40) Springtime Collection *

The painting of the basement had begun a week prior and like everything else, it was taking far longer than you had anticipated. March was nearly halfway through when you woke up to bubble gum skies and and the remnants of a cotton candy fog that gently pooled in the dips and valleys south of the church’s belfry tower. Nearly all the snow was gone except for the barely there errant pile that had once stood tall; now the melted drifts served as one of the few visible signs of the slow transition from the lingering bits of winter to a wishy washy spring…

This morning though was also the first morning in a long time that you awoke to a sea of color pouring in through the belfry bedroom’s southern windows instead of the dull grey glow of the wintry landscape that had served as the familiar backdrop to the Northeast this time of the year. It had been quite some time now since you had single digit weather and with each passing week there seemed to be more and more warmer days peppered in with the cold. Spring was definitely on its way.

You were honestly enjoying the seasons and the anticipation of warmer, longer days just on the horizon. With it you liked to imagine yourself sitting downstairs in the cool of the basement watching TV with the family on the large sectional you had brought from Florida. You thought about what that might feel like to catch the muddled reflection of the TV on the old oak ceiling boards, the cavernous room lit only by the blue green glow that cast nearly the same incandescence on your family’s face as the old dock lights that you’d turn on to night fish at your grandparents’ condo.

So close to done.

All of the walls had been painted. Honestly both you and David were suprised by how quickly you had finished the walls. The doors on the other hand proved to take far more time than you had anticipated on… but whatever lagging speed you might have made up for on the doors with the walls, you were quickly humbled by the two large ceiling beams that ran the longest span in the basement. Today was day three of painting the beams. You had worked on painting the beams on the first day. You assumed that they would take a tops of two days except now it looked as if each beam alone would take that long. You had started the renovations absolutely terrified of using the ladder and now nearly done with the basement renovation and far more tired of having to reposition it every foot or so to make your way down the room, you wondered if there were an OSHA approved dolly that you could slide under the ladder to drag yourself along the beams without having to climb back down again.

David told you that there was not such a thing…. “It’s called scaffolding Vaness, and no I am not taking the scaffolding down in the sanctuary to finish up the beams…”

So instead he took over the beams and the ladder on day three and you went to touch up painting the walls and adding a few coats of paint to the HVAC’s duct covers. It was really starting to look nice in the basement. You were excited to get out of bed, shower, get the kids off to school, then slide into your husband’s coveralls to paint.

So much had been done to bring you to this point yet the closer you got to the finish line the more your “To Do” list had grown. It wasn’t that anyone was trying to add more work, rather the justification to add new work was easily made by the disparate contrast the freshly sanded, caulked and painted surfaces provided against the backdrop of the “this will do for now” basement of last summer. If you had come this far, it really made no sense to overlook the flaking paint that had fully camouflaged itself into the deteriorating abyss of the pre renovation basement but which now stood out against the freshly restored basement like a black sheep in a sea of white woolly coats.

David hadn’t even baulked when you pointed out some new area that you realized needed caulking or painting or touch ups. The “To Do” list had been cut down off of the basement’s support column when the painting had commenced. And while it was still in the basement and looked to on occasion for guidance, it no longer felt as weighty in its control when it was relegated to a corner vs the former column of prominence. Now the list served not to provide the hard, steadfast rigid rule of basement work governance but rather to offer a helpful suggestion of projects to tackle.

You had mentioned to David a while back that the western wall of the basement that was still paneled and drywalled should come down. That you could remove the old paneling and drywall and studs and then the door to reveal the archway, but because you had decided to remove everything after the list had been established, the idea had been shot down almost immediately.

“I think that we could remove all the old paneling and drywall, possibly reuse the furring strips, and sneak the pieces into our trash a little here and there. It would save us on dumpster cost especially since it would hardly even be worth the dumpster rental…”

“Is it on the list?”

“No. I know it’s not and so do you… I’m just saying that it makes sense to finish the last bit of demo now before we move down here… we’re already way over our timeline… what’s another week or so?”

“Absolutely not! We agreed on that list.”

You agreed to drop the issue but still thought that it would have been nice to have all the walls done at once, especially considering how well everything was beginning to look.

On the third day of painting beams David wound up powering through and was able to finish up the last one. You had finished all of the touch up painting and went upstairs to shower. There was rarely a day that you’d strip down for the shower after a long day of work and not be greeted by a small cache of paint chips or some sort of debris that had collected in your bralette. You envisioned what it would look like if you had collected it all in mason jars.

You pictured a root cellar with thick blue glass jars that lined the walls top to bottom. In each one were pieces of the church’s 131 year old history that had escaped the fate of the dumpster but not your undergarments. This was your collection… You’d pick up a jar and hand it back to a guest…

“What is this stuff?” They’d ask holding the jar up to the little pull chain light in your imaginary root cellar….

“That’s all the shit I pull out of my bra when I strip down to take a shower… I don’t know… kinda felt weird to throw it out… “

They’d smile nervously and hand the jar back to you before mentioning something about the time and how they had to go get dinner ready… even if it was only 9:00am.

Instead of collecting it though you had settled on hovering over the little bathroom trash pail and disrobing in a way that the majority of the debris would make it to the trash.

A hot shower always felt incredible. You loved to get the water as hot as you could stand it… your husband often said that it felt as if you were trying to scald yourself…. Which you sort of were. You would scrub and sud and rinse and repeat and then do it all again. Sometimes you’d zone out while the hot water streamed down your back or over your face. When you were done you’d turn off the water and dry off, toweling yourself down in the direction always leading to your heart.

“When you get out of the shower and dry off,” David had asked one day, “do you wipe yourself down towards or away from your heart.

You had paused to think about that, picturing yourself freshly post shower and how you’d towel off… “Away from my heart.”

“You know there was a study I read about where scientists found that people who toweled themselves off towards their hearts had better lymphatic drainage…”

“Hmmmm…. Interesting…”

Ever since then you had abruptly changed 43 years of habit and now made the conscious decision to reverse one of your lifelong fundamental hygiene practices. You still couldn’t remember to take your pills that you had been taking for years now, or figure out a workable morning routine, but somehow had stuck with this for weeks now…

It felt like the useless knowledge you loved to collect and store in the recesses of your brain… “did you know that the creator of Pringles was buried in a Pringles canister?” Probably not… but it didn’t fucking matter anyway. Taking your daily meds did… somehow though shit like that wouldn’t stick.

“If you come over here real quick… you can see… I know… I know you have to get dinner ready but look over here…”

You’d coax your friend deeper into your root cellar filled with mason jars of brazier debris on long wooden shelves under a dim overhead bulb…

“Look at these jars…”

“What am I looking at? They’re empty….”

“Right…. I know… they’re there for all the shit I’m supposed to get together…. Pill schedules, passwords, appointments, remembering to pick my kid up from Kindness Club after school and not pissing his teacher off…. Ha! One day I’ll fill these up too….”

“Riiiiiiiight… hey listen…. I’ve got to go…” they’d say backing slowly out of the root cellar.

You finished drying off, put on some face cream, deodorant and a pair of fluffy pajamas then headed downstairs for dinner.

You made your way through the parts of the church that weren’t climate controlled and realized that they weren’t nearly as chilly as they had been. Spring was definitely coming… and the morning’s pink sky and the nearly melted snow weren’t the only hints. The warming up of the basement stairwell was another sign of this next season.

“Did you see the wall?” David wanted to know. You had come into the kitchen and closed the latched dutch door behind you, locking in the warm steam from the pot of boiling pasta on the stove.

“Huh? What wall?”

“The west wall of the basement… the archway wall…”

You had walked through the door but you hadn’t stopped to notice anything.

“No…”

“Go take a look….”

You turned on your heels and opened up the dutch door of the kitchen… there was the wall without the drywall and paneling… the only reminder of their existence the long thin furring strips. You noticed they were dry… everything on the wall was dry!

“OH WOW! You took it all down?! This looks great!”

“I stopped at the furring strips… I’m done for the day, but I’ll get those tomorrow.”

“This looks amazing… what made you change your mind? This wasn’t on the list…”

“Because everything else was looking so good that this wall really looked like crap in comparison.”

You nodded your head in agreement.

Later that night when the kitchen was cleaned and the kids were reading their books and David went upstairs to take his shower you climbed up onto the 8’ ladder in your toasty pajamas and blue bootie slippers with a pry-bar and a grin plastered onto your face.

Spring was coming… the list was no longer wielding the same rigid control it had been (you were over the power struggle), the basement was looking fabulous… and the light at the end of the tunnel no longer looked like it could be coming from a train.

Pretty soon you might not even have to stand over the bathroom’s trash bin to undress each night… a new season was coming and with it perhaps a new springtime collection.

The view outside of the belfry bedroom’s southern windows. The helicopter pad and parking lot are in the foreground, the red home across the street has a lifesized stuffed llama on their porch… the kids and I like to pretend it’s real whenever we walk by. We have quite the imaginations.

David was as surprised to see the furring strips gone the next morning as I had been to see the drywall and paneling had been removed the night before. If you had also guessed that the little demo project turned into a litany of new projects… you would be correct.

There was no way around it… when the furring strips came down so did a bunch of the plaster and in some places even chunks of the concrete were removed in sporadic craters. A lot of the ugly seafoam green paint (that once covered the church’s entire interior - quite the design faux pas’ if you’re wondering) was peeling underneath and there were thick lines of glue that had helped hold the furring strips into place. Any grandiose plans of being able to swoop in the next day with a paintbrush and some new found oomph were quickly dashed.

The first order of business was going to be to scrape the loose paint off the wall along with any of the thick chunks of glue. After that the concrete would have to be repaired, especially the large chunk that had been too loose to be left intact above the arch. Once the wall was patched it would have to cure for 28 days before it could be primed with a bonding agent and then finally plastered at which point you would need another four to six weeks before the paint could be applied. You were a minimum of four months away from finishing this project. BUT you did get the ball rolling.

The cement work was no easy task. The scraping took no time at all but the masonry was another thing altogether. You were surprised that you enjoyed it though especially considering your sensory issues with chalky materials. Dust, dirt, chalk, cement, butcher paper… you shuddered just thinking about touching any of it but you had since devised a plan that made them far easier to stomach. You’d pour a teaspoon of olive oil onto your hands, rub them together then pop on a pair of nitrile gloves and that helped you manage the entire experience. Aside from that though, you had fun mixing the cement and troweling it into the recesses of the exposed stone. There was definitely a very specific thickness of the cement that had to be achieved in order to get it to not only adhere to the surface, but to actually be loose enough to push into the gaps. Every time you worked with cement you realized just how much you enjoyed doing so and also just how much skill it took to master the trade… you weren’t even close to proficient yet alone mastery.

You did though wind up with something that you were proud of in the end…. Which means you just have to wait a few more weeks until the next step.

David hates working with plaster. He told you that any of the plaster guys that he’d ever worked with on job sites had really dry skin and that the whites of their eyes were always red. You’re thinking about wearing a full tyvek suit and goggles when you finally get to plaster the wall. This isn’t the time or place to worry about fashion…

Outside of that but still on the list’s scope David has been slowly but surely cleaning out the basement. At this point every single tool that we own has either taken up residency in the sanctuary under the loft or down in the basement alongside one of the walls. One of the last outdoor projects of the fall was putting in a workshop in the backyard. We ended up commissioning an Amish father and son to build us a 10x20’ cedar workshop and had it installed several months ago. Due to the nature of the basement project though the workshop had remained largely unused up until recently when David began adding insulation, peg boards, paneling and trim to the windows and baseboards. Right now he’s just about done with the most of it, cutting shelves as I type this. His goal is to put up some shelves using some of the leftover wood from other projects then have the basement cleared out by tomorrow and his workshop organized.

Once the basement is cleared, he plans on finishing the two crawl space accesses we installed and then by Sunday we should be able to clean the floor and prime it. Monday we can paint the entire floor and give it a few days to cure before we put in the rungs on Thursday, clean, then decorate for our daughter’s birthday party on the 19th of this month. She’s so excited… she will be the first of any of our kids to have a birthday party with friends (not just immediate family). Which is great because that gives us the kick in the ass we need to get this project wrapped up and the basement move in ready.

Can’t wait….!

How it started… initially we weren’t sure if we were going to put up more drywall or remove everything. We opted to take it all down and open up the arch. I’m so glad we did!

This was already looking SO much better without the crappy paneling and drywall! What a nice surprise!

Even better without the furring strips… minus all the damage they did when they were removed…. Also I don’t trust those bare bricks… a couple of them were a little too loose… And doesn’t this look so good with the exposed arch? Bye, bye door!

Here’s the arched door from the other side of the basement. This was after I had put in the cement. While none of this is done you can kind of start to see something gorgeous shaping up with this renovation. I’m so proud of how far we’ve come!

I painted the doors on the other side of the arch. These lead up to the basement stairwell. In this little entryway are three other doors. One is to the right - that’s the creepy boiler room. Directly next to these visible doors on the right side… the same wall is another door. When we bought the place behind that door there was an old shop sink and hook up for a toilet along with the pungent aroma of mold. We have since removed the sink and the mold and we plan on turning this into a wet room… basically one big giant shower. To the left of the arch is one more door (across from the boiler room) and this takes you to a cute little half bath. Currently there is only a sink in there on account of the toilet falling through the floor… but hey… we’re getting there! It will be so nice to have a shower and toilet on this floor!