(My kitchen last October.)
This article was interesting to me because of the lessons learned. This women tells the story of a remodel that did in her marriage. Having just gone through a complete remodel, I could relate to much of what they went through. It also highlighted the differences between some men and women when it comes to dealing with stressful situations.
But it was the last sentence that caught my eye...
20 comments:
I just find it so ridiculous...if you look at the big picture. A house, just bricks and mortar, was the undoing of a marriage. Nothing is worth the loss of love. Maybe they didn't really love (in the true sense) in the first place. Got me thinking.......
Hey, just think, you made it through! And you're not in a commune!
I agree with Natalie, if your love can't survive a remodel job, maybe it's not real love?
So have you contacted her yet?
What is happening? I spoke with a neighbor yesterday... they are putting their home up for sale in the spring (they've been here 18 years)... they are buying land and building with some others...
I leave on Nov. 17 to look at land in Massachusetts... it's a revolution!! And I LIKE it!
Having worked in a field where many of my jobs were remodels, we decided that we would rather sell and buy new (or used) rather than remodel. I just heard from one of the designers that I work with who was doing a remodel that her client, who had accepted my proposal, her husband just left her for another woman. The whole job is on hold now.
Commune must be catching on.
I'm getting ready to have the kitchen countertops redone. I would hope that won't be a problem.
I like how positive the woman in the story is. And looking forward to going in another direction. Communal living seems to be catching on, doesn't it, Nancy? I can't wait to see what YOU come up with.
when the nest is mess, it stresses the rest...i cant stand coming home to chaos...i need a haven...
I once read that renovating or building a house ranks very high on the stress scale of life. Right up there with losing a loved one. It is a test that not all marriages can endure, especially if there were problems in the marriage, to start with.
Natalie - True enough.
Willow - But it is the thought that she wants to go from a high end apartment to a shared resources lifestyle that caught my attention. I think people are tired.
Hilary - Good thought!
Good Cook - Please keep me updated! I do think it is going to be a sign of the times at some point.
Ellen - Remodeling, expecially if you are living in the chaos, is very stressful. We were told we would be without a kitchen for three weeks - it was three months!
Leah - I think it is. The Collective Unconscious?
Kathy G - Probably not much. The countertops were a one-day job in our house.
DJan - I spoke with a developer friend over dinner the other night, so I have him thinking about it. His wife is a dear friend of mine and she is game, but he is also a lawyer, so he left me with a bit of lawyerese to think about. Not enough to disuade me though!
Brian - We are like-minded on this one! Mess is stress!
Marguerine - Probably because it always costs more than they budget. I often wonder why contractors even write a budget, if they know it is going to be higher. And then it is getting the workers to get it done. It just goes on and on. We finished our remodel in July. It started last October. It was supposed to take a two months, it took nine.
I am a designer, I used to have a kitchen and bath showroom, I am fully aware how stressful remodeling can be. A couple that cannot communicate well suffer the most. It can be horrible. I would size up the couple in the proposal process, and quite often did not take the job when I sensed too much friction between them before we even started the project. Money isn't everything.
I remember hearing Rob Reiner and Penny Marshall say (this is years and years ago) that a total remodel of their house did their marriage in.
Elizabeth - No, money is not everything! A stressed couple who has a marriage unraveling wouldn't be a great place to be in the middle. I didn't know that about Rob Reiner and Penny Marshall, but always wondered what happened with them. The seemed to be such a golden couple at one time.
Seems to be becoming more popular since you brought it to our attention Very interesting.
and I'm just about to get half of my kitchen redone! oooo, fingers crossed it goes well, please.
Blessings, Star
Somewhere in there, I read that the communication lines went dead. It's kind of like coming to two paths in a forest. Each taking a different path, thinking it will rejoin somewhere down the way. But it never does. Very sad. One of the positives I picked up on was that Ms. Williams took the time to analyze the events that led to that ending, put it in perspective, and has moved forward with a new agenda. Great plan!
Sad that relationships take a back seat.Nothing is worth the loss of a good relationship.
That poor woman, but when the phrase "Dream Home" gets thrown about, cold reality is very likely to take a bigger chunk out the proceedings than it might otherwise.
In ten years we put on a 1000 square foot addition that took six months (and we lived in the attached house) and lived in the house through a kitchen and bathroom remodel that required the walls be torn down to the studs. After we were done with that, we bought a new house, and moved to this one.
It was dirty, it was difficult, it was inconvenient. Luckily, we went into the process knowing that it would be all that and more. We weren't being dreamy, we knew, "Hey, this is going to suck like a Hoover, so let's be prepared for that."
A shaky marriage can collapse under the weight of it.
I'm being completely honest when I say we never argued through any of those remodels, and there were huge problems with them all. Stress tends to push us closer together in an "It's us against the world, honey. No one is taking us down!"
It's also just the fact that we didn't approach it thinking, "Oh won't this be marvelous? Think of the end results!" Instead we concentrated on the "plenty of time to enjoy the finished result when we have it, in the meantime? Saddle up, because we are in for a truly horrible ride."
I feel very sorry for that woman, because given the right set of circumstances, perhaps her marriage would have survived, but it wasn't made to withstand a certain kind of stress.
I also feel it is very revealing that they both worked in TV -- where creating a specific image is part of the trade. Instead of slowly building that image, and living with the flaws in the picture until such time as they could actually afford to create the image, they felt pressure to have it all, at once. Incurring debt is another huge strain on a marriage. It was creating the perfect picture that mattered, and I think they forgot to really examine the "You do know this is really going to be awful, and potentially gross, right?" of it all.
I think one of the things that helped us is that we saved the money to remodel, vs. borrowing it. It was a long term goal for us. That kitchen and bath in particular were hideous, but we stuck with them for eight years, saving, and planning. We were united in our hatred of the ugliness, but we also proved to ourselves that we don't need to live in a perfect picture together to be happy.
I'm not saying that's a superior mindset, it isn't. It's just a different mindset, and one that better lends itself to remodeling.
That poor woman. But even the phrase "Dream Home" is problematic. A home is a home. Toilets can overflow. Wiring can be bad. Contractors will not show up, and it will always cost more than budgeted. Attaching "dream" to anything is about a fanciful image, and that's just at odds with remodeling.
Like when we had to have our sewer line moved. There's nothing dreamy about trying to figure out how to live without indoor plumbing for a weekend :-)
Excise the word "Dream" from anything having to do with home and that seems like a good start for surviving the process.
It is very sad...
The last line. Priceless.
Obviously her marriage was in trouble before the renovation, unbeknown to her, sounds like. Moving is right up there in the top ten of stressors, but I think they mean moving far away. Maybe I'm wrong.
You are a trendsetter, alright, when it comes to communes!
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