By Anne Gagliano
The idea was to help relieve stress in my highly-stressed firefighter husband Mike’s life–to provide sanctuary, a place to relax, recover, rejuvenate. I take a lot of pride in being a good wife and, in my particular case, a good firefighter wife. We’ve been at this for 31 years, and one of the tips I’ve found in helping us both cope with the impact of a dangerous, traumatic profession is to make our home life as peaceful and as mellow as possible–smooth, orderly, quiet, decluttered, clean, and functioning. These are proven de-stressors. But what our home has lacked in the 20 years that we’ve lived here is a spacious bathroom with a deep soaker jacuzzi tub. Orderly I’ve been able to do, mellow and peaceful—mostly; but deep tub? Not till now.
My firefighter husband loves to take long baths after a 24-hour shift. He often falls asleep in the tub and would probably rest longer if he didn’t grow ice cold along with the water. I wanted to give him a long-overdue and deserved solution to the coldness of a regular bath by doing a complete bathroom remodel. And, to be honest, it’s something I’ve always wanted too, as well as a double vanity. And a walk-in shower. And real tile on a heated floor. Our house is very cold most of the year, and we have no heat in our bathroom. What luxury to have a warm floor with a tub that is not only deep enough to cover our ever-enlarging bodies but one that keeps the water warm too! Like a hot tub, only in the bathroom! That was the idea anyway. The dream.
So, I began saving for it. I’ve been saving for a while. I pitched the idea to my husband, and he agreed. He liked the tub idea. And he appreciated the thought of us for once in our long marriage being able to brush our teeth at the same time without fighting over the sink. Planning ensued; then I took the plunge. I picked a contractor after getting many bids. More planning ensued. And more. For two months. Details, decisions, choices. It’s absolutely mind-boggling how many tiles there are. And that’s the fun part! Then the big day came: the day demolition started. The day that all my plans came off the rails. And the day our decades-strong marriage began being put to the test in a whole new way.
They say that remodeling is one of the biggest inducers of stress anyone can go through, in some aspects equal to moving, divorce, even death. In my naivete, I did not believe this. I always imagined it would be fun. A dream come true. I love fixing up my house and have done so many times: new paint, flooring, furniture, blinds, light fixtures, throw pillows, paintings. But let me point something out to those of you who may not realize it: This is simply “updating” your home; it is not remodeling. Remodeling is a whole different animal–one with teeth. What was supposed to be fun, a stress-reliever for my fire hubby even, has instead turned into a nightmare. A trial. An exercise in endurance, a battle of wits and wills, and an utter invasion of privacy.
Right out of the gate, our builders encountered problems. Day one, our budget rose. Day two, it rose again. And again. And again. It has now approximately tripled from where we started. I can dimly, vaguely remember what it once was, but to be honest, I’m not even sure anymore. To accommodate the large dream that was the origin of it all—the jacuzzi soaker tub—we needed to take out closets–two and a half closets, to be precise. Losing them meant relocating stuff. Towels, sheets, firefighter T-shirt bins, even toilet paper. These things are all now sitting in my living room, as well as Mike’s entire half of our bedroom closet. So much for an orderly existence. But it’s only temporary–two weeks, our builder assured us. Two weeks! Hah! Brings up images from the movie “The Money Pit,” in which everything was supposedly going to take only “two weeks.”
We brush our teeth in the kitchen sink. We dry our hair in our guest bedroom. We shower, shave, and use the toilet—downstairs. And this is the biggest struggle of all: going downstairs in the dark. We’ve both nearly broken our necks trying to navigate those accursed stairs in the night as we try to go quickly and quietly. And we often barely make it, as it’s such a long way to go—especially when you’re half asleep and getting old.
Add to this disarray and dysfunction the piece de resistance: dust. Dust everywhere. Dust in our food. In our lungs. In our pores. Trails of dust leading to the front door. Dust in our hair, our bed, our clothes. A fine, white dust that cannot be simply swept away. It’s more like powder, cloying clogging clinging powder.
There are strangers all around us in our sanctuary; there is no privacy. My firefighter and I often work from home, as we’re both writers and have a teaching business. We huddle together downstairs as we try to concentrate in the din of hammering, banging, buzzing power tools while clouds of dust settle on our laptop screens. We glare at each other. We snap at each other. When it rains, it pours (and it has been raining nonstop since this project began, turning our white dust to paste in the yard); our long-neglected dock project has also suddenly begun. It was just the way it all fell–the bathroom remodel and the docks being rebuilt—at the same time. The dock workers are right outside our sliding door seeking cover from the rain.
Mike is trying to finish a project. I’m working on bills and asking him questions at the same time. In frustration, he says to me, “Can’t you go somewhere else? I’m trying to get some work done here.” I look at him for a moment as we hear loud thudding up the stairs to our left. To our right, the dock workers’ table saw fires up about two feet away. My angry retort to his demand is suddenly cut short as I instead begin to laugh. And this is why the words to a song by Stealers Wheel thankfully pop into my head just in time to save us from spiraling into a fight:
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Well, I don’t know why I came here tonight I got the feeling that something ain’t right I’m so scared in case I fall off my chair And I’m wondering how I’ll get down the stairs Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right Here I am, stuck in the middle with you. Yes, I’m stuck in the middle with you And I’m wondering what it is I should do It’s so hard to keep this smile from my face Losing control, yeah, I’m all over the place Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right Here I am, stuck in the middle with you …Trying to make some sense of it all But I can see it makes no sense at all Is it cool to go to sleep on the floor? Well, I don’t think I can take anymore Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right Here I am, stuck in the middle with you. |
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Our bathroom renovation is still going on. It is a test; a stretch; one with a fast, demanding learning curve. But we are learning and we’re surviving. And what we’ve discovered I will pass on in my next column in the hopes of helping other firefighter couples work together peaceably on major projects such as ours without killing each other.
Anne Gagliano has been married to Captain Mike Gagliano of the Seattle (WA) Fire Department for 31 years. She and her husband lecture together on building and maintaining a strong marriage.
