Renovating My Life…(long)

This has been quite a month for making home upgrades and spending a heck of a lot of money.

It all started right after Columbus Day/Canadian Thanksgiving. That Monday, October 8th, I had a rather upsetting day. I crunched the side of my car on a guard post at the end of the pumps at the gas station–I angled too sharply to the right, and couldn’t see the post because it was just below my range of vision. I was very unhappy about that. The next morning, I woke up two hours early in a cold puddle–the water bed had sprung another leak. I decided to just retire the leaking tube, since I used one extra in the bed and didn’t really need it. For a change, the weather was cooperative (usually the water bed springs leaks at the beginning of a week of rain–and I don’t own a clothes dryer) and I didn’t even have to spend one night on the futon. But I have the front room all straightened up now so the room and the futon are clear and uncluttered. By reverse Murphy’s Law, that almost guarantees that I won’t need to use it.

But the disruptive effect of all that pushed me to a decision I’d been pondering for a while. I decided to entirely rearrange my living room. My house is small; the living room takes up the middle third of it, and essentially is two rooms with no dividing wall. Because of oddities in the room’s design, I’d always felt that my options were somewhat limited. There is a fireplace, two double windows, three doorways and two closets, and an asymetrical traffic flow. In the room were a stereo system with three-foot-tall free-standing speakers (great speakers, though), wired into the TV/VCR/DVD, six free-standing bookcase units, each one seven feet tall and 30 inches wide, arranged along the walls, a sleeper sofa, two chairs, a large low round table, the Bowflex and the exercycle (which have to be where the TV is). I’d made a few minor changes, but since I moved here in April of 1989, most of the room had stayed essentially the same. But I spent October 9th and 10th moving things around, and when I finished, not one single item in the room was in the same place it was before. The transformation is amazing. Although I didn’t actually remove much from the room, the feeling of openness and space is increased about 100%.

I swapped the positions of almost everything so one side of the room–the north, “colder” side–is now a gym-cum-library and the other, south-facing, “warmer” side is a “living room.” I put four of the bookcases back to back, ends-out, creating a “library stacks” feel that I actually quite like. The other two bookcases are close together in a corner. I took down a set of shelves I’d jury-rigged from cinder blocks and boards. I didn’t need them anymore–they had held videotapes. But some time ago I got a lot of those stacking storage units for videotapes, the ones with two drawers each, from my dad and put all the tapes in those. The storage units could go anywhere–in fact, they’re lined up under one window, behind the Bowflex. You don’t even notice them there. The sofa is now along one wall, it and the table and chairs make a real “living room” with plenty of space for people to walk over and sit down. My aim was to change the whole feng shui of the room to be more inviting and welcoming for visitors and guests.

I didn’t stop with moving the furniture. Some time ago, I had gotten an old foam mattress to make into a new cushion for the sofa, whose cushions were flat and misshapen (the sofa must be 35 years old by now). I cut up the mattress and made a new cushion to fit the sofa. It doesn’t even feel like the same sofa! With lots of clear wall showing now, I started hanging things: art, and photos, and certificates, all framed or matted neatly. You would never even recognize the room.

Then I decided to replace the cabinet doors on the bookcases. Four of these units have cabinet doors on their lower two shelves. Three of them had been designed so that the cabinet doors had little posts at the top and bottom that fitted into sockets. They wouldn’t stay put. Every time I needed to open one of the cabinets, the door fell off. I’d tried adjusting them, but the design didn’t allow for the flexion of the shelves, or the bowing from a heavy load of books. I’d gotten so exasperated with them, a couple of years ago I’d taken all the doors off–and in fact, those were the boards that I made the video shelves out of.

Now I decided to try hanging the cabinet doors with regular cupboard hinges. I still had all their hardware. So, I bought two pairs of hinges at Home Depot last Monday. I figured I’d try it with one set of doors, and if my experiment was unsuccessful–if, say, the hinges made the doors overlap in the middle and not close–I wouldn’t have bought three sets of hinges and have to return them.

I knew putting the hinges on would be tricky, involving lots of precise measuring and use of the electric drill, so I didn’t get to it until Thursday. The first set turned into such a ridiculous series of mishaps, I started looking around to see if someone was making a Buster Keaton movie in my house and didn’t tell me. I couldn’t find anything to mark lines and drill hole locations. Pencil was invisible on the hard shiny wood laminate; I found a silver colored pencil and it immediately broke; I looked for a chalk “pencil” I used to have for sewing and couldn’t find it; I ended up using Liquid Paper! With its tiny brush, that worked! It was dark where I was working, so I got out a “trouble light” I’d bought ages ago. It was still in its packaging, which didn’t want to come off. Then I had to put a light bulb in it–after I figured out I was trying to open the hinge side of the cover. After all that, I immediately dropped the “trouble light” on the floor and that was the end of the light bulb. I gave up! The best Phillips screwdriver I had for the job was a short-handled one from a tool set. When I got it out, the resin handle fell apart in my hand! I don’t know how that happened! I used Krazy Glue to fix it. And a brand-new drill bit right out of the package wouldn’t drill particleboard.

But after all that angst and aggravation, when the doors were on–they were perfect. The hinges worked perfectly. The doors look good, are straight and even, open and close smoothly, and will definitely never fall off again. So, now I needed more hinges. I could make a special trip to Home Depot, wait until Monday when I run my errands up there, or go to the local hardware store. I didn’t want to go to Nashua and I wanted to get this project finished. So I went to the local hardware store, where I had to get slightly different hinges–they work just fine–which, for some reason, were much more expensive. I paid four times what I would have at Home Depot! But I put the rest of the doors on last night and now those bookcases really look nice.

That’s the living room. Next up: the bathroom. I knew this was not going to be such a simple, or cheap, chore. The bathroom had last been redone as an amateur handyman special around 1965. The room and the tub enclosure were done in that plastic fake-tile wallboard, which was coming off the wall in the tub enclosure, and the vinyl flooring had been laid down around the toilet base, instead of under it, and it was coming up around the toilet. The sink hasn’t even worked for a couple of years (long story). Now, I can replace the sink myself. I can replace the floor. I can redo the walls. I can even do electrical wiring! But the tub was a whole ‘nother ball game.

So, this Wednesday I had this company called Bathfitters come in and give me an estimate. The amount they gave me is in the *gulp* territory, but I ran the numbers and I can afford it. More to the point, I really can’t afford not to do it. I doubt I could sell the house with the bathroom like that. My dad asked if he could come down and help me with the floor and sink, so we’ll get that done without any problems. I have the whole decoration scheme in my head: kind of retro, with a pedastal sink and flooring to look like old-fashioned black-and-white tile, and white walls with plaster bas-relief decorations I’m going to do, and a gauzy white shower curtain for the tub, which will be all white. You won’t even recognize the place when it’s done. I’ll put up before-and-after pictures–maybe even videos.

I gave Bathfitters a deposit in the amount of *gulp*, and they’re going to call to schedule the work. (It’s all done in one day!) But I guess I hadn’t spent enough money this month–even with the season’s first heating oil delivery and the quarterly property taxes–because I decided, the way oil prices were going, to buy a cord of seasoned firewood. If I’d planned ahead and bought green wood, I’d have paid half as much, but right now seasoned firewood is running about $220 a cord around here. That was delivered yesterday, and the forecast was for rain, so I figured I better get it stacked right away. I spent 2-1/2 hours stacking a cord of firewood. A cord of wood isn’t a lot from the point of view of people who seriously burn wood, but this is the biggest woodpile I’ve ever had! Whew! Then I came inside and immediately took a shower and laundered everything I was wearing, just in case, because the last thing I need for World Fantasy Convention next weekend is poison ivy. Then I did my 60 minutes of cycling; then I spent two hours putting on cabinet doors; plus I did several other chores inside and out. I had a lovely fire in the fireplace made from a lot of bark and scraps left over from the wood stacking, but by midnight–I was pooped. And today, I am really stiff and sore. Two and a half solid hours bending, stooping, carrying and stacking hardwood logs is no joke, even when you’re as fit as I am.

So, that’s what I’ve been doing on the domestic front, when I haven’t been working on publishing!