Remodeling Rampage

My sister never met a house she wouldn't like just a little better with a few minor changes.  She was a small child when this tendency was first noticed.  Her favorite toy was Lincoln Logs.  Fairly normal as far as that goes, even for a girl.  But her log cabins never looked like any pioneer structure you've ever seen.  She graduated to a doll house and it was in a perpetual state of construction.  There were little pieces of cardboard cut and taped to form new walls and random holes were chunked out of the ceiling for skylights.  A discarded cracker box became a detached living unit for grandmother doll.   

As time passed, these innocent beginnings blossomed into something slightly more ominous.  When visiting homes of friends, she would go into a trance and stare at their walls, muttering about, ". . .opening up some breathing space."  She would go into bathrooms for an unseemly amount of time, only to emerge smiling, reeling in her industrial strength tape measure.  "There's three square feet of wasted space in there," she would declare. "Let's talk about building some shelves."

Finally, it all came to a head and the family drew a line in the sand (left over from the patio project) and demanded she come out of the closet.  "Peggy," we cried, "come out of the closet and put down that hammer."  We begged her to tell us once and for all what the problem was.  But she wasn't listening.  She was staring at the line we drew in the sand and asked if we were putting a wall there.  "That's it," we declared, "you've got a remodeling problem and it is time you admitted it.  Really Peggy, there's no shame here.   A lot of people change a few things here and there.  You've just let it get out of control and now is the time to get a handle on things."  "Ummm, yeah," she agreed, "handles.  Pretty brass ones with distinctive back plates. It would make those cabinets pop!"

We knew then that she needed professional help.  Surprisingly, there were no listings in the Yellow Pages under RA (Remodeling Anonymous) therapy.  We were on our own.  First, we decided to try aversion therapy.  Every time she started a new remodeling project we smashed her thumb with a hammer.  It was ineffective since she didn't seem to notice.

Next, we did a family intervention.  One day we rented a plain white van and hired a fast driver.  We wheeled into the parking lot at Home Depot just as she was trundling out a loaded lumber cart.  We screeched to a halt and all three sisters leaped to the pavement in front of her cart.  (Well, leaped is stretching the point.  We are old and a little plump, so leaping is not our forte.) "Oh good," she said, " all of these 2 X 4's will fit in the van and the 1 X 6's can go in my truck.  Dianne, grab that can of primer, will you?"

Finally, as a last resort, we turned to tough love.  We had her committed to a facility for a two month rehab program.  After the first two months, they said she wasn't finished and the project would take a little longer.  That seemed like an odd way to phrase a medical diagnosis, but we were desperate and accepted it. Finally, after six months they declared her "finished" and ready to move on to "phase two". Our suspicions were slightly raised when we arrived to pick her up and noticed a beautiful new sun room off the back of the facility. It wasn't until later that the horrifying truth was fully revealed.  Phase two was a halfway house.  She remodeled it.  Now it is a whole way, with skylights and a detached living unit.