To quote my girl, Lizzo, “It’s about damn time!”
FINALLY, after more than 11 weeks — which was three weeks more than anticipated — our stucco remediation/exterior renovation project is finished. Other than the porta-potty that’s still in our driveway and the very large bill that’s sitting on my office desk waiting to be paid, you’d never know that we spent nearly our entire summer living in a construction zone … Unless, of course, you read this blog, live in my neighborhood, or had the misfortune of asking me how my summer was.
As I wrote before (here), it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Then again, we were only 3 weeks in at the time and thought we only had 4 or 5 more weeks to go.
We were wrong.
Because we were told the job should take 8 weeks, by week 9, I was done. Done with the noise, done with the mess, done with the intrusions, and done with the interruptions. Weeks 9, 10, and 11 weren’t as loud or dirty as the previous 8, but they were disruptive and I didn’t handle it well.
Here’s the thing: I’m not a patient person. Impatience is my toxic trait, but I own it. I try. Really, I do. But I can only take being inconvenienced for so long before I lose it. Needless to say, during week 10 when the sales rep showed up to “check-in,” I wasn’t as pleasant as I should have been. To say I came in hot is an understatement.
Thankfully, I checked myself and apologized on-site, even though I was still a little salty.
The good news is, it’s over. We are officially stucco-free and mold-free. We’re also now house-poor, giving me a new reason to be salty. But at least my house isn’t making me sick anymore, and for that I am grateful.
-LJDT
POSTSCRIPT:
To be fair, my 3-month saltiness wasn’t all about the stucco remediation. A week into the exterior work, we had to demo our en suite to remediate toxic mold, and it’s still not rebuilt. It’s been a weekly battle with the insurance company to have them pay for it. They aren’t budging and I’m not giving in, but that is a post for another day. Just know that part of my ire stems from the fact that I’m still sharing a bathroom with my 16-year-old son. It’s less than ideal, to say the least. I recognize that I’m lucky to have more than one bathroom at home, but I’m still not happy about it.
How in the world did I survive growing up in a one-bathroom home?! Stay tuned for a post on that soon.
