Renovation + Relationship Balance...in the Bathroom

Several weeks ago I was recounting the harrowing story of our master bath tub installation to a friend (it's very heavy and had to be cemented to the bathroom floor, which required many, many rounds of lifting it out of its wooden frame and putting it back in...anyway...) when she remarked that Mr. W and I must work really well together on this sort of stuff.

Yes. And No.

I cannot tell you how many times he has banned me from his workspace. (I ask too many questions and point out too many issues that aren't important in the moment.) And I can't tell you how many times I've nearly beaten him in the head with whatever object I just painted that he scuffed.

Typically, he is all about process and precision and I am all about speed and good-enough aesthetics.

Oftentimes, his by-the-book way of doing things leads to me whining in a pool of salted caramel ice cream, lamenting the fact that we're STILL Under Construction—while my corner-cutting drives him to lecture like Al Gore and curse like Amy Schumer. And then he usually bans me from the room.

But sometimes when the stars are aligned just right, our dueling approaches come together in marital renovation perfection.

For example, during the bathtub installation.

Although Mr. W had a bizarre Rainman-esque talent for applying wood veneer in our other bathroom, when it came time to install the veneer around the tub deck, we hit a wrinkle.

Literally, the veneer wrinkled. And so did Mr. W. He crumpled into the bathtub in total and utter defeat.

Cue my good-enough pep talk. I assured him that we could just cut out a bit of the extra veneer with a razor and flatten it into place and it would look like any other line of wood grain—no one would ever know we had popped a big bubble right there. He begrudgingly complied and you know what? It looks great. And no one will ever notice the line when they look.

The next snafu came when we were trying to get the tub lined up to perfectly sit in the deck hole and nestle just right between the floor joists so that we (haha who am I kidding with this "we" stuff—I meant HE) could connect the plumbing. The only problem was that there was a huge 4" x 4" beam just east of where the drain needed connect through the floor.

Mr. W had to cut the tub deck hole bigger so we could shimmy everything around and Doh—we accidentally ended up with a gap between the deck and the lip of the tub.

He put his head in his hands. I thought he might cry. After all the hard work with the veneer, now there was a stupid gap that couldn't be repaired.

But ah—wait a minute—this corner-cutter is also an expert problem solver.

So saddened by my poor husband's broken renovation spirit, I sprung into action and grabbed an extra piece of quarter-round floor molding. This is where we balance each other out perfectly, my friends. When the perfectionist is near tears, I use my ingenuity to bring him out of it.

"We'll just cut a piece of molding, paint it, spray it with high gloss and it'll look like it's part of the bathtub. Plus, it's on the backside so NO ONE WILL EVER SEE IT." (We say this a lot in our house.)

The clouds parted in his eyes and a little sunshiny ray of hope broke through.

So that is the secret to our renovation success. Picking the other person up after they've fallen (either on their own or because we've knocked each other down). It seems to work pretty darn well.

That said, do me a favor, would you? Don't scrutinize the bathroom when you come visit us.

An in-progress shot of the shower. Mr. W finished tiling, we just have to grout and find a shelf solution for inside the shampoo nook.

I'm in love with the hex tile in the shower floor. We're still installing the final little halvsie pieces (I think Mr. W cut about 85 of them today) but it's going to look great once it's grouted.

Still working out some kinks in the veneer. Need to grout the floor. Oh and then there's the whole building of the vanity and installing the sinks shtick to deal with...

Rewards and Punishment in the Bedroom

I've gotten into kind of a bad habit of blurting out inappropriate phrases when Mr. W tells me he's making progress on one of my top priority house/renovation projects.

Like when he said he was going to install the shower backer-board that had been leaning against the wall of our master bedroom for weeks, I think I yelled "Take off your pants!" Or when he said he was going to clean up all the scrap wood from the backyard, I turned to the cat and said, "Your daddy's gonna get lucky tonight!"

On the flipside, however, when he flubs it on something that matters to me, I punish him royally. Like when I casually mentioned 8,000 times that I thought the bedroom would look so much more finished if we could get the window moldings up. He bought the molding; I primed and painted it; and as he was hanging it around the doorway inside the closet he informed me he didn't have enough to go around the windows. He would have to go buy more. Later.

Completely calmly, I said, "Why in all that's great and holy would you install molding INSIDE the closet before you put it on the windows that I have to look at every day? No one looks at the inside of the closet!" Then my head exploded and I had to take an Advil. Punishment exacted. A few minutes later, without an ounce of murder in his voice, he advised, "Maybe if you'd get off your $%*#@*$ a$$ and help me once in awhile, this stuff wouldn't happen!"

And now we get to add the molding fight to our long list of benign, but extremely heated lovers' quarrels. 

It's funny what makes you feel delighted and/or enraged you when you're working on a house...

Now here's a little reveal of one of the happier projects we knocked out in the bedroom: the gallery wall.

Worry not, dear reader, I will be DIYing a bench to balance the big empty space at the bottom there.

Mr. W likes to do things very scientifically, so he busted out his 2-way laser level to get everything lined up just right on the wall.

That's not a big, red bald spot on his head, by the way. The laser is hitting him back there. And yes, his brain is level.

If you're wondering where we got the awesome grapevine, Mr. W found it outside the local recycling center in Solvang and brought it home. Unfortunately it had some sort of burrowing creature living inside of it that withstood a bug bomb inside a trashbag and had to be doused in Raid twice before dying. I'm sure we'll probably wake up with antlers or tails or something one morning because that thing is off-gassing insecticide in our room now...

The final product made me immensely happy, though. It was exactly what I had envisioned—a cool symbol of wine country surrounded by Mr. W's awesome photography. The pictures showcase some of our favorite places we've visited together—Santa Ynez Valley, Monterey, Capri, and Provence. 

And you didn't hear it from me, but Mr. W may have been rewarded handsomely for his efforts on this one...

The Things We Fight About While Building Our Dream Life

I was just telling a friend my favorite Fight-With-Mr.-W story last week and I realized I don't think I've ever told it here. It happened sometime last year. I think maybe the weekend that we "moved in" to the house the first time with our temporary furniture. My parents were coming to help us for the weekend and I wanted to get the guest room all set up for them.

Mr. W wanted to treat the floors with a wood conditioner first.

I said no, that it didn't need to be done—we should just put the furniture in and do it later. He insisted it was important. We went back and forth until finally Mr. W spewed an f-bomb and I knew it was time to give in.

It's so rare that Mr. W ever curses like that. And I kind of love that he did it over floor polish.

Much to my dismay, he was totally right, too. The floors looked spectacular when he was done with them.

Another one of our finer moments likely came from the ongoing wear on our nerves from being apart, juggling too much, and probably not being naked in a bed together often enough (thanks to living in separate cities). It involved a trip to Santa Barbara to run errands that I believed should be completed in a particular order.

When Mr. W disagreed, things got heated and spiraled into a silent treatment shopping trip through Trader Joe's. Honestly, I think it was one of our worst fights. And all about whether groceries should be purchased before or after the bachelorette party gift I had to buy...

Our most recent tiff was over the driveway. I hate our driveway. When I go on walks around the neighborhood, I pine for my neighbors' concrete and gravel drives. I think one of the 10 home ownership commandments is, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's driveway," but I can't help myself. So I sketched out a design of how I would like the front and backyard landscaping, and how I thought we could redo the driveway more affordably.

When I presented my brilliant idea to Mr. W, I expected him to compliment me on my determination and design skills. But instead he told me we couldn't dig up the driveway. I reminded him I hated it and he replied with a couple of expletives and an explanation about how we were already spending a lot of money to renovate the house.

Naturally, when we went to bed that night, I slept waaay over on my side of the mattress to communicate to him that I didn't like his tone.

We don't always follow the "Don't go to bed angry" rule, but we do always make up in the morning. It's hard to stay mad at a cute face (I'm not sure he would stay the same). And I've come to realize I like our fights. Because they're completely silly.

I would much rather be yelling at each other over floor polish than infidelity or addiction or financial irresponsibility.

I will gladly take our tiffs over dumb stuff. Which is good because I'm sure there will be many, many more to come.