If you’ve been following me at all via Twitter (or just following the feed from Twitter in the sidebar), you may know that my parents are remodeling the house. Carpeting in the downstairs hallway and living room, as well as on stairs and on the upstairs landing, has all been pulled up, and the wood paneling that was here when they bought the house (a year or two before I was born) has been removed. New stairs have been put in, and tile and wood floors have been put down in the downstairs and upstairs hallways, respectively. With new carpeting (for the living room) and painting (all over), we’re still probably looking at another couple of weeks at least — although maybe not back-to-back — but it does seem to be coming along. By and large I’ve missed out on the actual construction, seeing work crews arrive before I leave or, on a couple of occasions, being trapped downstairs or outside after work because they hadn’t yet finished when I got home. I’ve mostly seen their handiwork after the fact, and it’s been a little weird to come home from work every day with a new part of the house I grew up in either missing or changed. But it’s been more weird than inconvenient.
That, of course, was before one of the guys arrived this morning, unannounced, at around 7 am. My father, who let him in and start working, said he was probably here earlier, waiting outside in his car. My father would have let him in earlier, if he had known that, so it’s just as well he didn’t. Being woken up at 7 am to hammering and spackling and doors opening was annoying enough. I swear, there was a moment when I wondered if I’d made a mistake and it wasn’t actually Saturday. But even on weekdays, they don’t usually arrive until 8. I appreciate the guy’s enthusiasm for his work and desire to get it done as soon as possible, but when your construction site’s in an occupied house, maybe you should call ahead instead of dropping by when everybody else in the world is still asleep.
More cowbell!
It must be disconcerting – a dislocation of memory.
It’s been a little weird, yeah, even more so in the first couple of days when they’d just ripped out the walls and flooring. The house felt so much smaller then, and it was strange when the only light in a room was coming from the basement below it. My parents remodeled the kitchen and upstairs bathroom a few years ago, when I was still living in Pennsylvania, and built an extension on the house for my sister’s room when I was still in high school. But this is the first time I’ve really been knee-deep in it, when there’s construction literally right outside my bedroom door. I’m starting to get a better sense of how it will look when it’s done — hopefully soon — and I think it’ll look nice.
Of course, this has sort of renewed my interest in moving out again…