Jen Lancaster - If You Were Here

“Frank Barnes?”

“Fluke. And probably faulty brakes.”

“Bobby Chesney?”

“Not a fluke, but also not unwarranted. Bet he never institutes a special assessment without condo board approval again.”

“Roger Esparza, Wanda Shapiro, Ethel Wicker, and Samuel L. Jackson?”

“Mistake, mistake, accident, and should have never remade Shaft .”

“I’m saying she’s a lot more dangerous than you give her credit for and—”

“‘Shut yo’ mouth!’” I sing.

“I’m serious, Mia. Babcia is scary and—”

I set down my pliers. “And she’s my grandmother and she practically raised me. She’s not perfect — some may say she’s a complicated (wo)man — but I’m not shuttling her off to some motel. Can you dig it?”

“Hotel! It’s a hotel! Award-winning!”

Patiently I explain, “Honey, people have said that same kind of stuff about you to me. If I’d have listened to Ann Marie’s friend when she went on about what a jerk you were, we’d never be here now. What you have to do is look past Babcia’s”— do not say history of violence, do not say history of violence —“um, tough exterior and see her sweet center and huge heart. She has so many of the good qualities I see in you. How come you refuse to look for them in her?”

“But—”

“Honey,” I say gently, “there is no ‘but.’ Babcia’s coming next month, and all I ask is that we have one room done when she gets here. I realize it sounds like a lot of detailed work, but once we’re finished, it will be perfect.”

To prepare for Babcia’s visit we’re completely rehabbing the master suite. Once the floors are sanded and stained (we’re leaning toward pickled oak), we’ll top them off with a couple of coats of polyurethane. Once we remove the wallpaper, Mac will install a wide border of crown molding on the ceiling, and we’ll give all the windows and existing woodwork a fresh coat of white paint.

After the trim’s cleaned up, we’ll repaint the ceiling, install the ceiling fan, and coat the walls with Benjamin Moore’s Haystack (#317), which the brochure describes as “a clean, pure yellow that reminds us of a sun-drenched day at the beach.”The test sample we painted has the same opalescent, mellow golden glow as a glass of sauvignon blanc and will be amazing with the blue Persian rug I found at the Winnetka Church of Christ rummage sale last fall.

The plumber’s coming at the end of the week to reinstall the toilet, and then we’ll DIY a travertine tile floor, which entails doing a dry layout of all the tiles, applying thin-set mortar, setting, notching, and grouting. Mac claimed we could install electric warming cables, but after he blew all the circuits on the first floor trying to install a dimmer switch, I nixed the idea.

We bought a new vanity from the Restoration Hardware outlet store in Pleasant Prairie, and its Italian Carrara marble topper should tie in nicely with the shower’s existing subway tile — or will once we power-wash the rust stains off the grout.

After all the construction’s done, Mac will hang the new linen curtains and rods, we’ll put the brand-new Tempur-Pedic mattress down and make the bed with a pale blue toile duvet. As the final touch, I’ll place fresh-cut flowers in a clay pitcher on my mixedwoods copper-lined dry-sink dresser. 105

I feel like it’s important we get this room tackled for a couple of reasons. From a psychological perspective, we really need to have one room that isn’t either painfully dated or utterly deconstructed. If we can do that, we’ll have a retreat where we can just relax and not have a million constant visual reminders about how much we have yet to do. We could use the confidence boost that’ll come from having done it ourselves, too. Personally, I need to feel like we’re heading toward a victory so I can put this damn house out of my head for a while and write my book.

And it might be nice to work as a team and not be mad at Mac.

Seems that Mac didn’t pay attention when I explained why I was taping an enormous Mr. Yuck symbol over the air-conditioning controls.

Between the blowing fan and the air intake vents, the whole house looks like a sawdust-filled snow globe.

I am not happy.

Correction, I am industrial-strength not happy.

Here’s a pro tip for the DIY crowd: Just because oil-based paint can go over latex-based paint does not mean the converse is true.

Seems like someone might have inquired about that at Home Depot before he grabbed a couple of buckets.

In completely unrelated news, if you need instructions on how to strip every last bit of paint off a bathroom wall before completely starting over, I’m your gal.

* * *

Apparently Mac didn’t rent an orbital sander for seventy-five dollars.

Apparently Mac thought it would be more cost-effective to buy an orbital sander.

For five thousand dollars.

He says we have a thousand places we can use it. Yet all I can think about is where I’d like to stick it.

So far this project is not bringing us together like I’d hoped.

“To be perfectly candid, I had my doubts we’d make it. Big doubts. The last two weeks have been entirely miserable. I feel like everything that might have gone wrong did, from the splotchy floor stain to the grout that changed colors to the door that swelled up and trapped me inside after I painted it. Nightmare, total nightmare. What really gets me is, with all the tools Mac bought, we could have easily done the room professionally for that price. Twice. Three times. Maybe more.

“Mac’s obsessed with having the right tools for the job. He says that’s why the bathrooms went so sideways. He said he was trying to half-ass something that should have been whole-assed. 106Hence the major cash outlay that’s causing me so much distress.”

He doesn’t respond, naturally, so I continue. “I hate that I’ve been getting mad at Mac, because he listens but I don’t know that he hears me. For example, I’ve been going over our budget with him and he insists we’re ‘fine.’ The problem is, his version of ‘fine’ is way different from mine. ‘Fine’ to me is six months of living expenses saved up, plus a rainy-day fund, plus a little something foldable in the safe in case the bubble goes up.”

I pause, then nod. “Mac says the expression is actually ‘in case the balloon goes up,’ but that doesn’t make any sense either. Neither balloons nor bubbles are inherently threatening. Anyway, Mac’s much more fast and loose in terms of fiscal responsibility. He says I’m stressing out needlessly, particularly since we’ll get plenty of cash once I finish my book. But I’m terrified of not having enough in the interim.”

I take his silence as tacit encouragement. “Right, you’re right. Mac’s concept of money being completely different than mine doesn’t make it wrong. I mean, he grew up solidly middle-class. His folks weren’t wealthy, but they were definitely comfortable. He never had to watch his mom’s face burn with shame in the grocery store as the cashier took away items to bring the total under twenty dollars. He never heard his folks screaming at each other all night long because they couldn’t pay the electric bill. My parents still loved each other when they split up, but ultimately, their marriage failed because they couldn’t come together on finances. Buying this house may be the first time I haven’t been completely fiscally conservative, and even that was with my accountant’s blessing.”

I take a couple of big breaths to gather my thoughts before I continue. “Oh, no, please, I have no regrets about buying the place. I mean, Mac’s living his dream of doing renovations, and I don’t have to tell you again how important it was to live in Jake Ryan’s house.You don’t mess with destiny. I know I’m being silly and selfindulgent. Forgive me; I’ve been inhaling a lot of paint fumes; I’m not quite myself.”