Making it right

I am addicted to home repair and renovation television shows. Bet you didn’t know that about me. When I was a kid, my grandfather loved to watch wrestling on television. Now that I think about it, I’m not sure if he was caught up with the wrestling or just the magic of television. Hard to say. He spent an awful lot of time coaching, at the top of his lungs, from his chair in the sitting room. Most of his raving and raging was in a mix of Italian and English. In true Italian style, he threw in a lot of hand gestures, in case Lord Athol Layton had a hearing problem. These days, like my grandfather, I watch television with the same enthusiasm and more than a few hand gestures. I’m all over the D.I.Y. shows, like a cheap suit. I talk to the television, too. “Yo, seriously? Who spends $4,000 on a rain shower head? Whadda mean the appliances need to match? They work, don’t they? Holy, those kitchen cabinets were solid wood and you are replacing them with fibreboard crap from a big box store!!” I’m an involved viewer of the fixy-fixy shows.

I can’t help but watch television shows that make me think plumb is possible. Every house LOML and I have ever owned—in the County—abounded with restoration, renovation and repair projects. We joke about not having to live in a big city to live in “the projects”. Our kitchen floor drops a full three inches in less than 10 feet. It has the profile of a splash pad, without the fun. Many years ago, our youngest learned to run in our kitchen. She took her first teetering steps to the doorway leading into the kitchen and decided to head across the room to the colourful magnetic letters on the fridge door. She careened across that vinyl and did a full body plant against fridge with a giggle of fear and surprise, “Look, I ran. Yikes! I ran into this big white thing.” There was no stopping her after that. Anything that could roll, was rolled across that floor. She spent hours sending her brothers’ HotWheels racing from the dining room to the fridge—or should I say, under the fridge. When we got a new fridge, the floor underneath was covered in the requisite pile of dust bunnies, and netted at least a dozen little metal cars, straws, pencils, pens and crayons.

In the ’80s and ’90s, HGTV was a dream on some producer’s desk. But in the last 10 plus years, I’ve watched Mr. Holmes as he and his crew demolished many homes in an effort to “make it right”. Like my grandfather, I spoke to the television scoffing at Holmes to, “come over to my house and see if you can make this place right.” LOML often says, “The only thing that would be left, if Mike dropped by to “make it right”, would be the door knobs and our furniture.”

But I have hopes. I have dreams. I have watched as couples put all of their faith into TV contractors who pick one of the three rooms for a makeover. Lives are changed. Families are healed. Marriages are saved. I have shouted “no” to the requests for “the man cave” and dabbed a tear away when the plumbing didn’t have to be re-plumbed or the wiring re-wired or the beams re-beamed.

LOML and I have nine rooms and a huge front hallway. Every one of those spaces begs for help. I’m sure there isn’t a contractor on television who wouldn’t have to suppress a snicker or snort if I told them how measly my budget would be to put it all square and make it right. Sometimes, I gently tell my house, “It’s been 29 years since we bought you. I think we can manage another 29 years.” I’m pretty sure the doorknobs and the coffee table understand.

theresa@wellingtontimes.ca