Decisions, Decisions

I’ve hesitated to bring it up, but you may recall that, last May, I wrote about finally getting around to updating our vintage-1983 pool and spa with a new interior finish and some cosmetic and equipment upgrades. I had every good intention of following through and indeed made some preliminary inquiries, but life intervenes at times – in this case with a different project clawing its way to the top of the list.

Even in the pool-related preliminaries, however, Judy and I began to perceive that the scope of the project was larger than we’d figured it would be. We would need to settle on an interior finish and color, of course, as well as new waterline tile – but then there were decisions about what to do with the equipment system and our approach to water treatment in light of how much has changed in the last 35 years.

So what seemed like a bare twig began to blossom: The pool’s deck, for instance, has shifted noticeably since I repaired the sub-drain system about 15 years ago and water no longer pools annually in the clay beneath the concrete. And while the raised beam of the pool wall has stayed put, a completing sweep of it had been set across the deck, so the transition has cracked and now needs attention. While we’re at it, the coping might benefit from a new look – and the list kept growing.

What we were confronting was a fairly standard pattern of remodel creep, and it only became more complicated when we recognized all of the additional choices we would need to make about colors and textures – and began wondering how much we could do without compromising the established, mature landscaping close to the pool.

As I was becoming more serious about getting things going with the pool, Judy mentioned that it was about time to redo the kitchen. When we moved into our house in 1989, it was by far our nicest room; by the time we finished a run of cosmetic upgrades to the rest of the house in about 2012 – banishing cottage-cheese ceilings, putting down wood floors, adding some cool architectural details, replacing interior doors, painting every possible surface and completely redoing the bathrooms – the kitchen had plummeted from first to worst.

Long story short, we’re now steeling ourselves for the loss of our indoor cooking capabilities for several weeks, and I’m starting to get the impression that we might have been better off pursuing the pool project first: It would have familiarized us with the dynamics of the decisions we’ve been making about the kitchen – the same sort of miasma, of course, but it would have been happening in a realm where there are far fewer options and possible differences of preference or opinion.

With the pool, for instance, we know we’ll need to replace the plaster and will face just a handful of options there rather than the boundless array of choices we’re confronting among cabinets and doors and hardware and counters and fixtures – not to mention colors and textures of flooring and a burgeoning array of lighting possibilities. (I wouldn’t have guessed that the downlighting of kick-space cutouts was a thing.) It’s all so daunting!

At this point, the only kitchen-related decision we’re firm about has to do with a new, higher-powered cooktop to replace the anemic deadbeat we’ve struggled with for nearly 30 years. It may have been a marvel when it was installed in a previous remodel, but it’s been a thorn in my side every time I’ve wanted to pan-sear a chunk of tuna.

All of this has made me think with empathy and sympathy about watershape clients who insist on being involved in every decision related to their projects: I had some idea that these processes were complex; I had no idea they verged on impossible!

Judy and I will survive all this, and I know in both projects that we’ll eventually ally ourselves with contractors who will help us make many of these decisions as our current dreaming and second-guessing starts to become a more contained reality. For now, alone with our thoughts and ideas and an architect’s plans, all we can do is cross our fingers.

When we eventually refocus on the pool, we’ll be ready for what’s coming. I also suspect that, with the pool renewed, we’ll be done with remodeling forever – although maybe we could use a utility-room expansion and perhaps some work on the garage . . .