Renovating Arguments – They Certainly Happen

Occasionally we get comments like “I do not know how you spend all day together without fighting.” While I appreciate the assumption that we have some flawless, all-smiles marriage – we fight. We get upset with each other… and Clara… and even Burger. I am not saying we have Real Housewives-worthy throwdowns (our table flipping count is still at zero) but like any normal couple we argue. Sometimes in a healthy, I-fight-because-I-care way. Sometimes in a likely less-than-healthy Sherry yells and I give her the silent treatment way. But the point is – yes, we fight (skip to about 11:45 on this old blogiversary Q&A video for a brief mention on the subject).

As upfront as we are willing to be about the fact that we argue, we try not to air the specifics of our dirty laundry. And that is not simply to you folks here in journal land, we make a conscious decision not to gossip to our friends or family about what is frustrating us about the other person. It is not that we are trying to “keep up appearances”, we simply do not want to complicate our messes by entangling others in them. And we are typically over things fairly swiftly (there is consistently another project to do or post to write) so I do not want my venting to discolor someone else’s opinion of my loving and striking wife – because, at the end of the day, that is how I see her.

Today, however, we are putting that aside momentarily to indulge you with the story of a home-improvement related fight that we had a little while back (jackpot: it is in fact sort of related to Hands-on/house stuff, so since we can laugh about it now, we thought it was worth sharing). And yes, it was over a bathroom shelf. Specifically, the one on the left of this old picture:

Let us rewind to this post about painting our bathroom, which involved removing a glass shelf and towel bar on the wall first (we inherited them with the house when we picked up it a year and a half ago). When they came down, both went into a box on our bathroom sink to be dealt with later. “To be dealt with later” were not the actual words we used. The actual words are in fact the source of the argument. Sherry’s version of the transcript includes her saying “Do not donate these, I want to craigslist the towel bar because it is from Restoration Hardware and I might want to reuse the shelf by hanging it in the bath for our shampoo and stuff.” My version of the transcript is fairly much blank as I do not truly remember anything being said at all.

Fast forward a few days. The room is painted. Art is hung. The un-dealt-with shelves are still taking up space next to our bathroom sink.

One evening I get the “I am fed up with this clutter around the house” bug and I go on a brief but intense cleaning spree while Sherry readies the post for the next morning. In other words: she’s sitting in the office glued to the laptop and is not paying any attention to what I am up to. My spree includes loading a bag full of old clothes, the old bathroom light fixture and – here is the beginning of my crime – the old shelf and towel bars into the car so that I can drop them off at Goodwill. I did not bother to tell Sherry more than “I am gonna run a bunch of errands” as Clara and I headed out the door the next morning.

Skip ahead to that afternoon (yes, literally that quite afternoon) and this conversation happens:

SHERRY: Oh hey, I was thinking over Clara’s nap we should swap out the towel bar in the shower for that old shelf we took down. That way we can in fact put our shampoo and stuff on a shelf.

JOHN: Wait, what old shelf?

SHERRY: The one that used to be on the wall. It was sitting by the sink in our bedroom the last time I saw it.

JOHN: You mean the one I donated this morning?

SHERRY: You WHAT?! John! I said I hoped to Craigslist the towel bar and possibly reuse that shelf!

JOHN: Sorry, I figured they’d simply been sitting there making a mess so I’d assist take care of them.

SHERRY: Why did not you tell me?? You snuck out without a word about it! I could have stopped you and explained if you simply told me what you were doing!

JOHN: Am I supposed to tell you every errand that I run?

You can likely guess where this was headed. Sherry got increasingly frustrated with me. I grew more and more indignant. Sherry informed me that I had “ruined her plan” for adding a free shelf to our shower. I could not believe I “was being yelled at for cleaning” and Sherry was angry that I had also “donated a $75 Restoration Hardware towel bar” that she could’ve craigslisted for at least ten bucks. I threatened that if she did not like me voluntarily running errands while watching Clara, then “perhaps I simply would not do it anymore.” Mature, I know.

I knew I had messed up, but I hoped credit for my good intentions. I also hoped to make it right. Which is why I sped over to the scene of the crime (Goodwill) and kindly begged for them to dig out the bag I had donated that morning.

No dice. It was gone-zo. But they did sympathize with my husband-in-the-doghouse story and politely took my number and a description of the item. But now several silent weeks later, we are considering it a lost cause. Hence the Plan B suction cup solution you’ve since seen in our bathroom. They’ve in fact been strong so far, although they were not free or built-in. Oh well, cannot win ’em all.

This particular tiff is obviously settled and behind us. There were apologies, concessions that it was not a big deal, and promises to be more communicative. Though with as much time as we spend together and as many projects as we tackle as a pair, I am sure our next bump is lurking simply down the road. We simply try to remember we are on the same team with the same end goal. We wanna whip this house into shape and have as much lively as possible (specifically without killing each other) along the way. So now if you are one of those folks who wondered if we ever fight, you cay say “oh yeah, there was the Towel Bar Incident Of 2012” (or feel free to recall it as “oh yeah, there was that towel bar incident where John was totally right.”)

Now you are up. Care to commiserate about a Hands-on-related miscommunication? Feel free to put the blogging equivalent of a blurred face and altered voice on your comment if you want to protect the innocent (or perhaps the guilty).

Psst- For a more detailed post on in fact resolving decorating-related disputes, click here.