Ode to Parents

With Mother’s Day and Father’s Day on the horizon, this blog is largely about my parents. They are two of the hardest working, most generous, supportive, sensible, completely insane but lovable people ever. I am truly lucky.

My crew of two. No one could have a better team. They are on Social Security, and could work harder than most people half their age.

My dad volunteered to rewire this house completely, knowing that it would be back breaking, knuckle-busting, make ya cuss a blue streak job from hell. And he has done most of it by himself. Figuring out his runs from the box, cutting plaster and lath, removing baseboards, pulling up attic floor, smashing his head on low beams in the attic, tripping over pipes on the basement floor, vacuuming out cellulose insulation, ripping out plaster walls and ceilings. He is 73.

My mom has taken on one of the most tedious, aggravating and labor-intensive jobs in this entire project. Aside from scraping wallpaper, helping my dad pull wire and spraying what seems like acres of dandelions and marsh marigold (which is a botanical lawn cancer in these parts), she volunteered to scrape the mastic off of all the tile that I salvaged from the bathroom during the demolition. Yes. Volunteered.

She works a few hours a day, a few days a week, and has developed quite a system. I found some organic-based mastic remover online and ordered a bottle to see how it worked. She put some tiles to soak in the stuff, and it seemed to dissolve the mastic quite well. She has had to soak some of the tiles in water first to soak off the plaster that was stuck to the back, and then she scrapes as much of that off as she can, and puts the tiles to soak in the mastic remover. This is her workstation. She is 77.

My mom's tile salvaging station. The tins hold about four dozen tiles which she soaks for several days and then scrapes clean. Of course it doesn't happen as easily as it sounds.

You can see in this picture that the baseboard is off of the walls in this room (the master bedroom). Yes, well, demolition tends to spiral on you – no matter how disciplined you are. Once you start ripping things apart, it’s just so much easier to continue ripping things apart to get to silly things like electrical boxes and wires, than it is to grunt and sweat and pull wire through uncooperative walls. So that is where we are right now. We got the demolition done for the most part in the kitchen. I will have to go back and do some more detail work to get it completely ready for sheetrock – maybe a day’s work – but it’s essentially done.

The bathroom demolition is also completely done after a couple weekends of smothering ourselves in respirators and safety glasses. Now it is starting to go back together. My dad has all the electrical in except for the shower lights, which have yet to be installed because we have to frame for them, and the exhaust fan.

My plumber Doug, my neighbor Joe and his son Justin, and my dad all manhandling the cast iron tub up the narrow, steep stairs to the second floor bathroom.

We wrestled the Buffalo Reuse tub upstairs (I say “we”, but all I did was collect the volunteers and snap a couple photos. They did the hard work.) That tub is now placed and has the drain installed. No supply lines yet. Soon though. Soon. Once we got the tub in the new location, I could call in my wood floor miracle worker, and he came out to repair the holes that were exposed by moving the fixtures around.

Now that my dad has started framing the tub in, the bathroom is starting to take on its new shape, and it’s looking great. Well. Great might be overkill. It’s looking better…

And the bathroom is the only room upstairs with power… and lights! You have no idea how thrilling it is to flip a switch and have a light come on until you’ve had to trip over 100-foot drop cords, and move worklights hither and yon, burn yourself or blind yourself 100 times, and unplug the worklight to plug in the saw at least as many times. Man, there is nothing like hard wired outlets and incandescent lights on demand!

As much as I don’t mind working my butt off, and getting sweaty and dirty, I am not a ‘roughing it’ kind of girl. I do not vacation anywhere that does not have floor, walls, roof, electricity and indoor plumbing. My idea of roughing it is a cheap hotel. I learned many moons ago that living on a construction site just sucks, so I am really fortunate to be able to stay with my parents while my house is in disarray.

The reconfigured bathroom with the tub sandwiched between the existing wall and a newly framed partial wall, allowing for a tile shower surround as well as a nice hot soak.

When I went over to the house tonight to snap these pictures, one of my neighbors came across to ask how it was going. She was raised in the house that sits diagonally across the street from mine, and now lives with her husband in the house directly across the street from me. Her brother now lives in the house where she was raised. So she has longevity in the neighborhood, and a vested interest in my project. I asked her if she’d like to see inside, as if she would say anything but ‘of course’! When we entered through the kitchen door she was shocked. It does look pretty awful, down to bare studs. I took her on a tour, describing what I planned to do with each room. Every room elicited the same horrified response – it was hand to mouth or hand to cheek and “oh my God!”

It does look much worse than it is. We’ve had to remove all the baseboards from the rooms upstairs in order to run the wire for the electrical outlets. So every room looks simply awful.

With my dad's saw in the middle of this bedroom, the awful blue paint still on the walls, and with all the baseboards removed, it's not looking too snazzy.

I am sure it was hard to visualize, and she stopped just short of telling me I was completely insane (which is OK… I’ve accepted that small detail about myself), but at the same time, she told me she was so happy that I was the one who bought this house. But the thing she marveled at the most was that she sees my parents there working so hard, and she just kept saying how lucky I was that my parents were so supportive. Yes I am, and she has no idea…

Lately I have felt like I am taking advantage of their generosity. I work full time, I am starting a business of my own, and I am trying to get this house in a livable state. My contribution has been pretty limited lately – I’m only able to work weekends, and then not even full days. It is frustrating because I should be the one scraping the mastic off that tile. I should be the one humping up and down three flights of stairs to pull electrical runs for my dad. I should be the one spraying those infernal dandelions.

51 years of marriage, 2 house remodels, 1 house construction, and now my house renovation, and they are still smiling!

But I can tell you this. Every time I turn on the lights. Every time I look at that bathroom tile. Every time I don’t blow a fuse when the microwave and the hot pot are on at the same time. Every time I soak in my tub. I will think of my parents, and I will thank them.

Originally posted April 30, 2010