My husband, Jeff, and I are doing something that nearly everyone insists is a really bad idea for married couples: we’re building a house. I’d wager that most of you who’ve built a house are now cringing at the thought; that conviction is based on the consistent reactions we’ve gotten so far.
One woman I talked to admitted she nearly divorced her husband while they were building and said she would never, ever build another house as long as she lived. I had no idea how to respond to that. That’s like telling a pregnant woman that the pain she’s about to endure is indescribably horrific, and good luck with that.
Yes, it’s stressful. Fortunately, Jeff and I have complementary approaches to this process. The outside appearance of the house was of paramount importance to my husband, while I was most concerned about the inside flow. So he concentrated on finding plans that had the curb appeal he wanted, and I concentrated on ripping apart those plans’ interiors and rebuilding them the way I wanted.
Like the good husband he is, he let me have my way on things that made no sense to him. A good example is the kitchen. I removed an entire room from the original house plans to make room for a huge kitchen. Jeff has no idea what I’m going to do with all of that space, but he’s very Zen about it because he figures at the very least, he’ll get baked goods on a regular basis to justify the removal of a Family Room.
And like the good wife I am, I’m letting him have what he wants even though it makes no sense to me. For instance, we’re building a garage that’s much bigger than is necessary to house his Volvo and my little Pontiac. Apparently, garages are very important to men, and I respect that.
Fortunately, we found a wonderful builder, and we’re developing a great relationship with him. In fact, when he told me that the maple kitchen cabinets I coveted were pricing out within our cabinet allowance, I professed my love for him. I think he must hear that a lot because it didn’t seem to faze him.
There are two down sides to all of this wonderful-ness—the first being that we’re now poor. We didn’t go crazy with our design, but when you build a house, you begin to fully comprehend what it means to be in serious debt.
The second problem is that I’m driving everyone I know crazy with questions about their kitchens. “What do you like about your kitchen?” “What would you change about your kitchen?” “What do you like about your kitchen that you also want to change?” Now that I’m getting the chance to design exactly what I want, it’s a bit terrifying. What if I completely screw it up?
My son is as excited as a 10-year-old gets about the prospect of moving into a new house. In trying to get him involved in the process, I made the mistake of telling him he could choose any color of paint he wanted for his new room. I was thinking, “What’s the harm?” Even if he goes for Barney purple, who really cares?
This is what he came up with: one blue wall, one orange wall, and one red wall. He was thinking hard about a fourth color when I suggested he leave one wall white just so people have something to focus on when they feel a migraine coming on.
I asked him why he chose those particular colors, and he looked at me like “duh…” (perhaps you know that look?). “Blue and orange for the Illini and red for the St. Louis Cardinals,” he proclaimed. Silly me, I didn’t think there was method behind his madness.
Later, my husband asked me why I had given our son carte blanche with his bedroom, and my only defense was, “How was I supposed to know that’s what he would come up with?!”
Ah, yes. It begins… TPW