Mascot

New Jersey’s hockey players have the Devil. The local baseball team we cheer for has Mr. Met. The Jets have… well, I don’t really know what the hell the Jets have... The mighty Falcons of Bowling Green State University have Freddie & Frieda. Glen Rock High School once had a boy named Nick who dressed in what can best be described as a bear costume. Forests have Smokey. And the Casa de Roo renovation has Mook.

Mook cheered us on today when Matt decided that what he wanted to do to celebrate his birthday weekend was to clean. And clean. And clean. And clean. And clean. We hope this effort will inspire the sub-contractors remove the messes they create when they work on the house. (Steve Wasko’s crew tends to leave things pretty orderly… The other guys—when they do show up—not so much.)

Renovation tip: When buying a Shop Vac, get the one with the most powerful motor you can find. Be warned, however, if you select one with a HEPA filter because you’ll spend as much time clearing out the cartridge as you do cleaning up the room.

Mook is now watching over the house as 30-mile-an-hour gusts of wind propel rain against the thin plastic film the sub-contractors put up to “protect” us from the elements.

Epilogue: October 26

Hey, did ya notice the water coming in?

Why yes, Mook, I did.

Heck, the ceiling is still going drip-drip-drip into a green plastic salad bowl.

Yup. So much for the membrane protecting us before the long-overdue roof is installed. The water also came in around the side windows where the siding has been removed but not replaced. It dripped from the ceiling, ran down the walls, traveled from the upper to lower level of the house and even came in at the corner of our master bedroom.

Well at least breakfast smelled good.

Yeah, we made eggs and garlic hash browns from the baby potatoes we purchased from the hippies at the green energy festival.

Green energy… is that why it is so freakin’ cold in here—you turned off the heat to be “green?”

No. The oil boiler went out. Again. We noticed it at 5 a.m.

Captain Stupid strikes again?

Yes, Captain Stupid strikes again. The heating system is made up of Walterific spare parts… We’ve been working on this problem for eight years and now Matt gets to spend his birthday waiting for the furnace fix-it guy. Again.

Then why were you laughing?

We had Saturday Night Live on the DVR.

I’d have liked to watch SNL.

We’re trying to keep Mooks and Perps out of the master bedroom for the time being. No disrespek. Fuggettaboutit.

Nose hat

“I need a nose hat,” I said, as Matt entered the bedroom after cheering the Devils on to victory. I was huddled in bed with only my eyes and nose showing. It was at most 50 degrees in the house. The heat wasn’t working and the wind was blowing through yawning spaces that we hope will one day contain large expanses of glass.

“People on this planet cannot wear nose hats because they would suffocate,” he laughed. “Nose hats only work on planets where people have blow holes or gills or both.” He was still laughing while piling more blankets on the bed and when handing me a Rusty Nail, which I tried to drink without exposing my fingers to the frigid air. This, too, made him laugh.

He disappeared for awhile; came back covered in dust and confirmed that the furnace still wasn’t working. This was no longer a laughing matter.

He had called the service yesterday morning with explicit instructions: go to the back of the house and see the work crew; come in and fix the furnace. Instead, they knocked on the front door and then left, not letting Matt know they perceived an obstacle to turning the heat back on.

Matt called the furnace service for an emergency visit and we debated checking into a hotel. I reminded him that I’d wanted to one day stay at an Ice Hotel, so this could be our trial run. (Note to self: do not book stay in an Ice Hotel.) Plus, I had a tiny space heater running and it was starting to make a small difference.

The night was too short, yet long enough for us to miss the calls from the furnace fix-it guy. It was a chilly morning. Matt brought coffee into the bedroom so I could stay in the semi-warmth and dress while imbibing in my liquid “on” switch.

When I left for work—left him with too many mooks, contractors and sub-contractors to coordinate—I felt like deadbeat wife. The stress of the renovation was starting to manifest itself physically. My stomach hurt. My chest thumped. My nerves frayed. My shoulders fused to my ears. And then I had to pick up my boss, drive him to work and launch myself into a series of meetings, deadlines and the usual corporate madness…

While I commuted, worried and worked, Matt systematically solved the problems. Then he headed to his own office to put in a full day.

The heat is on. (They guy who had been dispatched to our house in the middle of the night returned again in the morning; Matt apologized to him profusely.) Matt also shoved insulation into the gaping holes along the length of the great room and added layers of plastic to the back and front of the house. “I know how to deal with that cheap, crappy plastic now,” he explains. “You tape along the edge and then staple through the tape.”

The house is warm(er) and I am calm(er).

Memmmmmmmmm-Brain

Words that start with “Me” are fun to say. Mesmerize. Megalomaniac. Melonballer*. Mets! Methuselah. Mermaid. Meritocracy. Membrane.

When I pulled into my parking spot tonight, I said “membrane” over and over again… because that was what I saw on the roof. The rest of the hideous and improperly installed brown asphalt shingles were in the dumpster, the blue tarp was gone and in its place was the black underlayment for the still pending silver metal roof.

If I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t have agreed to have the crew start pulling off the existing roofing material on October 2 without first seeing its replacement in a staging area on my property.

I shrugged in a “live and learn” sort of way, snapped some photos with my iPhone and headed inside because it started to rain. Now that I have a membrane protecting my home, I can scoff at the rain!

Membrane!

* Yes, I know this is two words: Melon baller. My internal Editor kept fixing it. But my Doppelganger un-fixed it to keep the humorous intent intact. Shhhhh! Do not tell my Editor.

We are at that point of the project now…

…where we are getting pretty darn sick of the relentlessness of this renovation!

Perhaps it is no wonder, as we:

• Started planning for this project even before we began house hunting.
• Hired the first architecture firm in September 2006.
• Began bidding the project in July 2007 to builders, most of whom mocked us for having a design that—even it if was executable—would cost us more than the value we’d ever reap.
• Walked away from Jimmy and Anthony in January 2008, after their designs failed every test—from not following our instructions on paper to not being buildable in the real world.
• Had our loan cut on February 1, thanks to the credit crunch that was building momentum to become the full-blown global crisis it is today.
• Hired The Todd, another disappointing (but less expensive) architect, on February 17.
• Undertook the downstairs demolition ourselves in March.
• Learned that the problems behind the walls were worse than anticipated, and hired a structural engineer in April to help divine solutions.
• Selected Steve Wasko as our builder, along with his partner, Alessandro Schiavone, on May 31.
• Got permit approval on July 17.
• Saw structural repairs get underway on July 28.
• Freaked out when Wasko’s crew removed the deck on September 2 and rejoiced when rebuilding started right away.
• Tried to maintain a sense of humor once construction moved upstairs on October 2. In terms of geologic time, it hasn’t been an era. In terms of quality of life—from not seeing the lake view because we lack windows to wind gusting through the plastic film to nails and other shrapnel on the floor to dust everywhere—it is relentless.
• Tempered our tempers when there were visible signs of a lack of progress. On Friday, we came home to a “we missed you” sticker on the door regarding a plumbing inspection for our in-progress downstairs bathroom. Yesterday and the Saturday before, we got up early and evacuated our home so members of Alex’s crew could work. They didn’t make it either day. The lack of a roof is also impeding progress. We thought it was to be installed last week; last week, we thought it would be the week before… There is some sort of “blah-blah-blah back order” delay.

Coping mechanisms for Matt and me, in addition to laughing—a lot—include playing kissy face and huggy bear, making good use of Morris County’s lovely parks (today we had a picnic), keeping on top of all the details, making decisions in a timely fashion, watching our beloved HDTV in bed (while eating Stephen Colbert’s AmeriCone Dream™), “adult” beverages, support from family and friends and envisioning the project when it is finally complete.

We have stairs!

I was on the mobile with my brother, Kenny, when I got my first glimpse—and started taking pictures with the phone!

Since I couldn’t find the downstairs lights (they were probably removed as part of the electrical demolition taking place this week), I used two flashlights to help with illumination.

Now instead of a straight, steep shot down, we have an “L-shaped” staircase uniting the main and lower levels. There are 10 steps, a landing that will also take us to the utility room, and then five steps into the walk-out basement. The last step is, however, a doozie as we are raising the floor level to bring us above the concrete slab. Yes, we will be adding insulation. (I feel cozy just thinking about it.)

This means access to the laundry room. Why just this weekend I finally took my Mother’s advice and went to the wash-n-fold, glad I could throw money ($43) at the lack-of-utility-room-access-causing-an-underwear-crisis situation.

I will admit it: When Matt and I were looking for places to cut costs, we had considered building these stairs ourselves. Luckily, we got over that insane notion and left the project to the professionals.

+ + +

Epilogue: 9:23 p.m.

When Matt got home, he took one look at the stairs and pointed out the obvious flaw: the landing bypasses the utility room. Hmmm...

The view from the boat

On Saturday morning, we viewed the progress on the house—from the lake.

A hearty, “Damn it, Woman!”

Matt snuggled back into bed to say, “You won’t want to read your Wall Street Journal this morning; economies are crashing around the world.” Of course, I didn’t follow his media blackout advice, and the news was indeed grim.

From The Wall Street Journal Online:

• “The stock market’s prolonged tumble has wiped out about $2 trillion in Americans’ retirement savings in the past 15 months, a blow that could force workers to stay on the job longer than planned, rein in spending and possibly further stall an economy reliant on consumer dollars,” Congress’s top budget analyst said.
• “Overall, the combination of the incoming data and recent financial developments suggests that the outlook for economic growth has worsened and that the downside risks to growth have increased,” Chairman Ben Bernanke said in a speech addressing the financial crisis.
• The Fed said it will bypass ailing banks and lend directly to American corporations for the first time since the Great Depression, and it hinted strongly at further interest-rate cuts—a cocktail of unconventional and conventional remedies for an economy whose prognosis is deteriorating rapidly.

In today’s New York Times:

• U.S. Markets Plunge Despite Hint of Rate Cut
• Facing a Financial Crisis, European Nations Put Self-Interest First
• Tokyo Shares Lose 9.4 Percent, Other Asian Markets Slide
• With Bonds in Trouble, States Seek Federal Help

For me, the most apt statement was published in the Times on October 6:

This crisis doesn’t wear you down over time. It hits you over the head with a two-by-four. On a daily basis. –“Talking Business: A Day (Gasp) Like Any Other” by Joe Nocera

While our portfolio of love, passion, desire, friendship and fun is recession-proof, I felt a wave of nausea overtake me as I flashed on the numbers associated with the materials and labor going into this renovation. The dollar was worth less, so the project was costing us more. I shrugged, showered and watched the sun rise over the lake.

Just yesterday—and Saturday and Sunday—Matt and I were shopping for finishes and accessories we’d need in the near future. Every time, I’d gravitate to the most expensive item in the store. He’d respond in a variety of ways, the most effective being to utter a hearty, “Damn it, Woman!” He was right, of course; we don’t need the most over-priced item to make the house both cozy and cool.

Our Style Meister friend Barry has said the same thing to me many times. As in, “No, you cannot have the $900 Karbon faucet for the downstairs bathroom.” And Matt would say, “Listen to Barry.” And I’d hear them both, know they were right, and happily purchase a sleek-enough $98 chrome faucet at Lowe’s.

Perhaps the bank did us a favor by dramatically cutting our loan?

Nonetheless, progress on the project continues. For example, the barrier in the great room and our living quarters is currently down. We are already seeing a return on investment.

He tried to prepare me, but…

While I was off at my company’s Atlanta office, spending two days with my wonderful colleagues, my valiant husband continued to manage the renovation.

We reached a critical moment in our now two-year-plus project...

The 20 hated skylights were gone, which meant the roof over the great room was, too. And so was the back wall where the bump-out and screened porch would go.

It was nearing midnight on Friday because the 5 p.m. flight home was, of course, delayed. (I got to fully experience coach while sitting on the runway in the middle seat.)

Pulling into our parking area, my headlights illuminated the debris on the roof, distracting me. I almost crashed into the dumpster. Our neighbors had obviously decided that it was OK to rob us by illegally dumping their crap in our expensive receptacle. This resulted in construction waste accumulating all over our property—inside and out. Yes, I was cranky and annoyed. (Lucky for them, I was too tired to carry out bloody vengeance.)

Once inside, I heard the rustle of plastic. I felt the wind. It was like being in a haunted house. Our great room was hidden behind a barrier. I had just enough space to make it to the bedroom. (It was exciting, in a disorienting sort of way.)

The next morning, Matt woke me up just before 8 a.m. because Alex Schiavone’s crew, led by Chico, was ready to get to work. We fled. (I still hadn’t seen much more of the house than the photos Matt e-mailed on Friday morning.)

The forecast called for blue skies. It rained for the first half of the day. That night—like the one before and after—was sleepless. The house was cold and the sounds unfamiliar. I kept dreaming our local raccoon was inside and getting into mischief. I’d awake, expecting to see his cute, masked face looking up at me from the foot of the bed. (The only creature stirring ended up being Matt, who couldn't sleep, either.)

Then the rain woke me up. There was a leak in the blue-tarped roof and the water poured in at the only place we truly wanted to protect: the fireplace mantle we designed. (It seems to have survived.)

Thankfully, Jean was kind enough to have a birthday, so we got to spend time celebrating with her. And our “Aunt” Theresa invited us over for Sunday dinner. It was nice to be away from the construction chaos!