Renovating A Home With Kids Sucks It, I’m Waiting To Find Nails In The Cheerios

When you decide you can no longer deal with your home’s beige carpeting that the previous owners of your home lived with for many years, and their dog lived happily with for many years, considering the amount of dog urine stains on said carpet, and you decide to have new flooring installed, make sure you include enough money in your budget so that you can relocate to a hotel. Or a motel. Or a family members house. Or a nice ditch on the side of the road somewhere. Anywhere but in your own home. Because even though I have only had construction going on for three days, I am ready to lose my mind.

I know I am lucky to be able to have new flooring installed. I am lucky I have a house to live in. I realize this. I know there are so many homeless people in my own city, people with no roof over their heads, and I want to be perfectly clear that I am aware of this, and donate money to my local charities who do work with people who are homeless. I know this whole thing reads like some first world crybaby rant, but if I can’t complain here, I will end up crying all over my subfloors and they really don’t need additional water damage. I needed to have my floors redone. Not only because of the old dog urine stains, but because asbestos was discovered in the three layers of old kitchen linoleum and due to some light flooding from various appliances and a wonky front door seal, we were starting to have a nice mold farm growing in the corners of the rooms in my house. Mold is dangerous for kids. Asbestos ain’t nothin’ to F with. My entire kitchen is sealed off with giant plastic barriers, despite the hazardous materials being removed. And I have no floors, except the old subfloors which are now littered with splinters and nails and dust.

The dust. Do not get me started on the dust. It is even slowing making its way to the second floor of my house. I found dust in my bra the other night.I have dusty breasts. I should have paid more attention to the articles that said people should move out. I should have relocated my now dust-covered coffee maker to the master bedroom. I should have not believed the contractors when they claimed my floors would be done in “about five days” because “about five days” means about two weeks in contractor time. And I should have punched my husband in the throat when he decided that the wood we had originally picked wasn’t the right color and that new wood needed to be special ordered.

The kids are thrilled with how weird the house looks right now. The kids are not thrilled with the fact the second they get home from school we all have to hide out upstairs, and if anyone needs to go downstairs they have a mom who makes them put on shoes and screams things like “Be careful! Put on shoes! You don’t need to get anything from the basement!” (Some toys have been relocated to the basement.) We sit on my bed and do homework, and wait for my husband to bring home dinner. I never want to see another fast food french fry again. By the time he gets home with arms laden with greasy fast food bags he gets to listen to me rant about how I had to write another check to the contractors for additional subfloor because of areas that can’t be salvaged. When he tries to comfort me I can’t hear him because I have spent the last eight hours listening to banging and jackhammering and the shrill whines of drills.

I’m trying to be positive. I’m telling my kids this is an adventure. I’m hiding upstairs with the dog and the cat and screaming at everyone to put on shoes and contemplating selling my wedding and engagement rings so I can afford a night or two in a hotel. And I have dusty boobs.

I know in a short time in the great scheme of things I will have nice new non-urine stained floors and I will be able to once again make coffee and leave my house without worrying the contractors need me for something and that my kids will stop leaving french fries under my pillows, but until then I’m regretting the decision to have this work done. I could have just told people the old dog pee stains were a design choice.

(photo: greggsphoto/shutterstock)