Last October, when we were down in New Haven for my cousin Rebecca’s wedding, we made an IKEA run to get flooring for the batcave and the front room. We knew we wouldn’t get to this project until the addition was all wrapped up, but we had no particular time frame in mind. We figured our part would be to remove the old carpet, and Our Hero Michael would install the new flooring. So this morning, sated on a breakfast of whole grain pancakes spiked with bananas, blueberries, and – in my case, walnuts and chocolate chips – I belched happily and asked Best Beloved when he wanted to get moving on our end of the deal.
Kevin’s never been one to shy away from a project. He’d already bought a small crowbar, to remove the baseboards. So he picked it up and went into the batcave … just to see how easily a small section of baseboard would come up.
Five and a half hours later, he was done.
This carpet used to cover the living room as well, when Kevin first saw this house. I don’t have words to describe how much I hate it.
The dark part: what is that? Is that dirt? Is that mold? Oh my god, I don’t even want to know.
What I like about Kevin’s style of work is, he gets things done. I’m much slower than he is on this type of project. If I had been the one doing this, I would have removed everything from the room completely…then I would have seen all the dust on the knickknacks…then I would have dusted them all…then I would have contemplated all the stuff in this closet – things like purses I never use – and I would have started in on sorting through it all…you get my drift. In the meantime, Kevin’s just MOVING.
All swept up and vacuumed.
While he worked on the batcave, I got started on the basement. Of which there are no pictures. I did pretty much what I described above: the GOAL was to sweep and mop the front room of the basement, which has gotten disturbingly grimy over the past few months. But I WOUND UP filling about four trash bags with junk and reorganizing some stuff. And then I swept and mopped.
Feeling super virtuous, I headed back upstairs only to find that Kevin had started in on the front room.
He started at the back corner, just nudging the furniture aside as he went. He quickly made an unfortunate discovery…underneath the sorta gray industrial carpet was another whole layer of carpet – a dingy yellow. Horrors!
Undaunted, he kept going. As you can see, by now he had shed the flannel shirt, as well as the surgical scrubs he sometimes wears around the house.
That’s the underneath-carpet he’s wrestling with here.
Here he is, in the corner where we throw our hats, mittens, and boots. He’s prying up the nail-studded board that the edges of the carpet were nailed to. And at right you can see just how many garbage bags were generated. We may as well get this over with now – in a few months, our town is going to a “pay as you throw” deal, where you have to purchase special trash bags (at maybe two bucks a pop). We’re actually all in favor of that – there’s nothing like being connected to your actions via your wallet to make you steward your resources more carefully – but hey, let’s get this stuff out on the curb before that new policy kicks in!
The mildewy smell from these ancient carpets is incredible – I’m really glad we’re doing this. I’m also convinced Charlie will be happier, as he’s got kitty allergies.
Tomorrow, I have a six mile run planned. Yippee! Believe it or not, even though the snow’s pretty much melted from the sides of the road, I’m going to do it on the treadmill . I’m really loving fiddling with the speed and tracking things in my training log. While I’ve recovered from the overtraining of a few weeks ago, I’m still not particularly happy about my overall speed – I’m faster than 10 minute miles, but not by much. But, as per my guru, Galloway, I’m now being a good girl and not running more than three times a week. The one thing I’m still cheating on is my walking breaks – I’m not walking as frequently as I’m supposed to be. Ego, ego, ego.
In moments like these, I have to remember why I’m going with Galloway to begin with: my long-term goal is to be running 5 and 10K’s well into my sixties or even seventies. This is a trait I get from my paternal grandfather. In 1995, I was visiting with him, and he wanted to join me on my run. He was 85 years old, his brain riddled with the Alzheimer’s that would end up nailing him two years later; he’s wearing old-man pants hiked up to his sternum and a bright red Mr. Rogers cardigan, but I’ll be damned, he was running. Atta boy, Sumner.
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