(Original publication date:) Tuesday, November 01, 2005
My fireplace is laying all over the back deck.
No, our home did not sustain a massive earthquake with our address at its epicenter. What we are suffering is the dreaded “Home Renovation.”
Twenty-two years in the same house bring some interesting challenges. The structure is showing its years and, like me, it is not aging gracefully. Built in 1975, our home embraces many (formerly) charming features we see in other Morgan Hill homes of the 70s such as the brownish fake rock adorning fireplaces and random exterior wall surfaces. As for the “avocado green” and “harvest gold” decorators of that era lavished all over the place…well, let’s just not go there.
In the last couple of years my adrenaline level has shot up as I noticed more and more homes in Morgan Hill undergoing some pretty heavy-duty transformations. Thanks to low interest rates and high homeowner equity, remodeling projects have become all the rage. In our neighborhood, marvelous exterior makeovers are popping up, sleek new windows gaze elegantly street ward, and even soaring add-on porticos are possible, bringing stylish curb appeal to older homes.
When I bring up the subject of “re-doing” a portion of our house, my husband typically staggers about in full Fred-Sanford-heart-attack mode, but I learned that if I leave him alone he eventually settles down and listens to reason. While a couple of rooms at our house are on their second or third incarnation, the old family room fireplace looked just a tad bit tired, and no amount of painting, re-flooring or new throw pillows was going to rectify the situation.
Hence, we jumped into the remodeling fray, and the brownish fake rock fireplace was my latest mission. Cleverly, I reminded my husband that he’d need to purchase at least a couple of absolutely indispensable new tools vital to this project to add to his growing collection in the garage. Shrewdly, I explained how I would be “happy” to help him, such as in laying out the new (and also fake) river rock fireplace design - hoping he’d forgotten about the joint wallpapering project several years ago that required serious post-papering marriage counseling. And with all the craftiness I could muster, I reminded him of the appreciation factor - how this one tiny little project will elevate our home’s value to stellar new heights.
Having finally won this particular skirmish, I was excited to see all the lovely rocks - boxes and boxes of rocks - delivered to our house. Confident that the project would soon be underway, I took a short trip to visit family and friends and returned to…nuclear winter.
Deciding to “surprise” me while I was away, my husband took sledge hammer in hand and battered and hacked away many pounds of 1970’s era rock. The result was a thick layer of powdery gray mortar dust that settled far and wide throughout the entire house.“You’ll probably want to clean that up pretty soon,” he announced brightly as I stood there, mouth agape, suitcases suspended lifelessly in each hand.
Needless to say, that clean-up project was a full three days long.Which brings me back to our fireplace and what it is doing out on the deck. Recalling my helpful offer of a few weeks ago, my husband built a tidy 12x7-foot frame in exact replica of the fireplace. He deposited said 12x7-foot frame on the rear deck - surrounded by boxes and boxes of fake river rock, and he is letting me have at it.
I don’t know, but do you think there may be a bit of an ulterior motive here?
Gale Hammond is a 22-year resident of Morgan Hill and a new columnist at the Morgan Hill Times. Reach her at galehammond@aol.com.
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