Skye and I want to rip out the Berber carpet that we had installed in the basement years ago when my mother-in-law briefly lived in what is now the mancave. We want to replace it — the carpet, not the mother-in-law (Hi, Shirley! *waves at mother-in-law* You are irreplaceable!) — with the tile we have leftover from the home improvement project we still refer to as the DIY that almost dissolved our marriage.
Skye: “I thought you knew what you were doing!”
Me: “I thought you knew what you were doing!”
Skye: “Well you sounded like you knew how to grout!”
Me: “That’s just the way I sound! I don’t know anything!”
Skye: “Well you act like you know everything!”
Me: “I thought I told you the first week we met! I am ATNA!” (All talk no action.)
Skye: “You did. But if you don’t act now and help me scrub the grout off of this tile this is going to look like ass!”
Those might not be the exact words. But just imagine it all being said through gritted teeth while the veins in our necks look like night crawlers.
The kids felt bad about our necks and helped us scrub the surprisingly quick drying terra cotta-colored grout out of the crevices of the porous off-white tile. In some areas, it was too late. We couldn’t completely scrub off the grout but it sort of looks like it came that way. Dim the lights. Who’ll know the difference?
What we learned from that experience:
1. Amy: once the grout has been poured you do not have time to grocery shop while it hardens just a little.
2. Skye: you do not have time to play baseball in the yard with the boys while Amy is at the store imagining in her mind that you’re monitoring the grout.
3. Amy and Skye: if you have a friend who has a thorough understanding of how magically fast grout dries, and is also a licensed counselor, invite him over to manage the project and guide you through false beliefs that even though Skye has degrees in engineering and physics, he is not a tile superhero. And even though Amy talks a good talk and makes it sound like she knows what she is doing, she is faking. She’s a big fat faking faker. The only times she means it is when she raises her right hand and says, “I swear on a stack of bibles!” It is the equivalent of the gavel coming down in a courtroom. Believe her only then.
4. All engaged couples: tile a floor before tying the knot. Solving a problem on a timer is an awesome prenuptial test. How one hangs the toilet paper is something any couple can work around, especially if they have more than one bathroom. The toilet paper test can never be used as a substitute for the tile test. It doesn’t even come close. The mother-in-law test, maybe. That’s for another blog.
So, we’re really looking forward to this home improvement project, as you can imagine!! And it’s not one we want to wait an additional six, seven, eight years to complete. Not since the basement’s recent acquisition of The Smell.
When we installed the Berber carpet, we thought “Cold cement floor….let’s get the thickest pad available.” We didn’t yet have an unreliably housetrained pet store dog when we chose the spongiest, most absorbent pad ever, or the conversation would have gone like this:
Me: “Even though this is going to cost more let’s get the thickest pad they have. Cushion the fall if anyone tumbles down these stairs.”
Skye: “But if the dog pees down there it won’t matter how many times we get the carpet shampooed. The pad will be a constant source of urine, a septic tank, if you will. A week after the spots get shampooed, the stains will be wicked back up into the carpet.”
Unfortunately, that conversation never happened before we placed our order. Without the crystal ball, or previous experience with a special dog that thinks it’s okay to pee indoors, how could we know? What we do know is that it’s football season and we can’t hang out in the mancave with The Smell. With football season calling our names, The Smell as our common enemy, and our previous tile nightmare adventure under our belts, we ought to tackle this project from a much stronger place.
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