Exposé – Living Through The Renovation
No fancy Instagram pictures here: this is exposed and unfiltered.
The only source of running water in the house is in the bathroom. The fridge is upstairs as well. It makes sense to keep the coffee pot ON the first floor. It’s so annoying.
After I make coffee, I usually shower. Seeing that it has been one of the coldest winters in human history, you can imagine how freezing it is trying to disrobe and shower in a house without walls or exterior siding. There’s an actual breeze in the house. It terrorizes my body. I can’t enjoy a hot shower because the whole time I dread getting out. Oh, and if I forget slippers, my feet get covered in dirt and dust on the way downstairs. It’s been below 30 degrees in the bathroom. The bathroom is a mini extension onto the house and it’s not under the basement, which has caused numerous problems for us throughout the winter. Our pipes froze four times, which cost a ton of money and left us without water, yes no place to shower, brush teeth, wash hands. The toilet pipes froze too, but that’s not so bad, you can still “flush” by quickly pouring a coffee-can-worth of water down the bowl. A tricks of the “trade”.
Here’s a detail of the shower. I’m pretty proud of this. The tension rod that would routinely fall down during my showers started to bug me. I secured the rod using cardboard stapled on the underside of the bar. It worked like a charm!
My friend Susanne said to me once “You really enjoy cleaning, don’t you.” She’s right, I do. I love putting on Billy Joel, drinking wine and cleaning. But alas, everything is filthy and it’s impossible to keep things clean in the basement when there is construction going on above you. So for a cleaner, this is distressing. It’s a ground hog day situation, where you spend all day cleaning and making things perfect and awesome and then you wake up in the morning and everything is dirty again. We drag all sorts of gross grime down the steps and onto the carpets. Sawdust falls through the ceiling because there are holes in the floor.
This is where I prepare food. I have an electric frying pan and crock pot that I use. I also make cold foods like salads. As I mentioned, the fridge and water source is upstairs so it takes a while to prepare the simplest meal. When I “cook” its barely even cooking. It’s a chore.
I can’t believe its been over a year without a kitchen. This to me has been the most difficult obstacle. I’ve gained weight which sucks, I don’t know how people eat out all the time and stay healthy. But more upsetting than losing my once slim and fabulous figure is not being able to cook, I miss it so much. It relaxes me, and makes me happy. It’s my favorite activity. That and gardening. And petting my cat.
The worst has passed though. The winter is almost behind us and as the days get lighter, so will the burden of my circumstances. We are getting closer. Stay tuned…
