Pain Has No Memory

The saying "pain has no memory" is so completely true!  The first time I heard that was after Steve was born.  I had asked my Dr. how women can keep having children once they've been through the experience of birthing.  Though not at all the same, remodeling (or building from scratch) is a birthing experience and perhaps we've learned, finally, that we don't want this kind of pain anymore.  The last month has been especially difficult.  I have felt, more than once, that I'm losing it and we've been very tense with one another.  Don't ever let anyone tell you this will come without pressures and frustrations.  In the end it is good to put your feelings into some kind of perspective.  Is this as horrible as the oil spill in the Gulf?  Is it as awful as losing something precious to you?  Is it a lasting pain?

After moving back into our bedroom/bathroom, May 15th, progress seemed to slow although people were here all the time.  The reality is the schedule was way too ambitious.  It didn't account for things like being one tile short of a floor and having to send to New Jersey to get another or the flooring bullnose and tread coming in the wrong color.  It didn't include the floor people wanting to be alone (no other subs in the house) when they worked or a host of other things, like my picking the wrong color for one of the bathrooms and not being here the day they painted the wall to yell STOP.  One of my worst nightmares was when the tile people started using their saws (two saws) IN THE HOUSE.  We weren't here then either.  The painters had just finished painting the house, including the purple wall in the dining room.  One of the tile guys just parked his saw adjacent to said wall and proceeded to cut, splashing everything!  I was sooooooo mad.  There is no excuse for using a wet saw in a house where plenty of outlets are available outside (extension cords work well also), our tile guy in Cambria taught me that.  Five tile people here, all of them barely out of diapers and not two brain cells to rub together.  They chattered like teenage girls, they congregated in the guest bath to talk (all of 'em) while only one worked, they'd work for an hour and take a 20 minute break.  All of this, as Steve pointed out, would have gone unnoticed if we hadn't been living here.  Even the other subs were complaining about the tile guys.  Eventually things were straightened out but not before both of us were in knots over it.  It's not like these kinds of things haven't happened to us before but......pain has no memory.

I should add that upon completion of the guest bath with the rock shower pan and floor I decided I hated it.  My instinct was to go with the limestone on the floor, except for the shower pan, and I should have stuck to my gut feelings.  It's going to get ripped out and redone.  Ugly!!

So here we are getting very close to the family party on Memorial Day weekend and I can see there is no way we'll be near the end.  Steve is starting to worry the party will take place at his house.  Our project manager knows/feels this and is caught in the middle, so to speak, because this is what Marrokal had promised us (let's not talk about our obvious naiveté).  As we realized it wasn't going to come together, I had to let go of the idea that everything would be perfect - actually, I was just praying for a functioning toilet and sink.  The day before everyone was to arrive, Kathi (one of my dearest friends of a lifetime) flew in from Reno to help me stay calm and unpack boxes.  The date is now Thursday, May 27th and the granite people are installing all the countertops while the flooring people are laying down the dining room floor.  Kathi tells me it is alright to order in pizza's and salads for the 11 expected guests the next night (hard to believe I needed to be told that was o.k. to do!) and we shopped for weekend necessities (beer & wine) until we could get into the house to unpack boxes.  We vacuumed and cleaned all the kitchen cabinets while Stan brought in a few choice boxes to be unpacked.  We were looking for Heathware, silverware, glasses - just the basics although we ended up opening a few more things just to find what we were looking for.  When the floor people had finished that day we had two completed rooms and the hallway - our bedroom and the dining room.  They also had partially completed the kitchen and den/office with the wood.  Stan spent the night at Steve's while Kathi and I shared our bed (no guest room or guest bath).   Friday we woke up, already exhausted, as Stan and several workmen arrived at 7am.  Picture a house with no appliances, sinks, toilets, doors, light fixtures, furniture other than some of our bedroom things, molding, etc.

In what can only be described as an episode of Extreme Home Makeover we had a fully functioning home by the end of the day.  Everyone, save the tile guys :-), who had worked on this house showed up to put as much as possible together.  Plumbers, appliance installers, electricians, finish carpenters, movers, etc.  At some point one of the carpenters yelled out "bus driver, move that bus".  Hilarious.  Steve went to the airport to get Mom and Karen (the other half of the friends of a lifetime) who escorted Mom here to her birthday party.  Kathi and I met the three of them for lunch while Stan stayed home to tell the movers where to put furniture.  I was wound up so tight the two glasses of wine I drank for lunch didn't even phase me!  When I got home, a couple of hours later, our project manager and one of the carpenters were washing windows.  It was an amazing experience.  It was a gift that just blew us away.  By the time people arrived for dinner, we were in business.

I am not there yet but I will love this house.  It is light and open with views out of every window.  We love the way it flows, the colors we chose and the floors.  Most of all, at this point, we love the JACUZZI.  There will be another week to ten days of work, the tile isn't finished and the living room floor needs to be laid.  We have a long punch list of things to be addressed.  At this point we want to be alone, enough intrusions!  I'm including pictures to give you an update and will add new ones when we've got everything in place.  When it is all said and done we'll forget what the past 3 1/2 months have been like and just reap the rewards.

The guest bath shower