For the first time since the middle of September 2013, the condo we purchased first is starting to feel like a livable space. Three or four days after the floods came, the carpets were ripped out and hauled away from both units, along with all of the walls from the knees down in one, and similar sections of two walls in the other. When we eventually let our kids move back into the lesser affected unit, it was with the idea that it would only be a few months of them living on bare concrete masked by a couple cheap rugs and walls patched with OSB. It made me feel like a slum lord rather than a kindly landlady. The kids hated it too, living in a shell of their homes, crammed in too closely with too many bodies (human, feline, canine, piscine). It was like the trauma of the flood never ended for them, and the ongoing stress caused damage to the family structure that may never fully fade away. And the longer it went on, the harder it was for them physically and emotionally, and to some significant extent financially. (Bare concrete floors in a garden level apartment are expensive to heat during harsh Colorado winters.) I don't know how long it will be before they stop tensing up at the sound of thunder (like tonight) or what it will take for them to trust that their homes are safe shelters again. Some traumas like this take decades to beat. My own mother would unplug our televisions from the electrical outlets and the antenna-later-cable every time a thunderstorm rolled through for thirty years, following a lightning strike through a TV antenna that burned down our house when I was a baby and she was the age my children are now. I hope that my kids don't have to carry this with them for that long, but I suspect they could.
The carpet guys came in the middle of the afternoon, as the plumbers and tilers were winding down for the day. After we all emptied the rooms with concrete floors and swept up for them, they placed tack strips and the thick green pad. Once the pad was spread out and starting to be glued down, I noticed two things. First, it was the exact same color as putt-putt golf greens, and second, just that one change made the entire vibe of the condo different. Yes, the pad absorbed sound, so the radio playing loudly didn't echo as badly. But it was more than that. It stilled the air and made it feel warmer, safer. The color is too close to indoor-outdoor carpeting to give the full effect of upgraded modernity, but it brought us light years closer to the feeling of a clean, finished home. The carpet is due tomorrow morning first thing, and right after lunch the replacement stove arrives. I've already signed the listing papers with the realtor, and finally I think we are going to make our deadlines to getting it on the market. It's going to look fantastic, and it is going to sell. I believe it now.
I have been putting a lot of time and energy into my own project in that condo, most of which has centered on painting the cabinets. This has taken three times as long as it should have, because I wasn't using the proper tools or supplies. Six or seven trips to Home Depot in three days is really not as fun as it sounds. I've learned the hard way to start with the big guns, and go for the oil-based Kilz rather than waste time with the latex version, or worse, believe the claim on the label "paint and primer in one." I lost a day and a half of work to that nonsense. But now, the lower cabinets are almost complete. I've even rehung three of the doors, and put one of the drawers back in to stay. And the contractors who have been super nice to me already have volunteered to place the handles and pulls for me. One of the guys putting down carpet pad watched me doing another round of paint on the drawer fronts and said, "You're a hard-working woman, huh?" My initial reaction was, "Depends on who you ask," but I bit that back and said, "I have no choice. I need to sell this place so I can afford to buy a house." But I think there's a little more to it than that. I take pride in being able to do some of this myself, even knowing that the place would never be done in time without the hard labor of all these guys setting tile, nailing in tack strips, and running the plumbing. I can't do it all myself. I can't even do a tenth of it alone. But I can make a difference. I can have an impact. Just watch.
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