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Home Improvement?

by Eva Murray

There is a whole television channel devoted to home renovation and real estate. I suppose programs about other people busting up sheetrock or sneering at ugly wallpaper makes for harmless background drivel (in somebody else’s house, because I’m too cheap to have the satellite, and there is obviously no 20-mile cable for television here on Matinicus Island) but I’m not sure how helpful they are when someone is actually thinking about making home improvements. I am thinking about home improvements. I am also finding the home improvement shows faint help.

Here on this rock you cannot just pick up the phone book and find a contractor, tell them what your fantasy kitchen looks like, write a big check, and expect to be admiring the “backsplash” soon. (That’s a thing I learned from the home shows; you want your backsplash to look really good. The backsplash is, I gather, everything in the kitchen that isn’t something else.) Here, in order to get home improvement done, you either do it yourself or you have to figure out where the carpenters and masons and plumbers and backsplash-installers are going to sleep, because they’re not going home at the end of each day. You need to feed them, promise hot showers, provide them internet and television for after work, and you need to lend them a four wheeler.

You also need to order a large fraction over again of the anticipated materials because there’s no going to the lumberyard quick-quick to replace a cracked trim board or because you underestimated on backsplash grout. You also need to figure out how to get rid of the demo. That stuff doesn’t just go away by itself.

You might already know about these home-improvement TV shows. Boy, they sure make it look easy! On TV everybody experiences more or less the same thing: well-coifed real estate professionals take hapless homeowners or home-buyers by the hand and lead them into earnest discussions of “tray ceilings” and “pony walls.” Maybe you’re watching that couple with all the kids who renovate old houses; she refers to every nut and bolt as “fun” and he knows all the conjugations and declensions of “y’all” (“y’allses house”). Or, maybe it’s the starchy, impatient pair who compete for the hearts and minds of the homeowners in a sort of grumpyness contest: will the renovate-ees live in their newly beautified place, or will they sell the old pile now that it’s worth something? There’s the happy nut in goofy clothing who takes lottery winners around to shop for big new digs with their big new checkbooks. There are the brothers, the sisters, the brother-and-sister, and the mother-daughter team, all ripping and tearing in mind to make the kitchen bigger. Then there are the overwhelmed and somber European realtors trying to talk sense to a pair of noisy and clueless American transplants: she wants “old world charm” (meaning exposed beams and working shutters) but also demands restaurant-sized appliances, while all he wants is a five-minute commute to his Air Force base.

There is most generally a skinny young woman in false eyelashes running around with a sledge hammer.

On television, people do demolition wearing things nobody would really ever wear to tear out walls, such as down vests. I can just see that expensive down vest getting snagged by a nail and a great blizzard of white feathers floating down upon the Open Concept like snow at a Christmas pageant. All the happy hosts start into the demo with glee and abandon. Hopefully, they’ve had their tetanus shots.

We viewers see the start of demolition, because it’s exciting to fantasize about wrecking things with sledge hammers. There will be a short bit of artificial stress right before a commercial break where the protagonists worry about finding the money to replace something clearly not optional (say, the furnace) without sacrificing something fun (say, the really amazing backsplash). We see things fitting together with perfect accuracy–as though any old house really had 90-degree corners–but are spared the boring stuff: no mudding sheetrock overhead until your eyes cross and your neck hurts, no driving all over town to find one more matching handle because the first hardware store had eleven of the twelve you need. No Kilz paint in an enclosed space, pickling brain cells until you are completely hammered and singing out loud like Sailor Jerry in an Irish bar. I know of what I speak.

The potential occupants of these homes, whether said structures are under renovation or being walked through and summarily judged (“I can’t buy this house because I hate that chandelier!”) all want the same things. There isn’t an original design idea on the whole cable channel. Every one of these people seems to think they are going to have lots of out-of-town guests (who obviously all need their own bathrooms). They think they will be throwing huge parties and cooking gourmet meals on a regular basis. As someone who does, in fact, host parties, I’ve got a word of advice for these homebuyers, and it has nothing to do with the double oven, the wine chiller, or the fourth bathroom. The word is “parking.”

These people all expect a huge bedroom, which they call a “master.” Frankly, I’ve always thought that expression somewhat pretentious. It’s even worse when they just say “master” instead of “master bedroom.” Small pet peeve of mine, I suppose. But a respectable “master” has to have a stupendous bathroom that gleams with more marble than City Hall. Also, every female requires a walk-in closet the size of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel.

That’s a line stolen from F. Scott Fitzgerald, by the way.

In the bathroom, of which there should be many (never, ever just one to share–what a disgusting thought!) there should be a separate bathtub and shower, both gigantic. Nobody ever talks about the water heaters in these places. Also–and this is important, pay attention–there must be two sinks. “We won’t be in each other’s way getting ready in the morning,” they say. I guess my husband and I have missed a significant lesson in routine adult behavior. He doesn’t shave, I don’t wear makeup, and neither of us does anything with our hair, so what do we know? Even if we did all kinds of “getting ready,” I suspect we could figure out a way to take turns at the sink, but no. That’s uncivilized.

The people on TV are all excited about “subway tile” in the shower. Have these people ever been in a subway? It’s not a setting I would particularly associate with being clean. Or naked.

If our hypothetical carpenters stayed here with us, because I don’t know what else we’d do with them, would they be willing to all share the same bathroom? I mean, with us? I mean, while they’re renovating it? Yeah, that. My home renovation dreams for here on Matinicus are looking bleak.

On TV they all want shiplap. They want “beachy,” even in the middle of Indiana. (I know what “beachy” really means: it means the wind blows all the time, the windows are crusted with salt, and you can’t keep paint on with nails). They all want “open concept.” They notice things like crown molding. Really? They’re all weird about bathrooms, but in a variety of different ways (offering, at last, some expression of individuality). One woman even required her master bath be outfitted with two toilets. She was buying a house with her fiancé, their wedding date was already set, but she didn’t want to use the same W.C. as the guy.

We should go on one of those shows and just mess with the hosts by being honest. “No, one sink is plenty. We don’t do anything to get ready in the morning. Sometimes I don’t even brush my hair.” That is true. “No, we don’t need a walk-in closet; Paul just climbs into the same set of overalls most days anyway. We don’t actually hang up our clothes. Well, except the oilskins. Where do we hang the oilskins?”

Eva Murray is the Recycling and Solid Waste Coordinator for Matinicus Island. Eva’s last lobster license was dated 1990, the year her son was born, and cost $53.00, which at the time she thought was an awful lot of money.