Bellows

I sort of gave up on her.  No, not sort of, I really did give up on her.  My house, that is.  She is heaven on earth when we move in, just a babe at barely 5 years old.  I fall so in love with her abundance of big windows I can’t bear (or afford) to cover them. The regal pedestal sink in the powder room and the tub in the master bath made to soak a mermaid’s tail make me feel like a newly crowned princess not quite sure she’s deserving of such luxury. Fifteen years later the honeymoon is over. She’s lost her polish, her girlish figure, doesn’t bother with make-up anymore and sits around in yoga pants like she’s been living with an absent spouse, the one who walks in the door and doesn’t really see her anymore.

 

I’m a designer by both education and birth, but only glimpses of this are evident anymore between these tired old walls.  She’s weathered climate change over the past decade, much like slow global warming breeds wicked flooding, tumultuous natural disasters borne by a family reinventing themselves. We’d become reclusive by our own standards and bad behavior. While the high water has long since receded, we’re still picking through the wreckage, bewildered at times about out how to let the outside world in.

He shows up on my doorstep one crisp and cold March day, a friend of a friend of some random repair guy Nick plucks from the phonebook, and he immediately breathes new life into us. I’m a fixer by nature, of complex business operations and relationship challenges, yet I don’t have a clue how to fix anything with my hands. He does. My house knows this and I can feel her sigh in relief.

Today he and I are in the midst of creating a new bathroom.  I say “he and I” loosely, as he is pulling me along.  He is doing the work and I am letting him.  It’s all I’m capable of after the storms the house and I have weathered.  I awake in the morning, pretty regularly now, recalling snippets of dreams about being exposed.  Remodeling scares me.  It’s something about tearing off the packaging, the façade, whether it’s shiny and new or dull from years of wear, until all that is visible are the bare bones.  The flaws in construction are revealed. It’s time to critique quality at the very core. Will she measure up?

We are learning how to work with each other.  He is frustrated when I won’t describe my style.  It’s always been hard for me to ask for what I want.  But here it is:  I am vintage, retro, a subtle mixing of unexpected textures and patterns.  I’m bright colors, mercury glass, shiny metal and crystal light fixtures.  I’m tiny glass tiles requiring extra grout and care to install.  I’m a statement and I am quality. When the next couple tears down what we create, I want to reveal good bones eliciting nothing short of admiration, and work that demonstrates we care about what’s on the inside; we do the right thing even when no one is watching.

He believes in prep work.  He indulges me with my design composed of three sizes and types of tile, drawing life-size elevations on the walls until we’ve worked out a finished product maximizing factory cuts while still resembling the vision in my head. He temporarily wires my light fixtures and mounts them at standard height so I can take a look with the white-washed walnut and chrome mirrors to make the final call on placement.  He’s been doing this forever; he’s experienced every customer revision and regret.  His patience for this project, for my house, and for me is boundless.

As we get reacquainted, whittling away at the work she needs, I see her possibilities and I’m falling in love with her all over again. She’s been a dependable safe place, harboring me and mine, before I knew him, against the relentless pounding from a sea I wasn’t sure would ever calm.  There’s a part of me wanting to abandon her and all evidence of the struggle.  And there’s another part of me compelled to restore her to a glory so richly deserved, tenderly removing her rags, touching her core with his hands and rebuilding her with the same degree of care and courage that goes into rebuilding me.

He wonders sometimes how I can put so much of myself into something I’m going to sell to a stranger who may want to dress her in completely different clothes.  And I don’t know how I can possibly give her, when she’s so wanting and warranting of a new wardrobe, one that’s just basic and plain. She's so much more than that, and so am I.