Restoration

Slowly, we are putting our house back in order.

The basement finally dried. We still don't know what caused the flooding. Maybe it does have something to do with the downspout and water draining into the house rather than away from it. The electrician is finished, leaving many holes in the walls where he drew wires through.

Immediately, The Man arranged for a drywaller to come in to patch the holes. The drywaller was done in a day. This morning, he came back to do a final sanding. While he was still sanding, The Man decided he would pull kitchen cabinets apart to clean out behind them. He saw that the electrician had put in external wiring behind the cabinet that prevented the cabinet unit from sitting flush with the wall. He wanted to take the cabinet counter off and move it back so the unit would look like it sits against the wall. He was clearly unhappy about how dirty the cabinet sides and floor were.

Then he started barking at me as to what needs to be done to clean up. I could see he was deteriorating into a foul mood because of the disarray in the house and my taking my time with my breakfast. I certainly didn't want to clean up with him if he was going to be nasty. And whatever we needed to do could wait till after the drywaller leaves. No sense getting in each other's way.

You can't expect to have wiring done without holes in the walls. You can't have the walls patched without dust everywhere. Was he going to take his mood out on me? When I didn't think the electric work was urgent or needed to be that extensive in the first place? So I said, "Why don't you go visit a friend or your brother. I am sure they would like to see you."

"I'm not getting kicked out of my own house."

"Or you could just go out and let me start the clean up." Really, I didn't want to clean up with him huffing and puffing, being foul, and barking orders at me.

He phoned a friend and left the house. That's one life line he's used.

So I pulled out other kitchen cabinet units and the stove and scraped out guck, cleaned the wall and floors and sides of the units, and put the kitchen back in place, more or less. I vacuumed and wiped down walls, ledges, frames, and surfaces. I started the laundry.

The Man came home too soon. Immediately, he complained I hadn't vacuumed properly downstairs. Deep breath. "Would you like to vacuum it again?" I called to him. So I handed everything over to him and took a rest.

The walls still need to be painted. Ha.