“If you want a thing done well, do it yourself.” — Napolean Bonaparte
You know, I’m guessing Napoleon never had to redo a bathroom. In his day, a bathroom renovation meant you got a new chamber pot and a fresh bucket. Currently, there is a bathroom refresh happening in our home. No plumbing or electrical because that requires a professional, just pulling out some old tile and shelves, but still…. it’s stressful.
The first issue is that we will be without a shower for an undetermined time. That’s the beauty of a DIY home renovation. You don’t have some contractor giving you the same tired old lie of “No problem, two weeks, tops,” Six months later, you’re still doing dishes in a backyard kiddy pool. When I asked my son, who is helping with this, how long it would take, his answer was, “I have no damn idea.” I raised that boy never to lie, so at least I got that part right.
We started the work on a Sunday because, hopefully, the paramedics are less busy. Haha, I’m a kid. My daughter, a paramedic, is on-site just for safety reasons. I forgot to get a last shower in before it started, so I’m stuck home, listening to sledgehammers and crumbling tile and hoping that later on, I can get to the badminton club we are members of and use their shower. As noisy and awful as it is, I can’t leave the house because if something happens, who will run around shrieking in a full-body panic?
Also, as sexist as it sounds, my daughter and I are here to balance out all the male grunting and overconfidence. Hopefully, we can infuse a little common sense when we hear, “No worries, it will fit.” We’re not Amish, though, so we won’t be standing by quilting and serving lemonade, but still, many hands make light work, right? Even if we’re not doing any of the heavy lifting.
I grew up spoiled by the fact that my father owned a construction company. He had seventy employees that knew how to do pretty much everything. My mother went away for a week to visit friends, and my father surprised her with a new kitchen. It was lovely, except that Angelo, the carpenter, had built a kitchen for his wife, who was 5 feet tall. My mother, at 5′ 10″, had to crouch down to use the stove because the counters were only 28 inches high. She also couldn’t have her mixer on the counter since the upper cabinets were also very low. She referred to it as her “Elf kitchen,” and a couple of years later, we did it over at standard height. Angelo was a dear man but had never met my mother, so he had no idea she was that tall.
Any home renovation is stressful, but I fear we are not prepared to do this ourselves. I think this because I overheard my son, after the ancient tile had been pried off, saying, “Well, I don’t think that should be there.” I don’t know what “that” was, and I’m afraid to ask. Also, a friend who is helping said to me, “You’re also going to need a plumber.” I said, “No, that can’t be; it’s just the tile and shelves,” and he told me, “Well, a pipe was attached to that faucet, and, well, we don’t know where it is now. We were pulling tile off around it, and it might have gone into the dumpster.”
Excellent.
So, while we probably do have to get a plumber’s consult, I am still hopeful that it won’t be a significant issue and that soon I will have lovely new tile and paint. In the meantime, if you see me driving around town in a bathrobe and a shower cap, it’s not because I’ve lost my mind or anything; I’m just trying not to stink up the place.
Brenda Kelley Kim has lived in Marblehead for 50 years and is an author, freelance writer, and mother of three. Her column appears weekly.
