It's all about me...

After the flurry of activity during the first few months of the year, what with the sheetrocking, spackling, painting, flooring, etc., the pace fell off a cliff in April. Was it necessary? No, not really. Was the weather cooperating? Yes, for the most part. So what/who was the obstacle this time? Um... me.

Gratification has been a long way in coming. From the purchase of a little piece of land to today, we’re talking about over three years. This month marks the two-year anniversary of breaking ground. To say I am weary of this project is an understatement- every spare moment, every spare thought has been devoted to thinking about designs, color, materials, structures, money, schedules, strategy, logistics, etc. And it hasn’t been simply a matter of throwing money at a problem until it fixes itself. At several junctures I’ve had to make radical “executive decisions” to change course that altered timelines and budgets radically. It has almost become instinctual. In a way you could almost say that over the past few years I’ve developed a titanium-tough exoskeleton and a stomach to match. But at what expense?

Perhaps enduring this sort of ordeal has been well documented in psychiatry textbooks or journals. Much like there are the cycles of grief, e.g., denial, fear, anxiety, anger, acceptance, etc., I think there are cycles of building a house. Or perhaps these are the same cycles that one experiences with any big project; building a house just happens to be the ultimate example. So here are what I believe to be the psychological stages of building a house:


1. Initial excitement, i.e., “I’m going to build the most awesome house ever with all of the bells and whistles I’ve read about in magazines! I am going to prove that a great house can be built affordably on time and on budget!” This is the most romantic stage wherein everything is viewed with starry-eyed wonder and anticipation. The possibilities are endless and the possibility of errors, miscalculations and snafus is but a highly abstract notion. This is the stage at which the individual will tend to tackle more than he/she is likely to be able to carry ultimately.



2. Disillusionment, i.e., “Shit, what was I thinking when I thought of doing __________. Still, this is pretty cool.” This first happens early on in the process and repeats over and over again.



3. Frustration, i.e., “Why is this taking so fucking long to get built?? Why is everything so goddamned expensive? Why is everything leaking?” No explanation needed.



4. Denial, i.e., “I’m doing okay... the sheetrock, taping and spackling should be finished in one day and should cost around $250. At this rate, I should be finished in three months and under budget.” Or “To save money, I will do ________ myself. This should put me back within budget.” Yeah, whatever gets you through the day.



5. Fear, i.e., “Oh, snap, I am anticipating another $75K in expenses, but I have only $50K left in the budget."









6. Bargaining, i.e., “Okay, instead of the SubZero refrigerator, I’ll get the cheaper Jenn Air refrigerator, and it will be just as fabulous. Yeah, that’s the ticket!” To help mitigate the sting of not building the house of your dreams, you start to try and find ways to cut corners while easing the pain via sublimation and denial.



7. Second wind, i.e., “Wow, everything is starting to heat up again; I’m very excited now.” This usually occurs several times after a period of disillusionment.



8. Despondency/depression, i.e., “I have no life. I have no friends. I am always in a shitty mood. My place is a mess. What is a ‘leisurely pursuit?’” This is the end result of months/years spent doing nothing but going to Home Depot, surfing the internet and magazines for ideas, visiting showrooms, yelling at contractors, driving to the construction site, etc.



9. Regret, i.e., “What the fuck was I thinking when I started this crazy project?” This is the point where you realize that, in the end, the dream is not all that it’s cracked up to be. Even Shangri-la requires upkeep and repair.



10. Capitulation, i.e., “Fuck it. Just get it done, no matter how much it costs.”






I think it’s safe to say that over the past month I’ve been hovering between stages 8 and 9. Although I have tried to avoid getting sucked fully into the “housing drone” mentality for the past couple of years, I think I finally succumbed in March. I entered a deep, deep depression/despair from which I have not yet fully emerged. I am not sleeping too well. I have lost interest in just about everything. I am indifferent. I am not angry nor euphoric. I’m just an empty shell at this point. My fantasy weekend would be to just to sit at home and do absolutely nothing- just sit still and stare into the void.

I have often thought about how my life would be different if I hadn’t spent the past few years doing this. I would probably be happier. I would most definitely be wealthier! I would be living in a much larger apartment in the city. I would have probably done some traveling. I would have probably seen a lot of good shows on Broadway. I would probably have been able to afford a share house at the beach every summer. I would probably be able to ditch my car once and for all (and not pay $400/month for a parking space!). But most importantly I would have had more time to be Me. In a sense, I don’t really know who I am or what makes me tick anymore. A single line from Joni Mitchell’s “Song About the Midway” struck me the other day: “I gave you all my pretty years...” Granted, I am very far from being easy on the eyes, but that kinda sums up how I feel about this project. I started out young, naive and full of energy and enthusiasm. Now I have turned a corner towards middle age and I am so much more guarded, cynical and weary of everything. I gave this house all my pretty years.

DAY OF DAWNING

As I’ve probably mentioned before somewhere on this blog, I am a big believer in fate, that everything happens for a reason. This is not to say that I am anywhere close to being religious. I just tend to think that there is no such thing as accidents or blessings. Things either fall into place or they don’t. And if they don’t, it was never meant to be. It’s circular reasoning... but it does help me get through life without too much angst.

In my March-April despondent haze, during which very, very little progressed, I kept throwing up distractions or excuses for things not getting done. Oh, I am still deciding on the tile. I am going to take time away from work and finally do the painting and second floor flooring. I am going to dig the dry wells myself. But the more I thought about taking on these tasks, the less interested I became. A year ago I was excited about the prospect of laying tile and installing flooring. Today the thought gives me the creeps. Perhaps my change of heart is a remnant of the self-inflicted trauma of trying to stain the siding myself (and the shiteous results thereof). I am so weary now, that I really have no interest in starting something that I had never done before. I am in no mood for trial and error. I am in no mood for spending another six months’ worth of weekends diddling around and accomplishing nothing. And everywhere I looked around the house, something needed work, whether it was a missing fan switch, a nail hole in the sheetrock that need patching, the unfinished fireplace surrounds, leaks in the curtain wall, etc. It has been quite overwhelming... I felt paralyzed by the burden.

At the same time, I have finally come to understand that the lack of progress can be attributed to nothing but fear. The fear of finishing. I almost feel like the character in one of those awful B-movies in which the hostage falls in love with the captor after a while. It’s rather sadistic, actually. I think I’ve been in this project for so long that it has become a way of life. It’s not a pleasurable existence, but it is a routine and a semi-hardwired mindset of constantly being on the lookout and constantly being creative. And being constantly in construction mode means that there is always the opportunity to right the wrongs and redeem myself. Once I am done, that’s it. I’m stuck with what I end up with- good or bad. I love it. I hate it. I don’t know... but I just cannot imagine just simply saying “stick a fork in it!”

FATE

Consistent with the theme that everything happens for a reason, I found myself playing host to my parents last week. I can count on them to come up to visit twice a year: on my birthday in July and then on September 11 (long story...). At the last minute they kind of invited themselves up just so they could check out the house and help out. I mean, I appreciated the gesture and all that, but the reality is that they would have had to see me at my worst emotionally. And I would have had to take time away from my work schedule to accommodate them, but I did my duty and did my thing.

Out of the blue, my mother handed me a check and told me that this was a present to be used to furnish the house. To my utter surprise, it was for $10,000. When I balked (in a kinda half-hearted way, admittedly), she insisted that they weren’t going to live forever (they’re only in their mid sixties!), and that I needed it more than them. To be honest, I don’t know their financial situation. I know that growing up we were just solidly middle class- they owned and operated a single dry cleaning business. I know that they retired about 12 years ago while they were in their early-mid fifties. They own a few properties outright. They travel about four times a year. Beyond that I knew nothing about their financial situation- whether they were scraping by every month or whether they were having Kristal and caviar every night. Anyway, the situation made me more depressed than anything else since it had finally come to this- that I would be needing their money to bail me out. I mean, in the technical sense, I suppose I didn’t really need it. I have a few untapped resources left, despite being well over $100K over budget. And $10,000 is barely even 2% of the construction costs. But even before I could weigh the pros and cons of accepting this, I realized that even though a little bit of weight was lifted off of me, I somehow felt like a total loser for even considering accepting this. Ultimately I did go through the motions of refusing it, but somehow it stayed propped up on my nightstand, mocking me with its plethora of jovially rotund numbers.

That same week Nate Wieler, Toby Rapson and others made the trek to Sag Harbor to visit the house. Apparently this was some kind of a barnstorming tour to visit Nate’s new clients in Montauk as well as to check out the Greenbelt houses currently in the process of being built (all two of them!). I suppose I could have made the effort to go out to meet with them. But it was during the middle of the week and I was still deep in the throes of my apathy. I was also a little bit concerned that Toby would hate some of the liberties I took with the design, so I guess I just wasn’t up to dealing with the awkward silences and gestures. It was also raining torrentially and there were still some areas that were continuing to leak.

Later that day Nate, Toby and their entourage conducted a mini-conference call with me from the Islip airport. Apparently everyone liked what they saw at my house (except for the leaks, of course), or at least they were going through the motions of complimenting it. At one point I caught myself saying something to the effect of, “Golly, I’m so sick of this project; I just wish I could get in a bunch of guys to knock the place out and get it completely finished in ten days.” Pretty farfetched, eh? Or is it?

I shrugged it off, but it had me thinking. Really, what was stopping me from just pulling the trigger and pushing and pushing to the finish line? At this point I thought long and hard about what this will take from a money and timing perspective. And then I thought about that $10,000 check that had just fallen from the heavens a few days before. Ultimately I concluded that I was going nowhere fast because I had just gotten too used to constantly being in construction mode- putting my life on hold, constantly having a goal to work towards, the constant struggle, etc. I had grown to resent everything about this house, yet I was afraid of no longer having this constant presence in my life. Once I’m done, then what? Am I suddenly going to pick up where I left off nearly four years ago like nothing happened? Or am I going to be so programmed toward doing this that I will always be looking for things to do around the house? A friend of mine dubbed my house the Winchester House East- the house that will always be under construction. Although I laughed it off (a little), I thought it hit a little too close to home, so-to-speak.

Anyway, in a nutshell, I knew what I had to do.

TRIGGER, PULLED

With a new perspective and a new attitude (and flush with a little bit of newfound funding), I had a pointed discussion with my main contractor Carlos. He originally started in January as the spackle and taping contractor, but he has subsequently stepped up to the plate to tackle other projects large and small. Although he has sometimes driven me crazy, he has always been on the look out for potential problems and he has given me invaluable advice and pointers about all sorts of things. I knew that his ultimate motivation was getting more work and thereby making more money off of me, but at the same time, he had a dedication to his craft and a the kind of can-do attitude that simply cannot be bought.

I told him that I basically wanted him to finish everything. I meant everything:

-Drywells
-Finished flooring on the second floor
-Remaining taping/spackling
-Doors re-hung, hardware attached
-Baseboard moulding on the second floor
-All bathrooms and fireplace tiled
-Kitchen venting and cabinets finished
-Basement stairs/railing finished.
-Balconies reflashed and sealed.
-Miscellaneous caulking.

Oh, and he had 15 days (end of April) to get it all done. I think we both realized that this was a highly unrealistic timeframe to complete this, but the tone had been set. No more bullshit. No more idling around. It was time to put the pedal to the metal! Just get it done!




Boy am I glad I didn’t take on the tiling. Those glass mosaics may look nice, but boy what a pain to install! All of the cleaning and chipping away, etc. And the wood flooring is going to be no day at the beach either since, due to the prolonged exposure to the elements, the subfloor is warped in a lot of areas and nothing is quite level. It’s going to take quite a bit of sanding and self-leveling underlayment to get the floors true.

GOTCHA

As the momentum picks up again, and the loose ends are finally being tied together, I'm really getting hit with a serious case of the gotcha's- unexpected, totally unplanned expenses. First off, those electric tankless water heaters were a big, big mistake. The particular units being installed in my house (two of them) have staged circuits, which means that the heater will come on in stages (depending on the water demand) rather than being 100% on or completely off. I suppose this is an energy saving feature, which is all fine and dandy. But the gotcha here is that each water heater requires three separate 30-amp circuits!!! The electrician, who had barely read through the cut sheet on the unit, assumed that the whole thing was on a single 30-amp circuit. Needless to say, between the two water heaters, I will need 180 amps worth of additional capacity, which my current electrical panel will not accomodate. So not only will this require an extension to the electrical panel, this will involve several hundred feet of 6-gauge wiring, which costs approximately $3.50 per linear foot! Ka-ching!



Although every last one of my neighbors has conventional downspouts that empty onto a splash guard of some sort, I have to have a dry well system installed in my yard to absorb the stormwater runoff from the roof. Apparently this law was enacted in 2003 in an effort to comply with some federal stormwater runoff initiative. Listen, I'm all for minimizing my impact on the environment, but I should not be singled out. EVERYBODY should have to comply with this retroactively. The gotcha here? A concrete system would have cost over $6,000 to trench/install! I balked and started looking for alternatives. Ultimately I decided to install individual Flo-well dry wells at each downspout, which required a lot of manual digging/backfilling, but came in around only $3,000. Still, that's plenty of ka-ching!

Out of nowhere my plumber started complaining about the difficulty of my project. In particular he said that all of my plumbing fixtures were weird and required too much extra effort above and beyond the original proposal. I would have resisted him... but then he would leave me high and dry, literally! Ka-ching! Another $2500 extorted from my pockets.

And don't get me started on all of the dumpsters... I've probably gone through a dozen or more over the past couple of years. And much of that capacity was due to neighbors throwing their unwanted furniture and carseats in there! And don't get me started on the contractors throwing away perfectly good lumber and building materials... Ka-ching!

And two years of renting a port-a-potty = mucho ka-ching!

A grand here, a few hundred there, a couple grand there... this all adds up. And it's all on stupid, stupid stuff that adds zero value.

ODDS AND ENDS (MOSTLY ODD)

This is what $5,000 worth of red cedars and pines looks like.


The kitchen is now officially 100% greener. Pretty trippy, man...


The balconies are now officially 100% more glazy!



NEXT...

The end... or just the beginning??