Renovating the Rec Room 1 



Why am I up on a ladder with Tim Allen when I'd rather be out on a limb with Shirley MacLaine? 'Tis odd for me, but I can explain. It's not that I can't do home improvement type things. It's that I prefer to be reading or playing the piano or computing or almost anything else. On top of that, I married someone who would pay a fee to shop at Home Depot or Lowe's. He used to do all the repairs around the house. But Stephen has health challenges now that make this difficult for him. And the fact is that we HAVE to fix this place up.

Last summer—before the housing market burst—our realtor, Joyce, came over here and kindly looked the place over, making suggestions as to how to get our money back out of the house. And we need to move from this beautiful place because it is life on three floors and a basement and we are getting old. And you know, once you start getting old, well, science is still working on the problem. But he is 68 and I am 70. There is no such thing as taking the stairs one half at a time. I did buy a chair lift from the first to the second floor for Stephen, and of course I never use it except in an emergency. Right. Joyce said, especially of the 2nd floor, paint, polish everything, replace the kitchen floor, and, horror of horrors, get a new bathroom. And we were with the drill. I had the estimate for the bathroom early last summer. But as the year moved on, it became less and less likely that we were going to be able to refinance to get that much money.

Which brings us to the rec room. I asked myself the question, Where to start? What can I afford to do that we will really appreciate? The answer was obvious to me at least. The two of us spend most of our time together relaxing in front of the fire place watching DVDs or TV in the second floor rec room. The floor is ruined from flood and bad sanding. I hate the drapes. They are pink puke. I hate the wall paper. Look at the picture, you will hate it with me. Someone told me it was very expensive stuff from the South Sea Islands. I dunno, but it was here when we moved in 10 years ago.

I sort of convinced Stephen that this was a good idea. We picked out wall to wall carpet that is to be installed January 7. We picked out drapes that are to be installed shortly thereafter on the one big picture window in the wall facing the street. We gave the 15 year old second hand sofa and ottoman to a friend. And I started ripping that *&^%$&^%^%$ wallpaper off the wall. Make that scraping it off. Make that actually, sponging it again and again with water, tearing/scraping off the top layer, repeating that process, and when the fibrous stuff was finally almost gone, literally sanding every square inch of wall about 50 times with a hard backed sponge. On a ladder. On the 4th step of a six-foot ladder. 70 years old. 5 days of relentless . . .

But, I do go on too much. I am proud to say that all the wallpaper that is over the fireplace is now gone and the walls are clean. Tomorrow, I hope to start painting the ceiling. 

Posted: Fri - January 2, 2009 at 10:30 PM          

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