Friday, Jan.14, 2005
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Friday, Jan.14, 2005
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Home improvements gone awry
It seemed simple enough; all we wanted to do was re-carpet the two bedrooms downstairs and install hardwood floors in the master bedroom, all during the upcoming Christmas break. With all the work it should only take a couple of days of our house being disrupted and then we would have a beautiful home; boy, were we wrong. We worked ourselves to death packing boxes, moving furniture and trying to sort through all of my stacks and piles in the office. The Wife commented on how much junk there was in the office. I told her our neighbors must have brought their junk over and piled it in our house, because I couldn’t be responsible for all the junk in the office. After three days of cleaning we decided that there was no way we were going to fight all the holiday traffic to go to the home improvement store with the orange roof to pick out carpet, and hardwood flooring. Cleaning out the bedrooms and office were enough, no way were we gonna do any more home improvements. The next day, on our way to the home improvement store with the orange roof, we stopped off at my favorite barbeque restaurant to have lunch and a glass of super-sweet tea in a quart Mason jar. They serve two types of tea at my barbeque place, sweet and super-sweet. Being as we were about to do a lot of hard work and would need all the energy I could get, super-sweet tea it was for me, and a quick trip to Starbucks for a moca-chocka-lata thingy for The Wife to give her all the energy she needed. After lunch and coffee we made it to the home improvement story where we picked out the carpet and the hardwood floors. But we agreed there was no need to even look at paint. We weren’t gonna buy any. No way were we going to install carpet and hardwood floors AND paint three bedrooms during the holidays. No way. We left the store with a trailer full of beige carpet, six boxes of light oak wood flooring, and ten gallons of eggshell wall paint. I think the sandstone color we picked out will look really nice on the bedroom walls when we install the carpet and wood. Once home we boxed up all the knick-knacks on the selves, moved all the furniture, and took down all the pictures. We tore out the old carpet and padding and loaded it on the truck, which meant a trip to the dump and another quick stop in at the barbeque place for a refill of my quart tea glass, and of course another trip to Starbucks. It was well after four when we returned home, already it had been a full day and we decided that we would hold off on installing padding and carpet. A bowl game was about to start and I had a front row seat in my over-stuffed recliner to watch all the football action, while The Wife read her book in her over-stuffed reading chair. We both decided that the carpet could wait ‘til the next day. I must admit, the carpet we installed that night really looked good, and I still got to see the highlights of the game on the eleven o’clock news, while The Wife read a few chapters in her book. The next day the hardwood floor went down without any problems, unless you call four trips to the home improvement store with the orange roof, one trip to Starbucks and another trip to the barbeque place for sweet tea a problem. I bought $300 worth of tools to install the floors, $200 worth of new base boards – because you have to have new base boards with new flooring. The old ones just won’t do. The tally for our holiday home improvements (so far) has approached $1,500 and after a week of hard labor we were glad that our expenses were coming to an end. Or so we thought. “You have to buy new comforter, sheets, pillow cases, and drapes when you change the wall color. Everyone knows that,” The Wife said with a smile. Being a Neanderthal, this fact had somehow eluded me for the last 46 years. But we’d spent enough on our little home improvement project, and with the Christmas bills coming due, no way were we going to go out and buy all that stuff. Besides, this was my opportunity to get rid of some of the pillows. No one needs seven pillows on their bed anyway. I put my foot down put the old comforter and only two pillows back on the bed, hung up the old drapes, took a step back and decided that it all looked just fine to me. Just goes to prove that we can save money when we really have too. Buy a new comforter, sheets and drapes - indeed. That afternoon, we came back from the domestic chain store with a light cream colored comforter and matching sheet set which include eight pillow cases. The Wife found a new one she just had to have. The new drapes had a lace border which matched the new towels. At the end of the second week, the house was finally put back together and it looked great. Just wish I could find my cats. We had two of them when we started. Maybe they’ll show up somewhere; we still have a few boxes to unpack.
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2004-Fayette Publishing, Inc.
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Rick Ryckeley is employed by the Fayette County Department of Fire and Emergency Services. He can be reached at 
