We're Calling It "Industrial" Right Now

There is Matt in his basement lair. It is his birthday today. The celebration of this event, however, has to be postponed, as he is too busy today to turn another year older. The guys are burning the midnight oil down there. Week before last, we got the basement to the white box stage that you see here, and then Matt and the boys moved in. They were dying to get out of the little room. So the basement still needs a lot, but Matt said no more until they meet their next deadline. It's working fine for them right now, it's just a little stark. It's a million miles better than it used to be, though. It's like a real place now. There's a there there.

One chilling thing, though, is that in the bathroom down there? The toilet seat is up all the time. And they don't even care. Men.

And there's weird soda in the fridge down there. The other day, Hank wanted to go down and say a quick hello to his daddy. And he was gone a long time. I called down the stairs, "Hank, whatcha doing?" He said, "Nothing!" And then there was a pause in which he apparently decided to be honest. "Drinking a drink called pineapple Fanta!" he crowed, with sugary joy.

So I'm counting calories these days and it's all going great, but tonight I went down there to visit with the boys and try to pump up morale. You know I'm a one-woman USO. But they didn't need my help, they had Mexican takeout and a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Then I got busy chatting and somehow ate a lot of cheese dip. It's a chamber of horrors.

Tomorrow night we're going up to the mountains, and we'll celebrate Matt's birthday (and our anniversary) properly up there. I clearly remember the first week I met Matt. It was his birthday then too, as it was our first week at college. Someone in our dorm gave him a child's toy Sheriff set as a gag, and I volunteered to be handcuffed to him. True fact.

So my August BeckBloPoMo has come to an end! I really, really enjoyed it. I loved sharing stuff with y'all and hearing back from you. Looking at my post count, it's clear I missed a few days in there. Eh, close enough? But I hope y'all have had a good week! I confess, I don't say this often, but I am exhausted. Love y'all, B

Our Daily Blog

BeckBloPoMo rolls on. (That's Beck's Blog Posting Month for those of you just joining us.) Let's do this blog post.

Last night Matt and I stayed up pretty late priming the main room in the basement. Until 4:00, I believe. We have a five-gallon bucket of primer and a lot of unpainted drywall. I got one of those little square pads that are good for edging, or "cutting in" as the pros insist on calling it even though nobody's dancing, and I edged/cut in everywhere. Then we both went to work with rollers. Turns out that using a long roller engages the muscle that I'd pulled a week ago, and which had slowly gotten better until I did a bunch of painting. Now there are certain positions that I can't get into and out of without making exaggerated grimaces. It's also a muscle that hurts when I sneeze or laugh. Or, I guess, sob, but nothing has gotten that bad yet.

Interlude: Before our painting work began, Matt came to where I was sitting on the couch, minding my own blogness. He said, "In a minute can you come down to the basement and hold the flashlight and not tell me that what I'm doing is crazy?"

While he said this, he was wearing knee pads.

Reader, I was intrigued. I told him I was fine with the first part, but that I wasn't sure what might come out of my mouth in the heat of the moment. It turns out that he was cutting more sheetrock but I can't talk about it.

Go now and get a drink from your fridge before Matt hangs sheetrock over it.

So, priming. Which is like painting only nothing is pretty afterwards. We got the main room finished and could have started the bathroom, but our trays were empty and it was late/early. You know, it was fine. I sound kind of negative right now, for no real reason. This morning I was rather draggy and tired. And all day I just felt a little, I don't know, flat.

It caused me to reflect on the fact that usually, I feel really, really good. Almost euphoric, even. I haven't talked about this. But I have wondered sometimes, especially in the last year or so, if I have some kind of mental issue or problem that causes me to feel better or happier than is strictly warranted. I think of it as my irrational exuberance. I do know to be grateful for this. It's odd, though. I always feel as though something wonderful is just around the corner, that something good is building. Somehow this coexists with, or is maybe sharpened by, the occasional dread and worry I feel about things. Is this a chemical thing? Is this just what we call being happy? Blogging-induced narcissism? (Prob-uh-blee.)

It's possible that I'm crazy from sleep-deprivation.

ANYHOO. So, we were up late priming, priming like crazy. We were prime as goats, hot as monkeys...ho ho! Shakespeare references are fun.

Sleep deprivation.

So all day I was a little flat and didn't want to do anything, and indeed not much got done. In the afternoon, Pretty Neighbor texted me and asked if we were going to get together for our workout. I had been hoping she would forget my phone number. But I could only say yes. So we did, even though I thought I was too tired and my muscle was too sore. I have an injury! But it was fine. And the workout made me feel good. And then we drank a beer.

And then I came home and Matt's mom was here, and we took Hank to the store and got him an icee, and I came home and made red beans and rice with sausage. And other stuff happened and it was all fine.

So this is a story of how I felt a little run down but basically fine. Brought to you in living color by daily blogging. See, this is the kind of stuff that winds up on the cutting room floor when I'm not blogging every damn day.

Now I really want to get horizontal but I'm actually going to go down and see if I can help Matt. Let's talk tomorrow.

Epic Basement Action

It took me all day yesterday to recover from what went on in the basement Thursday night. I've been too tired to even tell you, omg!!!!1!

Our builder dudes were finished with their work on Tuesday, a bit earlier than was expected. In accordance with his scheme, Matt then spent all day Wednesday and Thursday down there hanging drywall in three additional rooms. Since our marital discord around this plan the other day, I had kept my mouth shut and waited to see what would happen. I was busy with life on the main floor, but I thought maybe it would work out or maybe he would change his mind once he got into the project, and then we would move ahead with our floor staining and painting.

Matt did tell me that he had done drywall before. I was like, "Really? When in our sixteen years of marriage, a time in which I've been pretty closely observing you, did you manage to get around and hang some drywall?" (That's me keeping my mouth shut.) He reminded me that he did construction one summer in college. Ah. I hadn't remembered that. I just remembered how tan and muscly he was when he got back to school. So yes, drywall. Drywall is hot!

And then, lo, he got it done, he got all the drywall in place. One thing I forgot in this situation is that Matt is like a force of nature. Once he decides to do something, something that is important to him, he will not stop. Honey badger don't care.

So it got to be Thursday evening and Matt had not surfaced from his basement activities. I knew that according to the timeline he had in his head, he wanted to have the first coat of stain on the concrete floor by bedtime. That meant that the drywall needed to be taped and have the first round of mudding done. Then the storage area--a  room we call the bomb shelter--needed to be cleared out because we're staining the whole floor, even in the unfinished areas. Then the bare floor needed to be cleaned, and cleaned well. Then the stain needed to be put on.

I decided that I better step in and help, and that this situation was covered in some portion of our marriage vows. I can't remember which part but I know I promised a buncha things. So I put the kids to bed Thursday night and went down into the depths about ten o'clock. Our bud (and Matt's coworker) Lincoln showed up to help.

Reader, we worked until 6:30 Friday morning. OMG. Yes, to the break of dawn!

It was not the all-nighter that dreams are made of.

First I got a crash course in taping drywall. It involved getting up and down off a stepladder a lot. Then I got to apply the joint compound. That was kind of fun--the joint compound is the consistency of heavy-duty frosting, and it was like decorating a fugly cake. When that was done I was kind of tired.

But nobody showed any sign of slowing down. The whole time Matt and I had been working on the drywall, Lincoln was emptying the bomb shelter. He picked things up and carried them out the back door for two hours. We chatted. They talked about work a lot. I frosted the walls.

Then that was done and the entire 1500 square feet of basement floor was cleared off. We swept. Then I vacuumed, and then Matt vacuumed. That white dust that sheetrock produces...oh man, we sucked so much of that off the floor and out of the crevices. At one point the vacuum cleaner gave signs of walking off the job, and Matt took it out into the backyard and gave it a talking to. Or cleaned the filter. Then Lincoln and I mopped, the old-fashioned way, with two buckets of water, one for clean water and soap, and the other to rinse.

Have you ever mopped a concrete slab? It does not make you feel like the smiling housewife in a 1950's commercial. More that the water disappears before your very eyes, soaked into the concrete, and you hardly feel like you're doing anything, except the mop and then the water and then you get filthy. And this feels like progress. Also, mopping is hard. It wasn't like schmooping or schmopping or whatever my hardwoods, with the cute microfiber mop head and the darling spray bottle. This mopping made my back sore. And it was a lot of floor and it's not smooth, frictionless floor.

Even so, morale was high. There was a definite esprit de corps, and many hands make light work and all. It just got later and later. And Matt showed no signs of stopping. Like the Oompa Loompas in that one part of that movie. Or like Kurtz. Dude was determined. Did I totally get the timeline and the urgency? Do I now? Not really, but I didn't want to be the weakest link.

Somehow in typing all this it doesn't seem like that much work. But at the time, I swear, I thought, "We few, we happy few! The bards will sing of what we have done this night!"

We got the floor clean, and it was dry almost immediately. Matt rigged up the sprayer with the concrete stain and put the first coat down. We sprayed our way out of the basement and up the stairs. I staggered into the dawn and realized that Laura was getting up for school. I got her on her way, showered, and fell asleep. And Hank, bless his sweet heart, slept until after ten o'clock.

Not much was accomplished on Friday. I was too tired to work out with my neighbor. But not too tired to roll over there and eat birthday cake with her family. I figure I burned a lot of calories mopping that concrete slab.

So the floor is coming along. Matt put a second coat of sealer on it this afternoon. I'll do a post with all the floor details, it might be edutaining for someone. Here's what it looked like after the first coat of sealant.

Shiny!

So that is what is going on below decks. And the whole night, Matt and I got along beautifully and never squabbled. Until today when he started talking about something crazy and I was all, uh, not on my watch beeyotch, and he was all ??? and I said, um, I didn't mean for that to sound as negative as it did and he said, yeah, you couldn't have meant for that to sound as negative as it did.

I'm paraphrasing.

Longest post ever.

Happy Saturday, my dears!

So Harmonious Already, Like Oxen Sharing A Yoke

Well, that didn't take long. Matt and I have already enjoyed our first home improvement argument. Or it wasn't a full-blown argument as neither of us would show steel over something like this. It was more that we sketched out the contours of a possible argument that we could have and then I left the field, perhaps saying something like, "Well obviously you have no need of my opinion," like one says, and then Matt called foul on me for saying that and criticized the approach I was taking to the argument. It was like a meta-argument except that the idea of a meta-argument makes me so exhausted I would never admit to beginning or engaging in one.

Aren't you so glad I'm blogging every day?

The scene was set by a long trip we made to the home improvement store tonight. Matt was going and for some reason I wanted us all to go. I am still giddy with the notion of paint cards and floor finishing and things that are fun, you know? So the idea of going seemed exciting. It wasn't as exciting after I remembered I don't really like those places and then I wound up holding Hank in my arms due to an invisible, minor, and possibly illusory scratch he suffered on his arm. Before that, I did manage to have a long conversation with the flooring associate about carpet for the basement stairs. I found out that installing carpet on stairs costs $13 per stair, and that all carpet is scandalously ugly. It just is. I have carpet all over my second floor, and I've never really felt one way or the other about it. But I realized I've never bought carpet, and it isn't fun to pick out. Especially on those disembodied sample sheets. Seriously, there were some Berber samples she showed me that made me feel like I would never be joyful again. That wasn't Matt's fault.

The whole point of the trip was so that Matt could do some reconnaissance on what would be involved in going further than the basement guys are going, and sheetrocking a couple more rooms himself after they finish what they're doing. When he told me this plan, he prefaced it by saying, "Free your mind." Which is our throat-clearing utterance that we use when we want to propose something that may be met with resistance. I promised that my mind was free, and then when it turned out that his plan was something to do with building materials, I was like, "Fine, if you want to do that, go for it." And on the way to the store, I was supportive. I let him know this by saying, "I'm supportive of your plan."

But once we got home, the kids were in bed, and we were standing down in the basement, I just felt that he was being a scoosh unrealistic about how much can be accomplished before next Monday, which is when he wants all his guys to move down there and work. He says Monday is "not negotiable." Keeping in mind that Larry and Darryl the basement guys will not be gone until Wednesday. And we then need to clean and prep the floor, stain and seal it, and paint the walls. I can't see a major construction project happening if Monday is the goal. That was my position, and to strengthen it I cited Matt's well-documented and not-always-warranted optimism about how much can be done in a limited amount of time. I could give you chapter and verse, but it will all be in the biography I will write about him so I will spare you here. His optimism and self-belief are among his most appealing traits, they are. Anyway.

So I was like, "It will take us all four days to do this floor and paint. There is no time for anything else." And he was all, "Yes there is. I will do it." And then I realized that there was no need for me to draw that line in the sand. What was I arguing for? If the man wants to hang some sheetrock, why not? He wasn't asking me to stand there and hold his nail apron.

Then I gestured to a wire rack hanging on the wall, where I used to store gift wrap. I told him that I looked forward to having a little gift wrap station down there again, maybe with a little table under it. He said, "Hmm, maybe in the far future, but there won't be anything in these rooms that isn't office-related." And then I was like, you're kind of being a butt, and killing my joy. And he said he didn't want to kill my joy.

But it was too late. The joy was dead. Then I stood up and brushed off the seat of my shorts and came up here to tell you about it. He followed me to admonish me for beginning to argue about the basement. That's also what we call being a butt.

Possibly I was also being a butt, due to some submerged and obscure issues of my own. I don't know.

So that is what's going on in basement today.

I'm glad we had this talk. I'm sure in a little while we'll be lapping out of the same dish again.

I love you guys and I know you would never tell me I can't have a gift wrap station in your new home office.

B

We Are Flushed with Excitement

This is Laura exulting in the fact that there's now a working toilet in our basement. That's the bathroom-in-progress behind her. As soon as the kids saw that potty, they both wanted to use it. Something about the novelty of peeing in a room in your house you could never pee in before? I will admit that I felt it too, the desire to give the toilet its maiden flush.

It is exciting though, just the idea of having more usable space in the house. The basement guys were down there all week, working on a couple of rooms for Matt and the four (!) other guys who are now in my guest room. (They hired another guy last week and things officially went from crowded to some kind of reality-show dare.) The basement space is going to be very basic--no granite wet bar--but it will give us all some much-needed wiggle room. Like I will get to wiggle back into what used to be my office.

In a spasm of frugality, Matt told the basement guys that we would do the floor and the painting ourselves. Because we are so, so handy. No, we are not. But we are game. And I have always liked the look of a concrete floor that has been stained and buffed, so we decided that's what we'd do. I researched it this morning. Most DIY websites make it seem super-duper complicated, like, compose your mind, then put on rubber waders and etch/clean the floor with acid, and then neutralize the acid with baking soda, and then pour out libations to the gods, then clean up the libations with a shop-vac, and so on.

Then I read a bunch of old Apartment Therapy posts and people were like, "Oh yeah, just throw some stain on that shit! Put a bird on it!" So I thought that if the actual task were somewhere in between those two scenarios, we could handle it.

We loaded up the whole family and went to the big box home improvement store. Matt and I talked to a fairly knowledgeable dude in the paint department, and he made it seem pretty simple. He told us that with an untreated slab, like we have in the basement, there is no need to etch it or clean it with acid, it is rough enough. We can just clean it, clean it again, apply the stain with a sprayer, and then decide if we want to put a glossy sealer on it (I do). So we left there with the tools we need to do the job, we think. I'm sure you will hear more about this.

The basement guys should be finished in the middle of the week. I will not miss the pounding. Oh my God, the pounding. When I returned from the mountains late last Sunday night, Matt warned me that they would be starting work at 7:30 the next morning. I thought, "It will be in the basement, I sleep on the second floor, how loud could it be?" Oh ha. Ha ha. It turns out that when someone is doing framing work at the bottom of your house, they are banging on the bones of your whole house. It is loud, best believe.

So, to recap: if you come to my house, we can offer you an additional place to potty. And Matt and I are going to stain the floor. I know it will be really good for our relationship, because they always say that trying new things keeps your marriage fresh. Onward.