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Cottrel: When a drip turns into a renovation

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By Pam Cottrel, Contributing Writer 11:07 PM Saturday, July 31, 2010

It started with a drip; just an occasional drip. Then, it became a steady drip, drip drip. We put if off too long. I don’t know why, because it was obviously not going to fix itself.

But when the same plumbing problems started in an ajacent fixture, we knew it was plumbing day.

First, everything from under the sink had to be removed. The room was too tiny for stacking, so stuff had to be stacked in the hallway right next to the front door.

I have no idea how all of that stuff fit under the sink. And I have no idea why I kept buying more sink cleaner.

To access the tank, we had to remove the wicker shelves over the commode. Before we could do that the shelves had to be emptied. The shelves and contents all had to be stowed in — you guessed it — the entrance hallway. That caused a traffic jam in the lower hallway of the house that nearly required some orange traffic cones.

Then the inevitable words were spoken: “We really should paint before putting this all back in there.”

But what color do we buy? We finally settled on a boring eggshell-colored paint because the room has no windows and my hubby insisted anything darker would turn the “restroom” into a “restcave.”

To paint, we had to remove the baseboards, of course.

It was about this time that the phone went out and I had to empty the family room closet so the repairman could get to the wiring to reconnect us to the world.

The repairman had to step over the contents of the guest bathroom and the closet. To summarize our situation in one word, I’d suggest “chaos.”

Our first phone call after the repairman left was a call from out-of-state friends on a cross county trip. I’d made the mistake of saying “stop in anytime” on our Christmas card. They were driving by on  I-70 and wanted to drop in and say hello.

And so our afternoon became one of those times when you learn who your friends really are. True friends are the ones who don’t mind stepping over some boxes to share a cup of coffee with you.

And when they got back on the road again, we realized that the invitation in the Christmas card wasn’t a mistake at all.

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