Home Renovations

We need a story. The media has lost their collective mind and they, like a 14yr old girl, need to cry it out in order to return to the family dinner table.
Cuppa Covfefe made a post yesterday and it triggered the memory of a good story. Grab a cup of coffee and put your feet up for a few minutes and take a ride with me.
Remember the old parable about the cobbler’s children having no shoes? It’s probably true, because the cobbler is too busy making shoes for paying customers. Likewise, the plumber’s house probably has a leaky faucet. Our B&B, as the home of a General Contractor, had similar problems and constantly needed attention as a historical property.
When I met my first husband, he was in debt. I wasn’t worried about the money. I knew how to make money, and he was particularly gifted at what he did. Keep in mind, I’m saying this as an ex-wife today, which means yes, he was very good at what he did. In fact, after the divorce, I hired him to work for my company – doing take-offs for construction projects. Anyway…..
While we were dating, he expressed the desire to become a “bonded” construction company. It was a big deal. Mountains of paperwork involved, and for every job which is bonded, “X” amount of money has to sit, in a CD at  bank, not as operating capital, to be grabbed by the bonding company in case we went bad and did not complete the job. Plus, there was no limit to the liability. The bonding company could literally take the shirt from my back.
To be clear, if a job was “bonded”, and we took a job for $60K renovation for a master bedroom/kitchen, that meant we had to have $60K sitting in a CD and didn’t get our money back until the job was pronounced complete, by the architect, and released. Bonded jobs, however, were usually state/federal jobs, and awash in an excess of paperwork. I took on the task of getting him bonded. It took me 9 months, but we were successful. First bond = $50K.
For the entire course of our marriage, we lived off of what I made at the B&B, while we plowed profits back into the construction company to be able to bond at higher and higher limits, $100K, $200K, $250K, $500K, and finally, a million or more. I worked hard to support our family but so did he. We were building out little empire as most couples do. He took a little bit in salary, but just enough to pay the mortgage on the shop, his child support for my step-son, and a minimal cable/phone bill. I covered everything else.
Because he was bonded, one of only 8 companies in the state, he got a big break building strip centers on the out parcels located around new Wal-Mart stores. Occasionally, he was gone for 3-4 day stretches out of town. This was new and unusual, but part of “bonding” and our new success. While we were building our businesses, I understood when he ignored things I wanted done at the B&B. One day, the staff and I were working on a big job and my mother-in-law was here, swilling martinis and watching us work. We were on top of each other and made an effort to work around HER.
MIL: You need a bigger kitchen.
Me: Well, the kitchen was ignored in the renovation, I still have metal cabinets from 1948. We’re making it work as best we can.
MIL: (Pointing with an olive on a toothpick) Honey, why don’t you take a sledgehammer to the back wall of the kitchen and knock it out (she had actually done this to her husband to precipitate a renovation she wanted).
Me: (Aghast)
MIL: The timing is perfect. You’re pregnant. He can’t hit you. (God as my witness, that’s what she said.)
Although humorous to entertain the idea, I’m simply not the manipulative type. Besides, we had too much scheduled for the kitchen to be down for 2-6 weeks for a rebuild. Yet, her words rang in my ears for years…….
At one point, my ex-husband hired an architect to draw up a plan for our kitchen addition. As everyone agreed, I needed a bigger kitchen. I was thrilled, until I saw the plan. Instead of making use of existing space – he just added onto the house. The proposed kitchen looked like a bowling alley. It was 62′ from my stovetop to the dining room table. And I made breakfast for guests, every day. The architect was confined to a wheelchair. I was worried about my own feet. Plans…… scrapped.
A new bonded job meant another trip out of town. This time, he “gave me” his men to do various tasks around the house. We had a discussion of a few things I wanted done and he was okay with the idea. No blowing the budget. Well, maybe a little bit. Finally, the cobbler’s wife was getting a new pair of Cinderella slippers. I had 4 days and my imagination ran wild.
Basement: We have about 800 sq ft in the basement the previous owners used as a root cellar. They had a hand operated assembly line for masons jars/preserves. I wanted the assembly line removed, new stairs built, lighting installed, as we used the basement for storage for extra catering supplies. It was our huge butler’s pantry. New shelving in place and a work table. Minimal but functional. Sweet!
On the main floor, all the furniture removed from our den, plaster guys in to fix the walls, wallpaper and carpeting installed, new furniture, new den. Master bedroom, same treatment, bookcases installed to match trim – to be Gunner’s new bedroom as we would move upstairs.
Second floor – My stepson’s room, The “Maid’s Room”, was actually master bedroom size, and had a large bathroom, closet, and a repeat of the back hallway (about 11’x15′), more like a suite of rooms. I had the upstairs dressing room plumbed for another laundry room. An original wall mounted ironing board was brought back to life, and the back hallway became a souped up dressing room. The old bathroom was patched and painted as well as the new master bedroom. Furniture moved, new linen. Shelving in the bath and closet – good to go.
Outside, the masons were working on the brick garden. We have an intricate trellised brick garden, but because the house was abandoned for 23yrs, many repairs need to be made. Commercial electricians showed up to replace primary our meter base. We now have a 900 Amp meter base which is over 7′ tall. Stunning.
There were workmen and my girlfriends……. everywhere.
But that was nothing compared to what we did to the attic. The top floor of the house, the attic, is about 2300 sq ft., pine flooring, and the center has about a 22′ ceiling. We transformed the attic into our wonderland. We have a full, five-panel door and wide wooden stairs leading to the attic, off the back hallway (my new dressing/laundry area). I dreamed about an attic workshop for years…….. and I was finally getting one.
All the women in my family are handy/crafty. My mom knitted. My step-mother painted and cooked. Grandma Della sewed. Other grandmas/aunts crossstiched and made lace for pillowcases. All those women had a craft closet or a guest bedroom where they would stash their supplies. Problem was, my craft stuff was now making the mortgage payments and paying for a fairly nice lifestyle for my family. I rationalized – I needed more space to work. I went a little overboard on the attic.
From the previous owners, we already had a 12’x15′ cedar closet in the attic. The men built shelves, all round the center section and then in the galleys surrounding the center section. I had cable TV brought up and wired to the attic. Shop lights came in, and pegboards went up. Phone installed, mini fridge, but even though I had the water lines plumbed…….. I didn’t have enough time to put in a half-bath. Darn it.
We created separate work stations for sewing, kids crafts, wedding stuff, and a whole station for wrapping of presents. I had comfy chairs, and a few old rugs, and a great stereo. The girls and I spent so much time in the attic, we created a play space for the kids with chalkboards, bean bag chairs, and little table and chairs. Gunner loved it.
The construction boys and I got crossways when it came to shelving for ribbon. I have a LOT of ribbon. Different jobs required more and more, different sizes and shapes. Again, not a hobby, this was business. One year, we wrapped Christmas presents for a corporate client, made almost $5K. Not too bad, eh? Another year, we did corporate basket gifts. With the profit, I sent Big T to Boston Red Sox Fantasy Camp as his Christmas present. Along the way, we gained a reputation for wrapping gifts. Hey, whatever paid the bills was fine with me. The construction boys argued I could NEVER fill up that many shelves with ribbon……….

Yeah, and those pics don’t include the Christmas/Easter ribbons…….. and all the wrapping paper, and boxes, and “stuff”.
Once the shelves were up, the girls and I swung into action outfitting our new space, while the men were still working downstairs. We were like kids with a new treehouse. We brought in clothes drying racks to hold reams of different colored tissue paper. Shoe shelves for various paints and every color of glitter. Drop down shelving for popsicle sticks, construction paper, old pantyhose, men’s socks, and fuzzy fringe balls. We bought out Wal-Mart of plastic bins – several times. They had to restock to suit us. We ordered a dumpster and threw old cardboard boxes from the attic window as we stocked and labeled our new bins.
A whole section for vases, balloons, oasis, and cases of glue sticks, guns, hammers, tools, marbles, wedding gear. A whole section to make Easter baskets. Wreaths hung from the rafters of the attic, preserved leaves, floral, yarn, fabric, uncompleted projects from generations of women. We organized a large sewing center, all the buttons/zippers/hooks/tape collected from generations of women, racks and racks of thread. I actually own 5 generations of my family’s women’s pinking shears. I had them framed. Every handmade item they created was a labor of love. I wanted our attic to be the same way.
And then there were the storage galleys….
Decorations for Christmas, Halloween, Easter, July 4th, a party for Oktoberfest, Chinese lanterns, Italian flags, Baby shower stuff, or a tropical themed party. Whatever was needed, we had it all. And we rented it out, over and over, and over again….. paying that mortgage.
We were upstairs, the girls and I, playing and planning, when all of a sudden, we heard a ruckus downstairs. My ex-husband was home a day early.
We were still waiting on the carpet guys for the den….. so the living room furniture was still sitting in the middle of the driveway………. couches, chairs, tables and lamps, right where he usually parked his truck……. Oh, crap.
He damn near had a heart attack. We did go a little bit overboard but we got a LOT done in 3 1/2 days. He gave me sooooo much grief. My response, I told him what his mother said, about knocking out the back wall of the kitchen. I joked and chuckled a little bit, “If you were gone a little longer, I could have done the kitchen, too.”
He was wide-eyed. The story of his mother knocking out a load bearing wall, while his dad was on a business trip in Europe (read as he didn’t take her with him and she was mad), was infamous in his family. For emphasis, I added, “And don’t think I haven’t thought about it!”
A few months later, he and the boys decided to take off and go fishing in Canada, Thunder Bay, for two weeks. It was a good trip and he deserved it, no whining from me at all. I liked the idea. All the guys in our family went fishing in Canada during the summer. In the pic below, from left to right, my grandfather, an uncle, the boy is my dad, and the guy on the right is my great-grandfather.

But……
He took the keys to every piece of equipment he had, bulldozer/backhoe/little cherry lift/bigger crane/ and all the trucks – and locked them in the safety deposit box…….. and took the safety deposit box key with him.
Darn it. The girls and I would have had fun with the backhoe.
I still haven’t renovated the kitchen. Missed my opportunity…….
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