California as well as a longtime book design judge for Publishers Marketing Association’s Benjamin Franklin Awards. You can reach her at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
|
