PETER BUFFA -- Comments & Curiosities

Home improvement. Not the TV show, real life. Everyone goes through it

one time or another. This is our third. Time, that is, each more

satisfying and fulfilling than the last. Please, someone, just shoot me.

Home improvement is one of those things you’re glad you did when it’s

done but hope you never have to do again. Basic training, home

improvement, passing a kidney stone. Things like that.

The beginning is always so small, so reasonable. Our current spasm of

ripping, tearing and replacing began gently, on a quiet summer’s eve. My

wife, Sharyn, was reading. I was at my post in the large leather chair,

resting my eyes.

“We need to refinish the kitchen cabinets,” she said.

“OK,” I said, pretending I had heard the question.

“Did you hear me?” she said.

“Yes,” I said, slowly regaining consciousness.

“What did I say?” she said.

“You said ‘Are you finished in the kitchen?’ ”

“Get up,” she said.

We retired to the kitchen.

“Look,” she said, pointing at the cabinets in question.

“Oh, OK, yeah,” I said, stroking my chin, cocking my head to one side

then the other, stalling for time.

“Do you see?” she said.

“Absolutely” I said, “they’re just so, I mean, you know any idiot can

see that.”

“They’re gone,” she said.

“Gone,” I said. “Is it expensive when they go?”

“No,” she said.

“Oh, good,” I said, retiring to the large leather chair.

A few days later, as I arrived home, I was quite surprised to see a

virtual mountain of dishes, pans, utensils, sundries and various dry

goods in the living room.

“Wow,” I said. “What is that?”

“That’s what was in the kitchen cabinets,” she said.

“I’ll bet it took hours and hours to carry all that stuff in here,” I

said. “Do they do that?”

“No, ‘they’ don’t,” she said.

I sensed tension.

When I stepped into the kitchen, I was quite surprised to see a number

of large, muscular men ripping out the ceiling.

“Hmm,” I said, pondering. “Were there cabinets in the ceiling? I

forget.”

“There’s no sense having nice cabinets and a 1950s fluorescent light

box,” she said. “That would be dumb.”

“Dumb,” I said. “Is the ceiling thing expensive?”

“No,” she said.

“Oh, good,” I said, then left for two weeks in Europe.

Imagine my surprise when I returned and found a number of large,

gaping holes in the dining room and family room.

“Wow,” I said. “I’m sure those were actual, fully enclosed walls when

I left. I mean, I like it a lot but, gee, those are really big holes.”

“We’re putting in some new windows and French doors in the dining

room,” she said.

“Oh, cool. But why would we need French doors in the dining room?” I

said, poking my head out the large hole in the dining room.

“That’s why,” she said.

And a darn nice new patio it was, I might add.

“Is that expensive?” I said.

“Yes,” she said.

“Well, OK then,” I said, retiring to the large leather chair.

Truth be told, my wife is a genius at this stuff, both creatively and

financially. She spends weeks on the phone and the Internet finding out

what to get, where to get it and how to do it. The level of research she

puts into cabinet knobs is a little less than what goes on at the

biological science lab at the California Institute of Technology.

Where do I fit in? Simple. At any phase of these ordeals, my

contribution is zero, zip, nada, niente, nil -- and for darn good reason.

Cabinet knobs? Left to my own devices, I would make one trip to Home

Depot. It takes me 15 minutes to find them because I’d die before I’d ask

someone where they are.

When I do find them, I am already in an agitated state, but it doesn’t

take me long at all to make my selection, because my design criteria are

extremely limited. If it looks Italian, I’ll buy it. If it doesn’t, I

won’t. So if you send me out to find cabinet knobs, you get the little

gold lion heads with the ring through the nose. Period. That’s it. End of

story.

I don’t care if it’s knobs, wallpaper or furniture. If it’s got the

gold lion heads with the rings on it, I’ll take it. My wife gets her

design ideas from Architectural Digest, I get mine from “The Sopranos.” I

still think rain lamps didn’t get a fair hearing.

And that, in a nutshell, is why my opinions are never solicited nor

considered when it comes to these things, which I am the first to admit

is a good thing.

At the end of the day, our home improvement adventures are no

different or better or worse than anyone else’s. What starts small

quickly grows large. Everything you do requires something else be done

before the first can be completed. Double the budget, expand the schedule

by a factor of four and you’ll be close.

No one shows up when they’re supposed to, and that’s if they show up

at all. Stepping over boxes and trying to find the spatula is fun for a

day or two, but little did you realize you’d be doing it for months.

And the dust! My God, the dust. Take my advice. The day before they

start, get a large bag of Gold Bond flour, tear it open and spin it over

your head until it’s empty. Repeat in every room. You may as well get a

head start.

Don’t try to clean anything until they’re gone. You’re kidding

yourself. But like childbirth and crashes, if you survive, your mind will

erase the bad stuff. It’s the cycle of life. I gotta go.

* PETER BUFFA is a former Costa Mesa mayor. His column runs Sundays.

He may be reached via e-mail at PtrB4@aol.com.