Deciding on Home Improvements with the Help of a Family Pet

Sometimes, the hardest part of home improvement is getting started. My house was a fixer-upper when I bought it. There was a long list of items, including sewer pipe replacement, electrical rewiring and rat removal before the word “improvement” even appeared on the horizon. During this time, I dreamed of redoing my dilapidated kitchen. When I wasn’t dreaming of kitchen improvements, I was lost in thought about my disgusting bathroom. Considering the monumental cost involved, and the prospect of living in a house without either a kitchen or bathroom for an extended period, I just couldn’t get started. It took the wisdom of my dog to finally get the ball rolling.

One day, I came home to find Zelda with her nose pushed under the stove, pawing at the underside of the kitchen cabinet and whining. Probably a microscopic fleck of dog food had rolled under the stove and the smell of it had Zelda convinced that I was hiding a whole side of beef under there.

So, I pulled out the stove but she continued to paw at the adjoining cabinet. A cabinet that looked strangely out of plumb without the stove next to it; a cabinet that suddenly had an open space under it where the kick plate was supposed to fit. My first thought was, a rat hole. Afraid of what I would encounter, I gingerly inserted a flashlight in the hole to see what, if anything was under the cabinet.

No rats at that point, probably because they would be unable to balance on thin air – under my cabinet was a gaping hole and cold air was rushing through it. The bottom of my kitchen cabinet was sagging into a dark chasm. Emergency removal of the cabinets revealed lots of rotten flooring, centered around a brand new water meter that was gently spritzing the area with water.

The water company assured me that someone might be out to evaluate the damage in two weeks. When I offered to assuage their concern for me and my family by perhaps moving to a hotel at their expense for the duration, I was reminded, “Well, you still have water.” Of course, getting water when your sink has fallen into the crawlspace can be difficult. But after all, I still had the bathroom sink.

Several days later, excessive wetness in the bathroom pointed out the fact that the bathroom vanity was attempting to flee the room, and cracked a pipe in the attempt. Probably fearing dropping down into the crawlspace too, the sink was waving one of its cabinet doors toward a crack in the wall next to the bathtub. And there was Zelda, crying and pawing at the gap, as the suddenly spongy floor underneath her gently rippled up and down. After 50 years of perfect posture, my house had decided to relax a bit.

So, we began walking carefully – after ripping up 8 feet of kitchen floor, and discovering a rotten joist under there, I wondered which part of the floor would cave in next. Would I be in the shower, naked and singing opera when the floor gave way? My children were given explicit instructions that if this happened, they were to call the fire department to rescue me, but only after they climbed down in the hole and dressed me. The firemen were not going to get a naked lady rescue story out of me, that’s for sure. But, on the bright side finally, I had a place to start my improvements. Everywhere.