The Office Reno

We are so totally knee-deep in home ownership and my sights are set on the basement office. I'm excited to introduce to you this 3-stage approach to the office renovation.

Stage 1: Admire how well photographers can make a room look. This is the seller photo that was used in the listing. During this stage, I find it useful to initiate contempt and channel it towards the previous owners as a means of motivation and action. Take the drop-ceiling for example. Sigh, have they no decency?! Look at the floors. Gasp, how could they?! And you just know they're hiding a hideous mess behind the camera lens. Tautology!

Stage 2: Despair and otherwise grasping that I've bit off more than I can chew. Also that I'm probably making it more difficult than it needs to be. But hey! Those floors look impecable. This is surely the longest stage of any project I run.

It's always useful during this stage to engage reinforcements. Here, Alex pitches-in by pushing the sawdust around with a moppish thing-a-majig (also courtesy of the sellers).

Stage 3: This is the stage of self-negotiation. Most of the big stuff is done. But not all. Dialogue turns inward as the finish-line is called into question; "chances are I'm the only person that'll notice if I don't put bead of caulk along the edges of the wainscotting." Or, "If the door stays shut, then maybe we don't really need that flooring transition."

There's still a bit of work to do but I'm officially filing this one in the "Done" column!

Safe Secrets at Christmas

One of many blessings I've received since matriculating into parenthood are new perspectives, including the ability to see experiences, perhaps a second time, through my parents eyes.

In my formative years, Christmas was a time of joy, love, celebration and family. To the later point, a time that pitted father against sons in the eternal battle of keeping presents a secret until they were intended to be opened. I reflect upon the Rollerblade Christmas fondly - it was brilliant really. The only way into our attic was through the access door in my closet! It blew our minds at the time; the clever ol' man essentially hid the presents behind enemy lines. I can still remember the feeling of raising my head into the attic for the first time, fixing the flashlight on never-there-before boxes and looking through the packaging at a new pair of "blades" with black, purple and green laces. We must've pulled ourselves into the attic 25 times during the buildup to Christmas.

Another year, I think it was my TV year, the presents were nowhere to found. We checked Mom & Dad's shower, the trunks of their cars and the attic. Nothing! As Christmas approached, fate shined upon us. There was a shimmer coming from whence a black handle had been previously unremarkable. It didn't make any sense to us, why had a new padlock been installed on the shed? In truth, it didn't matter. The game was on. We couldn't find the key or pick the lock so we did the next most rational thing. We took the double doors (which never functioned properly again) off the hinges and walked right in.

And so it continued. Year after year. Some years we'd win by unearthing the mother load. Other years tilted in Dad's favor.

Then THE Christmas happened. No one quite knows where the idea came from but it was the ultimate in Dad-strategy. Perhaps he became weary of doors no longer working or attic insulation collecting on the closet floor. The one thing we know for sure is he changed the game and forever quelled the Christmas hunt. See, by piling the gifts in the middle of the basement and (sorta) covering them with a (sorta transparent) sheet, he altered the entire dynamic. No longer was it an annual high-stakes winner-takes-all game of Hide & Seek.

What Dad knew was that the prize (finding the gifts) was equally proportionate to the amount of effort required. In what could be described as an escalating arms race, he just decided to drive the amount of effort required to find the gifts down to zero. And in so doing, the prize had no value. Sure enough, we were surprised that Christmas.

Now, in 2018, I have to smile because in my home office is a pile of gifts...covered with blanket.

If experience has taught me anything, I am 100% sure the secret is safe.