Tuesday, August 11, 2009

A Sinking Feeling

Once upon a time a blogger named Jocelyn posted a story of frustration over kitchen renovations. I sent her an email because my story was too long for comments. She said I should post that story at some point when I had no time to write. Well, that day has come. Ok, so I have time but lack ideas.

Way back in the summer of '95 when I was great with child (all 5'4" of me carrying what would be 9.5 lbs of my son, wince with me if you will) we lived in a house with a very deep claw foot tub. The girls were 2 and 4 and as such still required supervision and assistance in the tub. I was far enough along and my belly was so enormous that I could not reach all the way into the tub so my dear husband had to take over the child bathing duties completely.

One lovely morning I awoke and staggered downstairs to find my refrigerator in the living room, my sink and stove in the back yard, and some bare pipes sticking out of the floor. Since I had gone to sleep with all the aforementioned appliances in their formerly appropriate kitchen positions I was a wee tad perplexed and asked my husband what had led to this new, less efficient, and far less esthetically pleasing arrangement. He informed me that, upon waking, he discovered a pipe in the kitchen had burst so the renovations we intended to occur AFTER the new baby was born were rescheduled for immediately. He also informed me I would be without a sink in the kitchen for some days as ordering and installing counters was a time consuming thing. He went on to suggest we could do dishes in the tub. I reminded him of the impediment of my girth preventing me from safely bathing our darling progeny. Knowing all too well of my spouse's great aversion to washing dishes I asked if he planned to see to that task as well. He said no. I informed him that until such time as I had a functioning sink in my kitchen we'd either be dining out or subsisting on fully microwavable meals in disposable containers. He acquiesced and said we should go for microwave food for the sake of cost. After enduring a couple of barely digestible Hungry Jack frozen TV dinners he fixed me up with a fully plumbed sink on stilts while we waited for counters.

Aaahh, good times....

Maybe next time I need an idea I'll tell you about how replacing a single toilet turned into a 2 week nightmare.

14 comments:

G-Man said...

You married a Handy Man?

Jazz said...

Yes yes tell us about the toilet...

I love reno nightmare stories.

Desmond Jones said...

Ah, yes. . . the old sink-on-stilts trick. . .

We remodeled our kitchen a couple years back (Molly's brother has his own remodeling business), and that was one of the coolest features of the job - at the end of every day, DearBro would set up a temporary sink in about five minutes. Then, the next morning, when the work recommenced, he'd take it down, so he could do all his banging and cutting and whatnot. Our neighbors, who'd had their kitchen done a couple years previously, were green with envy over that little bit of consideration. . .

And hey - if you tell me your toilet story, I'll tell you mine. . .

secret agent woman said...

My kitchen remodel went relatively seamlessly, although that's partly because I did the lion's share of the deconstruction in advance, But the bathrroms - cripes, they took forever.

Bijoux said...

Agree with the bathrooms...our master bath renovation (and it's a TINY master bath) took the same amount of time (possibly longer) than our family room/dining room addition.

Ok - I thought you were a lot taller than 5 foot 4? You look much taller in your photos.

S said...

Hey that reminds me of how I got Ratburn to buy/make me a washroom shed thingy because he was having to do the laundry with me at the laundromat because carrying heavy stuff like massive baskets of laundry hurts my neck. Next time, I need something done, I am trying the pregnant trick.

:P

Craver Vii said...

I saw "Hungry Jack" and thought you were talking about that Australian again. What's his name?

lecram said...

ultimatums... er... pointed choices are always effective goal setters... especially when it affects the taste buds. :)

Suldog said...

I don't know why, but there's just something hilarious about you saying "great with child". Probably it's just that I'm warped beyond recognition, but it kills me.

Ananda girl said...

An inventive man! They are delightful. The inventions are often worse than the problem that needed to be solved... well at my house anyway. This one sounds like it worked out very well. I loved this story lime!

crazy4coens said...

I can't imagine why the hubby didn't want to wash dishes in the tub - ---
Thanks for the story!

Rick Rockhill said...

Oh Michelle- the stories I could tell you. This made me chuckle tho.

Jocelyn said...

I'm so glad you shared this with others. I'm still stuck on the image of your body with that huge baby in it...

Malicious Intent said...

I am gonna catch up with your posts hopefully tomorrow. Been a bust of a week. I am hoping to resume my life tomorrow. At least that is the game plan. If not, someone will get hurt.