Since buying our first co-op, my husband and I constantly been in renovation hell.  Nothing is ever finished.  Everything can be better.  Right now, the focus is on one of the bathrooms in our house.  It’s starting to wind down and that’s when I get nervous, cuz I know he (husband) is already plotting what his next money pit will be.  

When we lived in the city, we owned our co-op for eight years.  I would estimate we were in renovation seven years and 364 days.  We never got to that front door knob and I know it killed him to leave it be.  Here’s some highlights:

Living without a functioning kitchen for three months.  We ate out almost every night, except the night we tried a microwavable menu of chicken strips, vegetables and mashed potatoes. Well, the sodium content made our lips well to Angelina Jolie standards, so back to the diner we went. As bad as that was, it was a snooze cruise compared to … 

Living without a bathroom for five months.  Yes.  Five.  We’d get up around 5 AM, walk the dog then head to the gym where we’d kind of work out but mostly relieve ourselves like a horse, then shave and shower and go to work.  We’d do the horse thing again before we went home, and that was it for the night, except the one night I absolutely couldn’t hold it and threw down one of the dog’s weewee pads, straddled it and just let loose.  With the kitchen shutters wide open. Hello world.  My bedroom night stand was a new Kohler toilet inside the box.  This went on for two years.  Oh and since the apartment was pushing two hundred years old, every renovation caused wall damage which then meant more skim coating by our adopted older son, Ramon.  

Let’s meet Ramon.  For a while we did think we were housing Osama bin Laden.  Every night I’d come home and Ramon we would be at it.  Our dog, Gaby, would be right by his side and usually had some spackle or dry wall stuck to her ass.  One Sunday night he didn’t stop until after 10:00 PM.  Then we found out just what was fueling him … a baggie of cocaine he left on the bathroom sink.  So we had to be strategic regarding when we’d allow him to indulge and when to limit his energy.  Nice enough guy, although the neighbors told us he slept a lot of the day on the couch while we were at work.  He would spring into action around 4:30 which then meant he stayed for dinner.  Our eldest son; a spackled coked out terrorist.  

But man could he make a two hundred year old wall look brand spanking new.  We called him the Picasso of Plaster.   When we moved to New Jersey, we briefly considered bringing him with us to do the new grunt work.  That consideration had a shelf life just shy of a half a second.  Which brings us back to “what next”?

The kitchen and three bathrooms are done.  All five bedrooms are done.  The basement’s finished.  We had the driveway paved and the walkway decorated with brick.  Paint the house?  Done. New roof?  Not yet.

Let’s just sell it and start a new one.  I think we (well one of us) has a problem that needs to be addressed.  It’s a neurosis I’ve named Dollhouse Syndrome.  The need to never finish.  The need to strive for better.  No finish line in sight.