Is anything happening?

Remodeling - I’m finding - is a lot like painting a bathroom, yourself.

It sounds like a good idea at first. Save a little money. Get your hands dirty. But after the taping and draping and prepping, the first coat goes on. Then you look around and realize you need to do another coat. Then you have to do the ceiling, because the walls can’t look fresh and the ceiling look like shit. Then after the ceiling, you see the oldass trim - another thing added to the list. By the time it’s all said and done, you’ve spent double the time and triple the money, and can only see what’s wrong. Where the tape didn’t stick right, a patch that needed a 3rd coat, some drips on the trim. All that work. All that time. To think “why the fuck did I do this again?”

Yep, that’s about where I am.

Been working in empty walls now for about 4 weeks. Framing went up fast. Then HVAC (that was its own game of sudoku). Plumbing - fairly easy. Passed early inspections. Then it started to fly south. Electricians that burrowed so many wholes, ran so many wires, tore the place apart! Then the flooring folks forgot to order the flooring, the Cedar and Moss lighting is going to take 3 more weeks, and the heat is out. Like full on out. I walked into the space today and it was 55 degrees. Tolerable, considering it was actually 32˚F outside, but it felt like working in a beer cooler. I would say wine chiller, but they’re warmer.

And as I sit at my desk, constructed of old Home Depot shelving, freezing my tukus off, I look around and have that thought - “why the fuck did I do this again?” I could be planning a vacation in the south of France. Or working in New York. Or taking pottery classes. Or making a salary. Or buying 80’s Marant. Instead, I’m putting everything into designing a better space.

It’s hard to see the end point, when your head is wrapped in a scarf typing away at the computer, but somewhere in all that sawdust is that grain of hope that this is not wasted effort. The pile is thick, but it’s telling. Because something I realize is that no matter how much I bitch, I still paint my own bathroom.