They start at eight, announcing their presence with a ladder’s rattle. Soon the electric saw starts up, and its scream promises fresh wood to replace the rot.
Wood rots and paint peels; these are facts of life. But here in damp North Carolina, in a house surrounded by trees, mildew’s fingers have a tenacious grip: the painters found more rot and damage than we had originally bargained for.
Plus, we haven’t had the house painted in seven years.
The experience is almost as good as a week at the spa. After years of watching this dear little house droop at the edges, we see fresh, strong wood replace crumbling corners, fresh white paint covering sills that have been washed and scraped. “We’ve replaced all the rotten wood,” Dave told me today. I’m so happy for the house and the relief, were it sentient, that it must feel: clean like your teeth after an hour in the dentist’s chair; fresh like your skin after a good exfoliant; alive like you feel (I’d imagine) after a week at the spa.
The four painters (Dave, Todd, Johnny and Dema) were working on the back of the house today while the children and I were having lunch. Dema painted the window onto the deck; Dave stood on a ladder at the edge of the bay window, and Johnny cleaned the large window in the breakfast room. Todd, meanwhile, moved and removed and climbed the ladder on the other side of the breakfast room, so we were surrounded as we sat at the table eating peanut butter and jelly and reading another chapter of The Horse and His Boy.
The reading didn’t last long, distracted as we were by our painter-friends, who were engaged in an animated conversation about the possible discrepancies between the first two chapters of Genesis. Earlier conversation had ranged from G.K. Chesterton to the author of the book of Hebrews. The latter really fascinated me, and I rued the noise of the hairdryer.
When my mother-in-law stopped by on Monday, she said that every one of the painters greeted her individually. It wasn’t until Tuesday night, after two solid days of the painters’ presence, that I realized I never heard a coarse word, never had a second thought about lewd or inappropriate conversation, never once felt anything but absolutely comfortable with strange men on and around my house.
Isn’t that nice?
I’ve written in this space before about my trouble with transition, about how difficult it is for me to settle in to being home after time away. And this week, in the wake of my uncle’s death, in the sad and difficult reality of some issues of *home* that never seem to go away, that transition might have been even harder than before.
But instead, my house is having a little face-lift, a little long-deserved T.L.C. And every day I hear their boots on my roof, their ladders rattling toward the sky, their saw screaming in the driveway, and fresh paint, like a blessing, making my house look loved.
