Have you ever heard your voice, elevated beyond all rational levels, arguing with your husband about.... brick colors? If not, congratulations. You've never embarked upon the utter madness known as a Home Improvement Project. They might as well call them Marriage Destruction Projects. And because we didn't have enough craziness in our lives (right???), we decided to tear off our back deck and tear up our entire back yard to redo everything. I'm just praying that the rains don't come early because you can only imagine what our two dogs would look like after romping around in these piles of clay dirt in the RAIN.
Since our entire back yard has a slope approximately equal to the sides of Mt. Everest, creating any flat space at all is
A Project. Involving backhoes, bulldozers, and millions of wheelbarrowloads of gravel, rocks, and retaining walls, several million workers, and lots and lots of noise and chaos. Did I mention that I'm the kind of introvert who craves peace. And silence. This has been a trying summer.
The good news is that this particular series of holes and dirt piles on the side of our house will be a water feature and a pond (yes, that's my kitchen door you see hanging out in space with no deck below it!). I think this will be gorgeous when it's finished. The kids are excited about koi for the pond. I'm worried that my dog will think it's her personal waterpark.
And this giant hole with concrete pillars:
This will be a covered patio that will no longer drip water on our heads when we go outside. And above it all will be a new deck without the scary rickety railings and splintery boards of our old one. So all will be good at some point. I am hoping I'll be home from the loony bin in time to enjoy it.
3 comments:
Oh, how I understand! We had been married about 4-5 years when we decided to test the tinsel strength of this union with a home building project. Touch and go for a while but the marriage managed to survive-somehow.
Another 5 years later, it was time for another marriage quality control checkup: we did another house from the ground up. I thought we had just about lost it this time but the project was finished just ahead of our marriage being finished because of it. We had survived. For 25 + years now: no new home projects. I think we are afraid to test the marriage again.
LOL, "marriage quality control checkup", that is so funny! I thought riding on a tandem was supposed to be the ultimate marriage test, but this is definitely up there.
My mother always maintained that the ultimate test of marriage stability was wallpapering a bathroom together -- artistic choices, close confines, extreme care required.
Good luck with the project. I hope it's completed soon and well. (We're probably going to be putting an addition on next year, so maybe you could send the home improvement vibes back to me when you're done with them? ;-)
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