The Wrecking Ball

Beau has a new nickname. If you are are a careful reader, I bet you can guess what it is.

Yep.

He's the Wrecking Ball. But not in a totally bad way. I mean, I'm sitting on the couch blogging and he's under the house in the dark and scary crawl space cutting pipes and making kitchen magic happen. What a guy.

But here's how he got his new moniker. See, I hate mess. And I'm now living in a construction site. If I wasn't completely mortified by the state of my house, I'd post pictures. But, I won't. Sorry. No way in h-e-double hockey sticks will I post this kind of squalor online. Em-barassing.

The contents of my kitchen are strewn about the dining room, the washing machine is sitting in the threshold of the living room and dining room, the back yard looks as if the Clampetts have moved in (water heater, oven (with door removed), dishwasher, dryer and building supplies are all over the place) and there is a fine thick layer of plaster dust everywhere in the house.

Couple that with the Wrecking Ball and you've got enough to make this gal go a little nutty. See here's a brief scenario that explains why he gets the fun name: Yesterday we pulled the wood from the one wall attached to the house. (It seemed like a very innocuous recommendation from Jim, the contractor. Turns out it took up a large chunk of the day.) There were wood splinters, nails and debris everywhere. Beau then went outside to patch a hole in the roof from an exhaust pipe we removed. The ladder, tools, flashlight, etc. were strewn all over the yard. When he finished the roof repairs he came in to replace a water damaged 2x4. Again, wood debris and sawdust were everywhere. What's to be done? Obviously take another trip to Home Depot. (And by default, the I-can't-stand-mess-gotta-get-it-looking-like-humans-live here gal got to clean up the trails of beau.)

Don't get me wrong, I'm so glad he's working at the pace he is. We've turned the corner from destruction to construction and that feels really good. I do, however, get mildly amused when I can trace exactly where he has been and what he has been doing by the trail he's left.

When I was little my mom would walk though the house after my bath or after basketball practice picking up my discarded items of clothes and she'd go on and on about how there is a snake in the house and she's shedding her skin. Now I see what that was like. And like mom, I'm dealing with it with a sense of humor.

Back in the day my mom was probably thinking something along the lines of, "Thank God that child is in the tub. She needed a bath." Instead of, "If I pick up one more sock this child leaves behind I'll be carted away by CPS." Likewise, I've got the attitude that he's climbing on the roof and under the house so I don't have to, so picking up a few tools (over and over and over again) seems like the better end of the deal.

The good news, though, is that we are making serious progress. Today alone I learned how to:

1. Run new wiring
2. Hang insulation
3. Run a floor sander

Soon I'll be opening shop. But first, we'll have a late night sanding party and get up early to hang drywall. The plasterer comes in the morning and then the cabinets will go in shortly thereafter. Yay!!!

Gotta get the sander out of the hands of the Wrecking Ball.

Not because I think he'll break anything, but because he's been hard at work since 8 a.m. It is currently 1:35 a.m. The poor man needs a break.

Any suggestions on how to deal with the dirt, grime and chaos that seems to come with living in the midst of a construction site?