Ask Dr. C – Too late to turn back to IKEA.

Relationships are messy.

There – I said it. They require patience and understanding and a decision not to give up during rockier roads. It is during these holiday times, that those virtues and decisions come to the front of the relationship.

Part of my platform when we started The Lovely Project was my commitment to let you peek in the front window and see the dust bunnies under my couch. Well, pull out your binoculars, cause we’re going on a tour.

As I type these words, we are in the middle of a home building project.

For some reason, they always seem to fall around the holidays each year and we all know there is never enough to do around the holidays. I decided I needed a home library, as my books had long ago stopped filling shelves, and were now spilling onto floors and in every nook surrounding our bed. To keep our bedroom from being an episode on Hoarders, I asked my “do everything himself” husband if he wanted to build bookshelves for me or did he just want me to go to IKEA and buy some. His look of horror at the suggestion of buying them pre-made reminded me of the time I suggested we give up meat for a month.

The project began in earnest about six months ago. All the furniture from our office was put into our bedroom to clear the space for construction. Let’s just say the Nautilus machine that took up 1/3 of the space in our office has made an excellent clothes and towel rack next to our bed. The office computer now resides on our dresser drawers and we perch on the chest that holds quilts and comforters to check our email and type our sermons.

Before Project Library could begin, my husband decided the floor needed to be leveled and replaced. After the carpet was ripped out and removed, new plumbing pipes were installed since they were now easily accessible with the floor boards gone and they were 25 years old anyway. Following that, our bedroom door needed to be moved over 12″ to make room for the shelves and a new door opening was cut and the drywall replaced.

The cypress wood for the floors is 3/4 inch, purchased from a local mill, and we agreed we would give it the “distressed” look. By now, my face was beginning to have the “distressed” look and I saw the weeks turning to months. But those boards got hammered, hacked, stained and put together in what is now a beautiful floor.

The stairs also got a new, wooden facelift, but it made for a hard fall when my husband tumbled down them a few days later, tearing his meniscus. The knee surgery came seven days after that.

Next came the new, 600 pound, Liberty safe, which he assures me is a home office necessity. When I commented to him we didn’t own anything as valuable as the safe itself, he reminded me I could keep my new camera in it. Point well taken. I consoled myself with the fact that now our passports would no longer need to be stored in my top drawer mingled with cough drops and old keys. Did I forget to mention that our office is on the second floor? Yes, that Liberty safe was put on a lift and then hauled through an upstairs window, with our unsuspecting son and son-in-law doing the pulling one night when they had come over for our weekly family night. My husband supervised since he had already donated one knee for the cause.

So, where are we now – just one day away from Thanksgiving and roughly 28 days until the holiday guests arrive? Why just this morning as we were going over our schedules for the day, hubby offhandedly mentions he needs to “take the bathroom door off its hinge for a while” to varnish (strip, stain and such). I tried not to go off my hinge at the thought of Thanksgiving with no bathroom door. When I wondered out loud about not having a door on the bathroom, he assured me that he would hammer on a piece of plywood while he stained the door.

Words I have come to dread more than “skinny jeans” and “income tax” are: “Honey, it shouldn’t take me longer than…”

But hey, I asked for a bookshelf and it will be stunningly beautiful. Pictures will follow if I can get my new camera out of the safe. Where did I put that combination…?

Relationships! Worth the mess.

Dr. C.