Messy messes

I hate messes.  But husbands and children make messes and I have one of the first and seven of the latter.  That means that I put up with a lot of messes.  Worse than child-created or husband-created messes, however, are remodeling messes.  I have a love-hate relationship with remodeling projects.  They tend to make large messes and sometimes those large messes get goofed up and then they become even larger.

We once remodeled a kitchen.  It needed it, so that part I loved.  But for quite some time my kitchen was partly in my dining room and partly hidden in various locations throughout the house.  That I hated.  My current kitchen is terribly outdated and extremely inconvenient but aside from the fact that I'd rather spend the money on bringing another child home than on a new kitchen, I really don't want to go through that again!

We also once took out a set of stairs, turned them completely around, and went through a thick stone wall to make a new hallway.  And if that doesn't sound like enough of a mess, when the workers removed the steps, they found that the walls around them had issues and the project immediately got longer.  Our one-week planned vacation which was supposed to bring me home to a "new" house, instead took me right to my parents' house where we imposed on them for two more weeks.  I put up with that one because I was in my dream home, an old (very old) stone farmhouse with a long driveway and nice backyard for the kids to play.  We thought we were there forever.  Putting in a hallway so the upstairs didn't go around in one big circle was a great idea.  Until we moved.

In this house we've remodeled two bathrooms and that's enough, thank you very much.

But if we're going to add another child, we need another bedroom.  Thankfully our basement is a full basement.  Half of the basement is a family room, the other half is divided in three with two bedrooms and a larger space for the schoolroom.  One bedrooms was completed a few years ago.  The second bedroom was my sewing room but mothers have to make concessions when working on a dozen children so the sewing room had to go.  Where it ends up is yet to be determined; the first to volunteer an open room in your house gets dibs on the first project I make there.  Anyway, the second bedroom was recently remodeled to accommodate a teenager.

Now it's time for the schoolroom.  The first order of business was to remove the ugly orange and red and black and white carpet that has been there since long before we lived here.  It was the previous owner's mancave, complete with matching red bar and refrigerator from the 40s or 50s.  The bar came out for bedroom #1, refrigerator, too.  Before removing the carpet, however, the Good Doctor thought he should remove everything from the room.  I guess this was inevitable.  I only wish it didn't all end up in the family room.  Well, now it's a family room/sewing room/playroom/schoolroom.  It's not the kind of place my college professors would have called "conducive to learning."  It's also not conducive to sewing since I can't even get to my sewing machine.  Now it just sits there within eyesight but out of reach, calling to me, mocking me to hem those new jeans or finish a project or two.  Oh, how you mock me!

Instead I'm sitting on a chair I can barely pull out from the table, trying to teach my children about gymnosperms and Missouri compromises and examples of hyperbole, all while staring at one huge mess.

The conduciveness to learning aside, I cannot possible fulfill my role of mother in this state.  I also cannot teach in such poor working conditions.  I am definitely calling my union rep tomorrow.