Sunday, September 7, 2008

She's a beaut, Clark!

We are three days away from our “walk-through,” which this builder calls an “orientation.” There’d better be tea and cookies available, if that’s what we’re calling it. The house is close. She’s a beaut! We’re still working with the shutters that pretty much solidify the fact that we’re not that good at picking colors. The decorator at our review kept exclaiming over how quickly we picked out our colors—apparently, other couples take a long time and deliberate and come back to again and again the choice to be made. We basically put one hand over our eyes and pointed. It wasn’t exactly like that, but the outcome will argue for the fact that we pretty much might have done just that. Blindfolded and color-fooled. Color is not permanent. And we have a story. It’s a toss-up.

We went to visit the old girl on Friday night after work. We see that they have cleaned up the cabinets and countertops to the point where we can see no permanent damage has been done by paint and dust. We see our kitchen’s beautiful darkness come together with her stainless steel sink and funky gooseneck faucet. The faucet has a hose attached to the spout so that we can pretend we’re in a restaurant kitchen if we want—we can. There is one thing that disturbs us in our inability to pay attention to finite details. Somehow we overlooked putting a cable TV outlet in the kitchen. While we know we wanted this and discussed it at the plan review, the design that we signed has no cable TV outlet in the kitchen—it is our fault. We were careless. We signed. We didn’t pay close enough attention. We’re kicking ourselves relentlessly.

The master bathroom, while a little on the small side is narrow and long. She’s not yet been cleaned and doesn’t quite have that new house smell, but the sparkle is starting to show through. Two months ago, the builder ran out of the level I tile we picked for our master bath. When this happened, we were prepared, thanks to the Naro’s and their house-building experience where the builder ran out of their ganite. When this happened, I asked if we could be bumped up for FREE to Level II tile since the dark tile in our group was no longer available. I explained how we’ve designed a very dark interior and that the dark tile is necessary (i.e., we would die). They bumped us up to Level III tile and threw in the 18” tile as a bonus. The girl at the design center explained that the larger tile size makes the room look bigger. Well, we need that! And we did. And we are happy with the dramatic result.

We walked around the house, surveying our tiny bit of land and inspected the mailbox. We have a saying for getting mail—we call it “getting the joy.” Since all our bills are paid online, we do not get paper bills in the mail. Mail is simply a little bit of extra joy that comes each day. We, therefore, inspected our joy-catcher to find that she’s a perfect size and black and antiquey looking. We’re pleased with the “1541” that is so prominently displayed on her head. Her hinges work perfectly and her clasp will keep out the rain. Was there ever a finer joy-catcher? I’m sure the mail person will gladly deposit the joy and get a small piece of joy in return.

As I ran upstairs to survey the sunset from the upper porch that is completed with its painted ceiling, Mr. Husband shouted from below. Mr. Husband, it seems got into a bit of a scrape with a bit of scrap metal from the dirt pile next door. They wrestled and rolled around on the front lawn; neighbors poked their heads out from behind curtains. The entire street was in an uproar! I cheered Mr. Husband on as he limped to the porch's front step to assess his wounds. The nail from the piece of metal nearly did him in. I could smell the tetanus shot. He carefully seated himself on the front step as I watched from above in great anticipation. He was able to skillfully remove the Birkenstock and extract the nail and piece of metal. My Mr. Husband: Superhero! No little nail is going to keep him down! I was proud as any young wife would be—I cheered and documented the frightening moment that will live in our memories forever as the most harrowing nail-metal event ever.

Mr. Husband lives for another day. Callooh! Calais! He Lives! And we live together for the very near future when we’ll move in as a family with our two cats to live in our painted house with the bad color choices. Lesson learned. Take off the blindfold and think on it a while.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I think you are being a little harsh about the colors - unless the pictures are not true - everything I see looks great - glad Mr. Husband made it through the harrowing nail incident unscathed. C