My Summer Assignment

For the last two years Russ has been asking me to get the floors in the old part of our house refinished. Although I agreed they needed to be done I kept putting off calling the floor person because I knew it was going to be a nightmare for me. Since I got the driveway fixed earlier this year and it was a relatively painless operation for me I decided to move on to the floors since it was the next biggest item on Russ’ giant work on the house list.

The nice floor lady I knew from Carter’s school arrived promptly at three to much fan fair from Shay. She walked in the house with a matter-of-fact swagger that said; of course you need to get these floors redone, without her actually saying a word. She asked me what I needed done and I showed her the living and dining rooms the stairs and all the bedrooms and hallways in the old part of our house.

Shay shivered outside each room afraid of the sound as she efficiently swung out her mammoth tape measure reaching from one wall to the next with a quick flick of the wrist. As she measured our bedroom I asked the question I was dreading, “Do you refinish the closets too?” I can’t remember her exact answer, but she basically told me they were high-class refinishers so of course the closets get done. Then she opened my closet. I was unprepared to have another human look at my closet. “Everything gets removed,” she said with the tone of a nonjudgmental professional. She still needed to get the job.

Gulp. This is exactly what I was afraid of. Not just moving all out furniture, rugs and paintings, out of the main part of the house, but every item of all my packed and ultra utilized closets. It is only three bedrooms that are getting refinished, but there are seven closets. Don’t ask me to explain, but trust me I love my closets.

After she left me with a quote and potential start days of the ten days I will have to be out of my house rather than walk or needlepoint I started the giant job of cleaning out a closet. Russ called as I just finished up the worst shelf of the linen closet that held all the extra toothpaste, lotions, and Band-Aids. “Wow,” he said, “that has not been cleaned out since Megan did it.” Megan was our babysitter all through her college years and now she is a famous actress on TV in her thirties.   I wish she wasn’t so successful and still lived here because I certainly could use her now.

So much for my summer of freedom. Cleaning out the closets is the first step to packing them up completely. The only good news is in my inefficiency of cleaning out that one shelf I got 2,500 steps. Maybe this could be called the refinish the floors diet.