A different kind of anniversary

Yesterday marked the one-month date since we started our BHAR (pr. bee-har): Big Hairy Audacious Remodel (anybody else read "Good to Great"?). And even though I know that remodel* is always spelled with an asterisk that reads

* will inevitably take at least twice as long as you plan and four times as long as you hope,

it's a silent asterisk, so I guess I forgot it was there the last several hundered times I heard it.

Original plan: be done in two weeks, keeping in mind the likelihood that things will come up to delay the project by a week or so. Modified plan: here at week four, Mike, our contractor, said I might as well wait our 1/2-through-the-project fee until next week when we'll be closer to halfway through.

Are we there yet? Are we there yet? We wanna be there!

It is exciting though, and fun. Yesterday I spent all day taking down old light fixtures, and tearing out the old floor and window moulding, as well as the carpet tackboard, getting ready to take the whole doggy thing out. Anthony, owner of the dubiously named "Well Hung Drywall" company, whose logo is a grey ripsnorting bull with giant maroon testicles, and his sidekick Brian, were here working all day too, plastering the ceiling and retexturing the walls. Contractor Mike is a cool, sweet guy in his late thirties, probably, who is just going back to school b/c he'd like to be a lawyer. (While listening to the Alito hearings: "The real issues aren't being decided in Iraq. They're being decided here, in the courtroom.") His company, Sawhorse Construction, goes by the motto Integrity Matters. The definition of integrity according to Webster's, is on the back of his card, and his logo incorporates a fish full of greek letters. He and his wife/office manager, Sandra, are in frequent communication via a walkie-talkie phone, and he always ends every conversation with her by saying "love you." Mike's original drywall sub completely dogged us, but only after stringing us along for a long, waiting, week and a half. Re. Well Hung, Mike said, "There might have been a time when I thought that was funny, but I don't remember when."

Mudding, especially retexturing, especially the way Anthony and Brian did it, is the messiest part of this whole thing. It's made life really uncomfortable for Andy, who would much rather not live in a fixer-upper with mice. Becca, if you guys were in Logan this weekend, we'd be there on your floor until Andy had to go to work on Monday. (As it is, you're running construction errands for us while you're in Salt Lake. Thank you!)

But this weekend will be the worst of it, and it will only be getting more put together and brighter from here out. Paint on Monday and Tuesday, cupboards on Tuesday and Wednesday. . . inshahallah.

Much as I like Sawhorse, this is one relationship I don't want to see hit a second anniversary!