Flex-Time: 6-Week Job Stretches to 12 Months

It’s been exactly one year to the day since we took out a permit to remodel.

It all started with a daydream I had about how nice it would be to have two bathrooms. For 10 years we had managed fine with just one in our small house in Venice. Sure, we were used to bigger, but that was when the kids were still around to fill up a three-bedroom, three-bath house in Northridge.

When they flew the coop, we wanted to live by the sea and settled for less, happy to do without the disposal, dishwasher, central air (who needed it--the weather is perfect in Venice) and one bathroom.

It was no problem as long as my husband, Al, went off to work at an early hour, allowing me to squander as much time as I wanted in the tub. Then Al retired, and that’s when the hankering for a second bathroom began. Two people home all day, bumping into each other, we learned to live with. But pounding on the bathroom door, well, one could come to blows over this.

Eyeing the useless part of our long and narrow 9-by-20-foot den, we envisioned a bathroom and a closet in one corner, a den for us and its use as a guest room for out-of-town visitors. Out went the call for bids.

They came in, starting at $10,000 and up to $15,000. Windows had to be changed, part of the sunken den had to be elevated and, of course, the interior finishing was not included.

How long would it take? Anywhere from six to eight weeks, we were told. “And, don’t worry about the mess. We’ll cordon off the living room and come in through the back door to the den.”

It sounded nice and clean to me, even though I knew that six weeks could stretch to 12, give or take a week. It would be worth it.

But, Al, who is a perfectionist, decided that none of the bidders would do good work (he checked this out among the many references given), and said he would take on the job himself.

Al had been an engineer, and although he has done some nice cabinet work, laid linoleum, etc., this would be his biggest job ever.

“Do you think you can do it?” I asked.

“Oh sure, I’ll contract out for the plumbing and the new stucco where the windows will be changed. I can do the electrical and the framing,” he said.

I held my breath with the next question. “How long do you think it’ll take?” I asked.

“A few months,” he answered glibly.

As a dutiful wife, I laid low while he drew his plans and smoked his pipe over the next two weeks or so. Then he went for the permit.

A long discussion ensued over whether to pull the old walls down. “Why?” I asked. He wanted to insulate, and the stucco on the old walls would have to come down.

“How you gonna do that, hire somebody?” He grinned and got his heavy hammer. Ever the helpful wife, I laid bedsheets over the living room furniture while he knocked the stucco out. Every night I swept and dusted and threw new bedsheets on the furniture. Every night I washed the old.

The plastic sheeting Al had hung over the doorway did nothing to keep the dust from seeping through. I sent our beautiful area rugs out for cleaning, and when they came back, we covered them with plastic.

Al developed sore muscles. We ordered a Dumpster at $70 a haul. It filled our curb like an ugly monster. Al shuffled broken concrete and old stucco and new wood back and forth in a wheelbarrow. I watched him through the window as he heaved a pile of rubbish up and over into the Dumpster.

The next day he walked hunched over. I developed sympathetic back pains. Out of commission, we both sat rigid on the sofa watching TV for two days in a living room packed with den furniture.

“What’s to eat?” he asked.

“Forget it. I feel as bad as you do,” I said.

He struggled to the car and got us a pizza. It was our first in five years.

Potential visitors called from the Midwest. “Sorry, there’s no room. Won’t be done for a couple of months, but if you really want to, we can put you up on the sofa.”

Those with no spouses or children took us up on the offer, filling our living room with their luggage. We enjoyed their company, but we lost a couple of weeks. Who’s gonna work when there are places to tour and news to catch up on?

Summertime came and there was tennis to play. Not me. Al. Tennis and breakfast with a crony ran into hours, three times a week. The community theater called to ask for his help. How could he turn them down? He had been helping them for years building and striking sets. He took his hammer and left.

For our 40th anniversary we had planned a five-week trip through Europe. September was the target month. Completion date for the den was in serious doubt.

“Let’s postpone the trip to May of next year,” I urged.

“Never postpone a trip,” Al said. “Who knows how our health will be?”

I was easily persuaded. Besides, I needed a break from the mess.

We arranged for a friend to house-sit. “Don’t go in the den,” I warned her. “You might trip on the boards.” The plumber hadn’t finished and there was a gaping hole in the floor. There were also gaping holes on the outside wall where the old windows had been removed.

Al nailed up boards and covered the holes with plastic sheeting in case of rain and roving bandits.

The day before our departure, the Dumpster showed up again. I helped, picking up slabs of stucco with my bare hands and shoving them into the Dumpster.

I swept down the driveway, packed our bags and we left, the Dumpster still in the street.

When I walked into the house five weeks later, I wanted to cry. Everything was as we had left it. I had dreamed while in our hotel in Vienna that I would find the work finished; if not with the new bathroom in place, at least my old useless den with the old floor and real walls. It is then when I went completely bonkers.

I no longer swept and dusted. I took to long outings, anything to get away from the hammering and disarray. After a couple of days of pipe smoking and staring glassy-eyed at the mess, Al pulled himself together again.

A month later, he asked, “What color do you want for the bathroom tiles?”

“I don’t care,” I screamed.

“Whaddaya mean you don’t care?” he replied.

“I’m selling the house,” I shouted.

The next day, he announced that our beautiful fuchsia plants were dead.

“I know, I killed them,” I answered.

“How did you kill them?” he asked.

“I didn’t water them,” I said.

How could I drag a hose across the lumber and new shower stall that stood in the middle of the yard? Besides, I knew I couldn’t go to prison for killing plants.

When friends came to inspect his progress, they egged him on with thrilling comments on his expertise.

“You could be a professional carpenter,” one said.

“Good,” I thought, “let him get a decent job, and I’ll find somebody else to do this.”

Puffed up like a peacock, he tackled the project with renewed vigor.

Tennis reared its ugly head again, and I threatened him with divorce, egged on by my women friends who said, “If it were I. . . .”

He kept his tennis to a minimum after I shouted: “This is not a hobby. It’s tennis or the den.” He cut his tennis time in half, a rare concession.

We’re now in our 12th month. I have carefully entered our expenses in a little book, noting that our costs are slightly over the first bid, but with much more accomplished.

There is still carpeting and fixtures to buy and a big painting job inside and out. But I can actually sit in the room and call it my new den. I can also sit on my new toilet. Ok, so the floor is still concrete, but soon it will be covered. When? A couple of weeks. Maybe three.

READERS WELCOME TO SHARE THEIR REMODELING TALES Readers wishing to share their remodeling experiences should send queries or manuscripts to Real Estate Editor, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles 90053.