Late August: Cutting Everything, Eating Nothing



Reno Ridiculouso: Waiting for Bull Talker Contractor to “X+#@ or get off the pot”, and planning what we’ll do after he decides

Food Mood: I like bread.  A lot.

And now, we wait.  The engineer, Architect and City Inspector have all told Bull Talker what he needs to do and we’re waiting to hear what he’ll say.  Honestly, we’re assuming that he’ll say no but we have to give him the chance to make this right. So we’re giving him two weeks. Two agonizing, endless, god help me weeks, added to the four that have already passed while we’ve halted construction, called in the experts and exchanged carefully worded emails of angst.  

And because I’m me ( a virgo people, a serious, serious virgo) we plan what we’ll do if he doesn’t return and we’re out a good bit of cash on badly done work and we have to go on. I don’t think I’ve felt this emotional since my early twenties when I honestly lived in a high state of emotional drama.  We drink.  A LOT.  We think about blaming each other, but don’t.  We pace the back section all through the beautiful summer nights, looking at what’s there and wondering what comes next. 

An inventory of what we have:

  • ·         One foundation for new section, laid one block higher then we wanted and (we find out during this engineer inspection) not quite square, although maybe not deadly

  • ·         Five walls, three that are eighteen inches too high, one that won’t bear the load that it’s intended to and all somehow dodgely connected to roof joists, which I’ll remind you are currently attached to our siding. Oh, and the four walls of the dining room are out by four inches from end to end.  Yep.  The part of the dining room closest to the house is four inches less wide then the part on the garden end.

  • ·         One set of roof joists, laid in the wrong direction, eighteen inches higher than desired, and as noted above, attached to our damned siding. Oh and because it’s eighteen inches higher, blocking the view from our daughters upper bedroom window.

And we both know.  There’s nothing to be done.  We have to go back to the foundation and start again. 

So we get out a bottle of wine and we talk long into the night.  Maybe we don’t build the dining room, maybe it just becomes a really awesome deck.  That’d be ok, right?  And after about three hours we agree that no, we would always know what it had been meant to be and would never enjoy it.  So, we cut the beautiful overhang that was meant to connect the two back doors to make a seamless look at the back entry.  And then we cut the French doors because they’ll look stupid without the overhang that made it work and besides we’re going to need that money back from returning them.  And we decide that it will have to be Tyvek only this year and wait on siding for next year because we are going to run out of time before it snows.
                
 And so we talk, long into the night.  And we drink.  A Lot.  And we don’t cook, we just eat bread
And cheese.  And we let it go.  The anger and the frustration, the dreams and imaginings.  We let it go and move on .  And when the long dark tea time of the soul ends, we still have eachother.
Hello! Thanks for stopping by to check out my recipes and commiserate with my (our) misery. Misery loves company! I live in Toronto with my husband and little girl. We have spent a year (yep, that's right, renovating our home) About seven months into this crazy renovation I thought to myself, this has got to be funny or it will be pathetic! And so, I have chosen for funny! This is my collection of mostly crockpot (although sometimes not) recipes paired with the days (weeks, months) that inspired them. Please share your best reno stories and crockpot recipes too.

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