This Just Got Real

Strips of carpet and carpet foam, cut and rolled.

For this renovation project, I am wearing a twenty-dollar pair of jeans from the Gap, knowing that they will most likely be destroyed by the process. In fact, they are appreciating in value. Thanks to random paint spots and indigo dye distressing, they now look like a two-hundred-dollar pair.

Something strange happens to your sense of time when you spend all day doing manual labor. The days seem much longer, and tend to run together. I wake up, I work, I eat a big dinner, I go to sleep, and then I do it again.



Our living arrangements have been thrown into disarray by the renovation project. My room turned into a makeshift staging area for my stuff, belongings ready to relocate at a moment's notice.

When I open my bedroom door into the hall, I am greeted by what looks like an archaeological dig: dust, debris, tools, work lamps. We wear gloves and filtration masks. We are uncovering details of the original construction of our apartment building, circa the late seventies: green shag carpet, original off-white paint.


The living room, de-carpeted. Note the brighter and lighter wall color, as well as my Hello Kitty calendar.

We keep hoping that our apartment super will decide that a given task is too difficult for us to complete, and that he will do it for us, or even better, call in professionals. This never happens.

Instead, he provides us with a quick five-minute tutorial on the task at hand, and then returns a few hours later to note our progress.

Cutting out carpet with knives? Easy! Prying carpet staples and tack strips from the concrete floor? Easy! Repairing huge fault-line cracks in the concrete with Cement-All? Easy!

Every day, a new unforeseen task, a new lesson in DIY. Exhausting, but also empowering.

Now I know what you're thinking: this had better be a really hot girl.

That's what I'm saying.