The ground floor of 5631 Hillside Drive has undergone quite a dazzling transformation – and the credit completely belongs to Kathy.  When it comes to looking at a perfectly fine room and imagining how it could be even better,  she has a gift that I simply do not possess.  I used to frame the comparison in terms of me being more easily satisfied and she being a bit more restless …. but I have come to realize that in fact it comes down to her sense of decorative vision and my utter cluelessness, at least when it comes to envisioning something that does not as yet exist.  Kathy knew that our downstairs would feel so much more spacious and comfortable if we dropped the tri-color candyland decor for which I had so vociferously campaigned, and which she was willing to live with for quite awhile – and if we tore out the flooring in our kitchen and the carpeting in the family room and made it all hardwood floors,  just like the foyer.  And although I put up the mildest sort of fuss,  on some level I always knew she was right-  and now that it’s done, I see it even more clearly.   It’s great to be rid of the kitchen flooring, which never looked great and was starting to look like it belonged on the set of “Roseanne.”  And despite our best efforts,  the off-white carpeting in our family room – which I’m sure at one time was a color like “mushroom” or “sandy beach” – was starting to look like “dirty dishwater” more than anything.   As I said in my previous post, a tiny part of me still misses the wild wall colors,  but there is something to be said for a more soothing, mature look-  and the two colors we now have . . . “cinnamon toast” and “frozen yogurt” . . . could not be more beautiful.  And if our downstairs no longer looks like something out of Sesame Street,  I still have my studio at Carthage to let my inner child run wild.    : – )

 

The person who shepherded us through this process is a guy named Ken Brewer,  the brother of Case High School choral director Liz Steege.  He came highly recommended to us,  but our chief reason for entrusting this project to him was that he did most of the work in the refurbishing of Holy Communion’s main lounge, which used to boast Bad Dental Office decor but now looks truly beautiful.  His superb work on that project was proof enough that he was the right guy for the job,  but the true seal of the deal came when we met him.  Right from the start we liked him and trusted him, and he seemed genuinely interested in our project and sympathetic to our nervousness.   And when he said “no problem” in every other sentence, we knew that he wasn’t saying it the way a slick used car salesman would say it, where it’s “no problem” because any problems would be glossed over or ignored.  We knew that he was the kind of guy who would see to it that any problems would be anticipated and avoided- or if need be,  dealt with.  We went with him without the slightest hesitancy.

I’m thankful to say that  he proved to be as good as his word, and the guys be brought in were first-rate all the way.  We were especially impressed with the guy who supervised the floors, who actually went up to the warehouse in Waukesha with one piece of our foyer flooring, in order to match up the new stuff with the old stuff as closely as possible.   And now when you look at it, you would never guess that one floor was done more than a decade before the other one.   Amazing.   The guys who actually installed the floors were hard-working Eastern Europeans (Czech?  Russian?) who were incredibly good at what they did, and although there was a bit of a language barrier there that made it tricky for us to communicate, it didn’t even matter in the end.  What they did was absolutely impeccable.  Finally, the guys who did the tearing out of the old stuff and the installation of trim and the other finishing touches were absolute pros, and the head guy made me sick.  He carried our recliner like he was moving a wicker patio chair – not even breaking a sweat – and other feats of ridiculous strength.  Finally, in mock annoyance, I said “well yeah, but can you transpose the national anthem into any key?”   Really, I asked him that.  He chuckled, but then said “I do play the oboe.”   Of everything that happened during the course of this project,  that was probably the single biggest surprise of all and I’m still smiling about that.  (It turns out that he went to a Catholic high school in Racine where there were plenty of guys like him who played football and played the oboe.)  By the way, they not only moved the biggest pieces of furniture – but also reconnected our TV/ DVD/ cable box, which was a huge job in and of itself.

So anyway,  we are back in our downstairs and could not be more thrilled.   For the first day or two we were gently tip toeing across the new floors and still are a bit squeamish unless we’re in stocking feet, but we’re getting better about that.   We were also very edgy whenever the dogs were on the new floors – fretting as though they were walking around with a vial of nitroglycerin perched precariously on their snouts.  But with each day, we’re relaxing a bit more-  confident that these floors can withstand a bit of dog traffic.  And we have tables or other obstructions against every open wall that Bobbi would otherwise lie beside and possibly scratch up.   We’ll probably loosen up about that as well.  But right now, these beautiful floors and walls are like our precious little Faberge egg, and the longer we can keep them unscratched the better; we are not all that anxious to achieve the live-in look.

As I write this, I’m well aware that a number of people we know either have had or are currently having terrible trouble with their home renovations –  maddening delays, ridiculous price hikes, nightmares of every shape and size.  It makes me almost want to invent some terrible headaches along the way – or some awful miscalculation we made that means the whole thing has to be redone.  But no, it has been pretty much pain-free all the way.   Sure, we had some very claustrophobic moments,  and we nearly came to despise the four walls of our bedroom, where we pretty much lived 24/7 for a week.  But the wait was worth it and we rejoice not only in the loveliness of it all, but almost more just in having our space back.  In fact, there’s a part of me that’s tempted to luxuriate in the space itself by setting up some bowling pins by our fireplace and bowling a few frames. . . or by inviting 30 people over and having a square dance!

On second thought,   maybe not.

pictured above:  our family room, with the new floors.  The walls are still pretty much bare, of course.  That will change.