Avast, yer bungalow be takin' on water

[feldman]

I did not walk/run at all this weekend, so my performance this first
week is one out of three. Weirdly, I kind of miss not doing it.
Especially since, after a grand total of three times, I'm already
feeling greater cardio fitness and joint stability. I'm planning to
get out there tonight, focus on building it into the weekday routine
and not save it up for the weekend.

In other news, our remodel of the 'rent's house continues.


Spurred by FeldDad's cancer diagnosis this spring, remodeling my
parent's bungalow may sound superficial and tangential to the issue at
hand, but Mr F and I aren't religious, and so in situations where one
commonly offers prayers we tend to either 1. triage it to the "can't
care" pile or 2. roll up our sleeves. Considering the 30 years of
children, pets, cooking and smoking since the last 'remodel', one
starts to grasp both the necessity and the enormity of the task.

There is a hole in my parent's kitchen floor, tucked under one corner
of the refrigerator. Recent visitors to casa de feld, who've peered
down into our basement from a certain vantage point in the kitchen,
may savor the harmony of that for a moment. In our defense, we
made our five inch hole tearing out a decorative half wall so
the little galley kitchen could fit a modern-sized fridge. My folks'
hole is rotting through from a leaking compressor.

Anyway, in addition to cleaning, each room has offered a horror to
dismantle, such as the carpet in the living room and hallway,
installed by the rents 27 years, 2 kids, 2 cats, 2 rabbits and 1 dog
previous. "It was the 70's--carpet was fancy!" The hardwood floors
beneath are excellent, and will be gorgeous after sanding and sealing.

Then there was the disintegrating cork wall in the dining room, which
covered the deeply grooved treads of Dipwad Previous Owner's
'wallpaper paste' that had become one with the plaster. Installed 33
years ago. Still tacked to one corner, the program from FeldBro's
graduation almost ten years ago. Cork gone in ten minutes of
scraping. Grooves to be covered with Venetian plaster.

Then the kitchen. My parents have lived with and hated the dark
fiberboard paneling in their kitchen for 33 years for fear of what
further awfulness it covered. Which turned out to be two perfectly
sound pink walls with a shotgun pattern of nail holes, grooves and
divots from where the DPOs had torn out half the cabinetry. I
always throught the house simply never had the regular dose of kitchen
cabinets, but no! It just had morons!

I'd heard FeldMom's rant of having to use Vanish crystals, a
screwdriver and a week's worth of elbow grease to clean the toilet
when they first moved in. I no longer believe said stories to be
apocryphal. Yes, my folks are Not Handy and their house has been
subject to several overlapping Not My Problem fields over the
years--but a stewardship of benign neglect totally trumps that of
shack-mentality morons.

It was a revelation to me as a homeowner how mutable a house really
is, that it's not a permanent structure but a huge piece of
semi-mechanical furniture, a customizable ship that sails through
trouble and time.

Comments

[mangks.livejournal.com]

It was a revelation to me as a homeowner how mutable a house really
is, that it's not a permanent structure but a huge piece of
semi-mechanical furniture, a customizable ship that sails through
trouble and time.

Ahh, Feldmanism. I do love it.