The Beginning of My Renovation Journey: Warts and All

The Beginning of My Renovating Journey: Warts and All.

By Bronwyn Lewis

23/09/2014

All you need is love, right?

I’m about as handy as Tree Man, the poor sod who has been so violently invaded by warts that he literally looks like a tree. And no, not a pretty kind people tie themselves to, the kind people rip out of their rental properties without permission because they know their landlord won’t give a flying fuck.

Worst X-Man ever: Tree Man

Now, I can’t imagine anyone passing a hammer to his fungus-infested hand, that looks seemingly like a bunch of old sticks glued together, and expecting him to build a shed. They wouldn’t do it because it would be insensitive and undoubtedly pretty gross if he actually gave it a red-hot shot. 

I may not have aggressive and gigantic growths attacking my entire face and body, but I can relate to him on a couple of levels. One is that sometimes I feel famous about how downhill my appearance has gone after having a baby, and two, I am pretty useless at building. Needless to say, I’m not afraid at giving it a go, so when my boyfriend and I decided to renovate our modest little home, the fickle feeling of false confidence enveloped me and I was under the impression I was ready. However, my vibrant and over-zealous nature in the old tradie department has since dwindled to a piss hole in the sand after a myriad of brutal knocks to my ego. I soon realised I was approaching this expensive little project with complete and utter cognitive dissonance, which meant I was completely and utterly up shit creek if I didn’t smarten the fuck up.

I attempted to educate myself in this area by visiting the local Mitre10 to peruse the aisles riddled with far too many thunderous fonts and the occasional subdued staff member that speaks and blinks slower than Johnny Depp learnt how to use make-up remover. Apparently this exercise is not the equivalent to doing a three-year apprenticeship. FML. As a harsh consequence of my extensive shortcomings in this terrain, I reluctantly embarked on the terrifying journey of dealing with real-life tradies.

After a few phone calls with gruff, impatient and fucking awful men, I realised I didn’t have the vernacular nor the pleasantries for this shit. I left voicemails to people rambling like a mad, idiotic woman. “Hi Macko, I am trying to renovate my gross 90’s chic bathroom and I need to rip out the useless sink thingo, get rid of some fugly taps and make my shower less shit. If you could call me back, that would be great.” Macko, like many other bastards, did not return my call. I fucking hate Macko.

Chin up molls, I’m pleased to say I have since stumbled upon a few crackers. An electrician mate has been unbelievably kind to us and talks to us like he is explaining what Instagram or turkey slapping is to two demented, incontinent fuckwits. Bless him. We still get all of his instructions completely wrong and he has to fix all the stuff we break, but he does it with such benevolence that I feel like soon he is going to gently tell me I have cancer.

The stonemason who installed our kitchen bench top was the loveliest and most stubborn person I’ve ever met and needless to say, I could completely relate to fifty percent of him. We soon became best friends and if I ever got married, I’d undoubtedly ask him to be my maid of honour. He showed pity on my obvious ignorance and did the job quickly and extremely cheaply. I miss him everyday.

The plumber thus far is as mad as a cut snake, and has an extraordinary laugh that roars through our tiny house and rattles my daughter’s cot. He also laughs at almost everything, which would be awesome if I didn’t have a sleeping daughter in said cot. If I had to do my 21^st speech again, I would want him in the front row because he has not once taken me seriously. I hope he doesn’t tell me I have cancer. Anyway, my inner Tree Man must have been showing because he has agreed to do the bulk of the renovations for a fraction of the cost. I think all I have to do is keep saying random things to fill the gaps in between his outlandish cackle. I can definitely do that.

So, after a pretty ordinary start, it seems we are on track. Sure, we may have so many holes in our kitchen wall I am thinking about throwing out the collider and simply chucking our cooked pasta at it. And yes, maybe I have to make up a few hundred stories to the solitary and ever so eager audience of the good-willed plumber to fuel his fire and diminish our bill, but we are certainly moving forward.

So, get fucked Mitre10 and Macko. All you need for renovations to start happening is the ability to accept one’s inner Tree Man, warts and all.

My Beloved Bitterness Burns On...

My Beloved Bitterness Burns On…

By Bronwyn Lewis

20/09/2014

My life as I know it is about to be turned on it’s head. Again. At the start of this year, I entered into the bewildering warzone of stay-at-home motherhood and in two weeks I shall leave it to return to the sour stench of teenage BO and welcome the self-aggrandising attitudes of our nation’s youth. I’m pumped. So, this leaves me a moment to reflect on how I surprised myself in how much I changed and surprised others in how much I didn’t.

Before you slam your laptop/iPhone/iPad/enormous Samsung thingo down in utter repulsion of yet another ‘mummy blog’, give me a moment. It is definitely not one of those. Or maybe it is.

I would like to think that the birth of my daughter didn’t change me. In fact, my nostrils flare with satisfaction when people suggest it hasn’t. Once that sheer relief that I am in fact still ‘me’ passes, I am left feeling perplexed as to why they thought I probably should have changed more, and wonder what life form they thought I would mutate into. Did they think that when the midwife pulled the slimy and confused little baby out of me that I would lose my sarcastic and somewhat unsavoury demeanour and opt for a more sickly sweet and timid one? Sure, I get that babies are ‘life changing’, but are they really ‘complete personality changers’?

When I stub my toe, there aren’t enough episiotomies in the world to make me say “Darn!” in place of ‘”Fuck-shit-piss-tits!”. I understand that one day I will have to curb my profanities, but for the moment, my chubby, screamy, blonde-haired baby thinks the most outrageous thing I do is perform the dance from Sia’s ‘Chandelier’ film clip whilst she sits in her highchair and rubs yoghurt into her eyebrows. After a good three weeks of this performance, she’s more tired of it than Australia is of Anthony Callea trying to make it big. Like my tolerance of Shania Twain songs, Mr Callea will be forever small, figuratively and physically.

Back to me.

I approached mothers group with the same attitude, and as a result I am the mad, outspoken, painfully honest woman with unbrushed hair who will eventually be ‘accidentally’ left out of invitations to play dates. I’m aware of this risk, but it is worth the sacrifice if I can keep from biting my tongue off until it’s a bloody stump when discussing the shit parts of parenting. In all different reasons parents find themselves gathered - whether it’s day care foyers, nursery rhyme-times, baby friendly cafes - I will be the one who crosses the line into ‘inappropriateness’. I will look openly repulsed when someone challenges the validity of vaccinations, I will call Olive a moll when she is being one, I will call the fat kid fat until he knows what that word means and I will say being a parent is a fucking shit gig when Olive has decided she would like to spend an entire week refusing to eat because she’s too tired and not being able to sleep because she’s hungry. Babies are dumb. Cute, but really fucking dumb.

So in that respect I haven’t changed, but I would be lying if I emerged from my enormous life transition with my pre-baby identity completely intact. I created this tiny person who I can watch sleeping on the baby monitor like a toothless bogan would watch the greyhounds: drunk. Just joking (not joking). Every little change she experiences, I swell with pride because learning how to cough on cue is hands down the fucking smartest thing I’ve ever seen anyone do. Or when she learnt that things look differently when she tilts her head, so she spent an entire afternoon giving herself early onset RSI in her neck I couldn’t have been prouder. Or when she recently clung on to me tighter than a pair of Gina Rinehart’s trousers when someone tried to have a little hold of her, which taught me that she is just as obsessed with me as I am with her. It’s awesome. And yes, I film these moments and insufferably send them as group texts to anyone and everyone I know and expect them to watch it on repeat for days, then discuss every minute detail with me when I see them next. If they don’t, I quickly question their commitment to the friendship seeing as they willingly and actively neglect my offspring. I’m becoming about as popular and palatable as Angelina Jolie when she went through that phase of making out with her brother.

In this self-indulgent moment of self-reflection, I have come to realise my extreme reluctance and sheer terror of morphing into a cookie-cutter mother was in vain because it’s simply not in my make up. Even though my daughter’s gappy-toothed smile makes my heart feel like it’s going to burst and worn down the most cynical part of me, my treasured bitter fire still burns on. So I remain me, just with less lipstick and more things to both swear and smile about.