As every poor sod on my FB feed knows, i am in the midst of a monster week of home improvement.
I live in a very old cottage in a remote village. This house, which cannot really be considered a house so much as a… well someone one pointed out cottage was a nice word so i use that, was equipped with all the modern features of the 1800s when we got it. Dirt floors. No bathroom. An outhouse. NO WATER.
We put in cement floors. We built a bathroom (although the toilet is a bucket. We compost. And by compost i mean compost our own shit. I mean that last word quite literally.) We got water pipes onto the property and have water. (we used to now have ANY water in the summer between 7am and 1pm but that’s changed. Still try to get through a summer with no water from 7am to 11pm. It’s a challenge.)
We did this all by hand.
We stopped there for awhile.
My wife recently, VERY recently finished her PhD disseration thus giving her a PhD after YEARS and YEARS of banging out that sob. What did she want when it was all done? She wanted to rise a step beyond those damn cement floors. When you finish YOUR PhD call me and i’ll come do your house. (Not really. Actually, no chance in hell.)
We used all the money we saved up this summer and bought tiles and laminat and are putting it all in. (Plus insulating our bathroom which has none and is FREEZING during the winter. Our pipes all froze last winter in the bathroom so this is quite necessary is not enthrallingly interesting.)
My days are 12 hours working marathons. THESE FLOORS DON’T BUILD THEMSELVES PEOPLE. Nor do the walls paint themselves.
For a long time i would answer a great many things my wife brought up with “Finish that damn dissertation and we’ll talk.” Well, it’s finished. So now it’s time for me to put up.
So this is what i do 12 hours a day (at LEAST) this week. 4 days in. More to go. So, you know, if you were looking for an interesting post on something that requires even the least bit of effort on my part, I GOT NOTHING. Nothing to see here. Move along.
I have learned to grout like a beast, though. I laminate like a demon possessed. I even get to use AN ACTUAL POWER TOOL! (saw like thingy to cut the laminate . Our existence here pretty much NEVER involves power tools so i assure you this is a BIG thrill.
When you have moved your entire kitchen into your living room) which, really, is technically all the same room anyway, did you know you cannot cook hot food? We plugged our stove back in today after 3 days and i had an egg for the first time in days. It was heavenly. Where we live there is no pizza delivery. Or any delivery. Or take out. We have tomatoes in the garden you can pick and eat, though.
Anyway, there you go. That is why the half a brain cell i have left at the end of my day cannot possibly hope to entertain you. I leave you the interwebs in hope that it can succeed where i am doomed to fail.
-Groutmeister.
