Work Orders & a Desire

Before we moved into our apartment, we were told that the outgoing tenants had scratched the floor, and it was going to be replaced. The scratch was two parallel lines about ten feet long, stretching from the entrance hall, through the dining area and into the living room. We were shown the scratches and we agreed: the floor needed to be replaced. But as we were moving in imminently in order to vacate our for-sale home, the replacement would have to be done with us there.

We are massive DIY people. This comes from a combination of the ways my husband Steve and I were raised (he was the child who had a massive pile of logs dumped in the front yard and was told to chop it all for firewood — and he did. I was the child who spent my spring breaks planting grape vines, and my summers hoeing waist-high thistles out of the family vineyards) — and the fact that, with five children, money is always tight, tight, tight. So we painted and sanded and weeded and built and fixed and fixed some more. Many of our projects were done just barely adequately. We often ran out of both time and money before we could put the final polish on things. Often we did our best, but the materials — always on the cheaper end out of necessity — would show their nature. We laid soft wood instead of hard wood, we painted our cabinets instead of replacing them. We made faux granite on our laminate countertops instead of installing the real thing. It was fine: our house was large enough for all seven of us and for Easter gatherings of the large extended family. That’s what we wanted, and that’s what we got — along with quickly-scratched-up floors and permanently stained counter tops. Nevertheless there was real satisfaction taken in doing things ourselves, no matter the result.

But along they way, we also became seriously exhausted. Home ownership has many wonderful aspects. But when the work required to maintain that home begins to feel like a second, third, fourth job…well, that bears a closer look. So we did. And that closer look resulted in the decision to sell our home, move to downtown Seattle, and rent for awhile. There was a real need for both change, and for something more elemental: to have a bit of relief. To have some comforts. To share the load of maintenance, and the breakage which everyday life inflicts upon things. We were adults who wanted, in some way, to have that childhood feeling again of being taken care of.

So when we heard about our apartment’s scratched floors, I know my husband and I both shared the first initial response, which was a recoiling. And, too, a sense that here we were again: paying money for something less than ideal. Settling. But then came the revelation of renting in a building with a full time maintenance staff and a concierge: we wouldn’t be doing any of the heavy lifting. They would come, they would remove the scratched floor, and they would lay an entirely new one. There would be no cost to us other than staying out of the apartment for a work day. Sure, we couldn’t choose the color, or the kind. But right now, coming off years of home ownership, that was a blessed relief. I’ve worked as an interior design journalist: residential design is my beat. But for once, for now, having our floor replaced without having to make choices felt akin to a grandparent reaching into their pocket and pulling out a candy. When that happens you don’t really care what kind of candy it is: you’re just surprised, and delighted, that here it is: a candy, out of nowhere, being offered. If the floor about to be laid was the candy corn of floors, well, that was just fine. It was still candy. It was still being offered. That in and of itself was everything.

The floor was laid this past Tuesday. At 5 pm my son and I walked back into the apartment and they were still working. They were supposed to have been finished and gone, but it was fine: they were nearly done. I didn’t care at all that it was taking longer than expected because I had been doing home improvement projects for years and years, and I know that’s how it always is. Instead, I was far too busy marveling, along with my son, at how utterly amazing the new floors looked. It wasn’t a floor I would have chosen, and there was something great about that, because it looked terrific. I had been researching and sourcing and choosing and budgeting and laying floors — both literal and metaphorical — of all sorts for a very long time. I know others with less of a DIY bent and more cash in the bank often hire people to do all sorts of things: child care, home improvement, remodels, landscaping, organizing — the list goes on and on. But that, to date, hasn’t been us. I was the girl who went home and mucked out horse’s stalls. Steve was the boy who went home and crawled up on the roof to fix the TV antennae. I’m still very much that person; I will always feel the independent drumbeat of do it yourself. I won’t ever be able to bring myself to call down a work order for someone to come change a light bulb, no matter how many times the concierge reminds us that is something the building staff will do. We can change our own light bulbs. When the closet gets off track again we will probably attempt to fix it a few times before we call that work order in.

But it’s a revelation and a sweet relief to know that we can get help, if we so choose. We don’t always have to do it by ourselves. Right now, living here, we get to choose whether we do it, or not. I have to tell you, that feels like freedom.