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. home edition

 

f you think of life as a succes-

sion of reality television shows,

Tom and I have moved well
past Manhunt and Boy Meets Boy
and find ourselves mired in the
muck and humiliation of Extreme
Makeover: Home Edition.

Many years ‘ago (and I’m

not kidding) I decided that I wanted
-to renovate our dining room. The
floorsiwere uneven and many of
thefloor boards had split, the win-
dows wouldn’t open, none of the
electrical outlets worked,'and there
was only one lonely. wall sconce
providing light. The wallpaper (the
portions that one cat or another
hadn’t clawed off the walls) had
long since been painted and re-
painted, and the wood trim was dis-
colored and damaged. This room —
and I — were crying out for help.

Tom and I hired an archi-
tect without interviewing others.
He’s wildly talented, wildly sexy,
and wildly expensive. What’s not
to like? He is a doting father, and
brings his towheadedyoung son
with him to client meetings.
Honestly, the only man-magnet our
architect is missing is a puppy.

We were more methodi-
cal in hiring our builder. Our archi-
tect secured bids from five contrac-
tors, and we chose three for me to
interview. Tom was still working in
Southern Vermont then (this was
years ago, remember), so — out of
expediency -1 was deemed suffr-
ciently competent to hire a builder
on my own.

My criterion was actually
very simple: I was determined not
to hire anyone that I might be
tempted to sleep with, or that I

guessed Tom might be tempted by.
It had already come up that I fail to
keep my hands off the architect
(did I mention wildly sexy?), and I
figured life would be like a ’70s
porn video if I was panting after
our builder all day long.

One of the finalists was
eliminated for exactly this reason.
He had flawless skin, eyelashes
like butterfly wings, honey-colored
hair, and a soft, quiet voice that
forced you to lean ever closer to
him as he spoke. I was seated
beside him reviewing the portfolio
he had brought, rapturously listen-
ing to him recount his contributions
to each project, and all at once I
stopped listening and simply
watched his beautiful mouth form
words.

- As I sat mesmerized by
his lips and the intermittent sweep-

ing of his,lush lashes over his deep —

brown eyes, I became obsessed
with the notion that I was close
enough to simply turn my head and
lick him. I wanted to know what he
tasted like. I was guessing it would
be good.

He didn’t get hired. The
man I did hire was passionate about
our project, eamghighly recom-
mended by our architect, and had
established the level of his craft as
a violinmaker. And I was absolute-
ly sure I could keep my hands off
him.

Our builder got started on
December 15th of 2002. And here’s
the cautionary part of this tale: he’s
still here. Yes, our dining room has
been torn up — though it feels more
accurate to say our house has been

torn up — for three Christmases in a_ -

row. And we don’t even have floors
yet (or a heating system — the
builder ripped it out — or electricity
in half the house).

What we do have are a
new foundation, new sills, and all
new beams supporting the east side
of our house. The front of the
house no longer bows slightly, and
the room is square (which involved
both lowering the floors and, cheat-
ing into the ceiling).

_ , We have invested more
than two full years of our lives in
improvements to our house that no
one will ever see. And to top this all
off, Tom and.I must qualify for
some kind of award (federal disas-
ter relief?) for spending more on the
renovation of a single room —
nowhere near complete — than I
spent to purchase the entire proper-
ty in the first place. This builder has
brought us pain and aggravation
that seems unimaginable from a
man neither of us is sleeping with!

In the years our builder
has dallied around perfecting the
subsystems of a single room, four
people on our street have built
complete houses — start to finish.
Tom and I have tried to sustain a

‘sense of humor through all this. We

have found that the secret to avoid-
ing the damage to a relationship
that often accompanies financial
disaster is to focus on your com-
mon enemy. And in this we have
good company: our builder has
become public enemy number one
in our neighborhood. Tom and I
sometimes worry that we’ll have to
protect him from a horde of our
caring neighbors arriving with
pitchforks to run him off the prop-
erty for good!

Perhaps life is that suc-
cession of reality shows. Our archi-
tect and builder have been locked
in a fierce game of “Survivor” —
each one determined that the other
be voted off this island. Refereeing
their battles left us feeling like
“Nanny 911 .” So in mid-January
Tom and I finally went all Donald
Trump on the guy and told the
builder, “You’re fired!” He may be
out of a job but, in the end, Tom
and I are clearly The Biggest
Losers. V

Bennett Law and Tom Bivens camp
out in the shell of their home in
Bethel. ‘