April 7, 2008

Designed to Hurt

Last night Mr. BBM and I were up until after 2 a.m. putting in a new kitchen floor.  We started around 9 p.m., once the girls were fast asleep, and we’re still not finished.  I ordered two books last week: "The Idiot’s Guide to Staging a Home for a Quick Sale" and "Designed to Sell."  Five of our rooms got completely reworked in the form of new bedding, different curtain scenarios and rearrangement of furniture this weekend.  Then we got cocky and decided we could bang out a new floor in just a couple of hours.

Can I tell you how much I hate the person who built my current house?  I seriously think he must have failed geometry class and has no business being a builder.  Either that or he came to work seriously lit. There is not a wall in my house that is square.  We found out the hard way last night. 

Since I couldn’t be on my hands and knees to painstakingly place each tile, I spent the night scooting around on my butt which has brought a whole host of aches and pains today.  I’m fairly certain I’ve pulled my butt muscle.  My back hurts every time I blink and the back of my thighs feel like they’re under attack.  I also seriously broke a nail.  It’s the kind of break that takes some of the skin along with it and looks like total crap for a good week or two. 

Mr. BBM isn’t in much better shape.  His knees are swollen.  His back is aching from lifting up the refrigerator while I tried to quickly and carefully wiggle tiles into place (Note: quickly and carefully have no business being used in the same sentence).  Also note that I strongly suggested cutting the tiles since who looks under the fridge anyway, but Mr. BBM was in much too much of a determined and exhausted mood to be told he didn’t have to act like the Incredible Hulk by lifting a refrigerator he had no business lifting all by himself.  He eventually saw the error of his ways and believe it or not, my idea to cut the tiles worked just fine and nobody had to break their back.  I did it while Mr. BBM sprawled out on the floor proclaiming he might be dying.

At 9:40 p.m. last night Mr. BBM said that we were going to have a ton of tiles leftover.  It was going that well.  Today, we have six tiles, and I am betting that we’ll need about 20 just to get the stupid angle right where the kitchen floor meets the hardwood floors of the entranceway.  We’ll have also created about 60 new ways to swear during that process.  Mr. BBM and I wrecked about six tiles last night trying to fit one into a single spot; and I have never heard Mr. BBM swear so much.  His swearing and the fact that he was wandering aimlessly around the kitchen with cut up tiles stuck to his pants made me so silly I could hardly breathe from laughing so hard.   

We’re also getting a quote this week on new neutral carpeting to replace all of the pink carpet in each of the three bedrooms, hallway and stairs.  We figure that if it doesn’t sell, we’ll at least have new flooring.  New flooring we can live with; painting the girls’ rooms when we might have to end up staying here anyway?  Not gonna happen.  We’re standing firm on that.  Yes, that’s my final answer Regis, Meredith and Mr. Realtor. 

We did however, remove Big I’s full sized loft bed from her room this weekend and replaced it with a twin day bed on loan from my sister.  It’s opened up the room so much and despite her original protests, I think Big I is fairly happy with her new digs. 

I read in one of my books that you should invest 1-3% of the asking price of your house in improvements and then you can plan to get it all back and then some.  By removing the objectionable pink carpet and old kitchen floor, we’re hoping to do just that.  Of course, we should probably figure some chiropractor bills into that equation, and possibly a massage therapist. . .   

   

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Posted by on April 7, 2008 in Mental Strain for Mama | 7 Comments

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