Mod House Design – Canning NS.44

I’ve always had a healthy respect for trades people – the folks who create something from nothing, find solutions, and make things work.  I’ve also prided myself on what I thought was a healthy sense of empathy towards home owners who are relying on trades people to renovate and/or build their homes.

I’ve listened to home owners’ tales of frustration and worry and I truly believed that I understood.  Really, I think I got about a 10% appreciation of what it’s like to have to rely on others to make your home habitable.

To the woman who described to me how she’d jumped up and down in the middle of her muddy front yard – pink bathroom, fluffy slippers, towel on her head – shrieking and sobbing hysterically at her trades people to get their @#%&# trucks off her newly delivered top soil…  I bow to you.  I understand.

At seven weeks behind schedule, every day is another plodding step toward some elusive possession date that doesn’t stay put long enough to be reached. Ever since that rainy day when our house arrived to sit by the roadside all sloping and forlorn, we’ve felt like we’re locked into some twisted version of the movie Ground Hog Day.   Every day is a repeat of the day before and we’ve resorted to trying out different behaviours in an attempt to magically leap forward to move-in day.

For now, some stuff happens.  Some stuff doesn’t.  Some people come and do things and some people just come and start things.  Then they go away.  Coffee cups and bits of construction debris blow around in the mud and we sigh wistfully when people cheerily ask, “How’s the house coming along!?”