It is Saturday and I am wandering the house with my morning tea. Yesterday was demo day! Demo as in demolition. We are in the lift off stage of house projects. A screen porch turned plant room/sunroom and a total basement redo.
The basement went through the demolition – ceiling, walls, carpet, small bathroom toilet and sink and walls, doors – it was a total gut of the area. It was a day of very young men having a grand time destroying things.
When I watched the first “kid” take his ax to the knotty pine board on the wall my heart jumped. What is he doing or more likely what are we doing? Is this really what we have been thinking about for the last two years?
It is.
I just had not expected it to be so violent. I know the only way walls are coming down and carpet is coming up is to pull them apart. I knew this was what the day would be like. I just did not expect the emotional feeling I was having with all the destruction.
One day and the basement is clear. A large room – open from the front to the back of the house. Over dinner out and a short drink and some food I got over the demo bit and the broken water pipe that sent water all over the floor. Luckily after most of the demo material was out of the room.
Standing in a large open space sent me in multiple directions. At first there was a wow there are a lot of pipes and wires going in odd directions down here. What will it take to untangle some 72 years of projects and developing technologies? At one point we had three phone lines coming into the house. Now there are none. There are a few pipes not attached to anything just hanging out on the ceiling. Near the laundry area and breaker box there is a tangle of small wires that must have been part of the first electrical work. As progress has moved us forward things have been disconnected but not take down. It is an interesting mess that tells a story of this house.
Then I quickly moved on to wow how could this space be redesigned to be more efficient and functional? Could the tiny half bath be expanded? Could the little hall way to that bathroom become part of the bathroom with the new shower? Maybe we change where the door is/was/ will be to the laundry area? Closet needs to go someplace but maybe not under the stairs? How can we gain storage or are we losing storage? So many new questions – I was up at 5 this morning contemplating the whole idea.
The third WOW was another emotional one. I am not really a new age woo -woo type of person but every once in a while an odd sense about things comes over me. It is a feeling more than an emotion. It lingers and holds me in a funny space. I can’t tell you more about it but there it is. This morning as I lay in bed trying to make some sense of all the mixed up feelings around this house work I found myself thinking the house is too light. Light in not heavy. Light in that the roots of the house have been disturbed and we are ready for lift off. My husband who is much more reality based than me also felt like we could, we being the house, could just tip over. He also felt the rootlessness of the house.
Funny how clearing out everything and I mean everything changes how you feel (there is a washer, dryer, furnace and water heat thats it). I wanted to go out into the yard and bring in a few heavy rocks to weigh it down until we began filling it back in. The whole idea is crazy and yes I know the rocks won’t work but I have to admit I thought about it.
Our grown kids are feeling this changes as well. Our son, in Atlanta, keeps checking in and our daughter and her partner (Little Man’s parents) also are feeling that odd sense of loss or change. Everyone is excited about the new but having a bit of a hard time letting go of the house as it was when they grew up.
It is amazing how moving everything out of a room or space can change not only your vision for the space but your emotions as well.
And so we begin – we have lift off!
- new projects started,
- new designs to consider,
- mold, and cracks gone and sealed
- sorting, cleaning and getting rid of stuff continues
AND hopeful no actual lifting off the ground.
We will working on staying rooted in place, emotions and in the budget for all this crazy work.
Wish up luck!!
Words from JL 
I appreciate how your slice tap dances between expectations and reality in the early stages of this project. Wishing you all the luck you need as the adventure continues. On the plus, I suspect you’ll continue having no shortage of slice-writing material 🙂