A few months ago, my toilet overflowed in the bathroom and the carpet and pad were simply not salvagable. I have to admit I enjoyed ripping up the carpet and the padding because I have always hated having carpet in my bathroom and wanted tile...or at the least linoleum. My co-worker Jack gave me enough leftover tile to tile the bathroom It sat in a box in the bathroom for weeks because I certainly didn't think I could do something like that on my own. I figured as soon as I got through paying taxes I'd work on finding someone to pay to lay tile.
Then came Joe. Within a few days of moving in with me, he had not only decided that he wanted to do the tile job himself, but in addition to re-tiling, tear out the old dated tub and countertop and make the bathroom look really nice. From there he got the idea that the master bedroom closet could be expanded if we took out the dated vanity that I didn't use and voila...full scale master bedroom/bathroom re-model is in full swing.
I came home from work one day to find walls knocked out and a tub full of sheetrock and tiles from the bathtub area. And Joe...patiently working on measuring for sheetrock and moving light fixtures to better locations, etc. I didn't realize that I was marrying a handy man in addition to all of the other things that are so wonderful about him.
There's something very freeing about knocking out a wall and getting rid of ugly old mildewed dated fixtures. With every 2x4 that has been nailed in place to accomodate what will be a new wall in the expanded closet, to every load of trash, counter, wood, etc we have hauled out of the bathroom my excitement has grown. I am really enjoying envisioning what the new is gonna look like. And even though it feels like we are doing this for someone else to enjoy since we have the house for sale, its still pretty satisfying.
Sometimes when you pull out the old, you discover a lot of gunk underneath that was hidden by the exterior surface. You might put a fresh coat of paint on something or spruce something up on the outsdie but underneath its still old and rotting and smelly and in need of being torn out. Its only in peeling away the layer, knocking down the walls, pulling up the carpet, that you discover what you were covering up.
And so it is that sometimes we need to be re-modeled. Sometimes on the outside we may look okay, we may even be able to convince ourselves that the interior is just fine. But like the overflowing toilet which caused me to have to pull up the carpet and pad and discover the moldy underside of what looked on the outside to be perfectly good carpet, sometimes it takes an incident to make us take action and really get to the root of the problem.
Sometimes the exterior we present doesn't match up with the inside. Sometimes its easier to just ignore the things we know we need to change because change is so costly sometimes. No matter how much you gloss over the problem you still have the rot underneath.
I remember when we lived in Stillwater we had this storm cellar on our back patio. The steps leading down into the cellar were wood and obviously rotting. Instead of ripping them out and replacing them, we simply put a coat of paint over the steps to make them look better. And they did. But when the first spring tornado warning sounded and my dad stepped on the top step of the cellar to lead us down and fell through the rotten step which gave way under his foot, we didn't address the problem, rip out the rotten wood and replace the steps.
I knew for years that I wasn't taking good care of myself. The doctor even told me I was "pre-diabetic" and advised me to do the things I needed to do to keep from becoming a diabetic. My response was to kid myself into thinking that it wasn't all that bad and that I was healthier than some of the people around me and that I could continue to do exactly as I pleased. Until the day came that I was so sick I couldn't lift my head and went to the doctor to find my blood sugar level was over 500 and that I was now a diabetic. I had to remodel me at that point. I had to rip out the mindset that I was untouchable and that it wouldn't happen to me and replace those bad notions with a new attitude about health.
Its super easy to judge people sometimes based on the exterior. In our superficial society, the right car, the right neighborhood, the right labels on our clothing can make the difference on how we are perceived. Yet time and time again, those who seem to have it all, fame, fortune, good looks, the world on a string are not what they seem. Conversely, those who have little in the way of material wealth are the richest people on earth because of what's inside of them.
It doesn't take a tile saw, or sheet rock or grout or a level to re-model our minds and clean out the gunk. Sometimes when we peel back the layers of mistrust, and hurt, and jealousy and negativity and deal with the root and knock out the entire wall, not just gloss over it and replace it all with forgiveness and gratitude we end up a much healthier, updated version of ourselves.
Soon the sawdust and sheetrock dust and ugly wallpaper will be a memory and I will be enjoying the newness of an updated and nicer bathroom and closet. Its not gonna happen overnight. Just like changing the bad habits and things that weigh me down physically, emotionally and spiritually haven't happened overnight. I'm a work in progress. By the time I finish one LeeAnn improvement project I'm sure another one will pop up and need attention.
I have the tools to do the job.
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