My Family’s Terrors With Home Improvement My family is absolutely terrible at home improvement. I mean, I’m only eighteen, but even I can tell that my family has no idea what they’re doing every summer when they think it’s time to “spruce this place up.” I’m rather grateful this will be my last summer with them for a while, assuming my college plans continue on a steady place. But I digress. You want to know how terrible my family is at home improvement? I suggest you not eat anything while reading on!
First, let’s talk about simple paint jobs. My dumbbell father and mother are terrible at picking out paint. They thought out ranch style house needed to be painted…are you ready…red. Yes, red! Bright, cherry picking red! They painted our whole house red two summers ago. It used to be a very simple off white.. When they got out the red I thought maybe they were just doing the trimmings. Nope. They went for the full caboodle.
But they didn’t even do it correctly. There’s smudges everywhere, and they didn’t think to use painter’s tape, so even the trimming – which is supposed to be white – is beet cherry red in places. It looks like it’s bleeding! I have no idea what to say to friends when they come over. What can I say? That my parents are stupid? No kidding. I feel like this could’ve looked nice if done by professionals and with a calmer red. But that would be asking for too much in this family.
Then there’s the garden. When my mom said she was going to relayout the garden, I thought, great! We could use more color in the garden. I was thinking tulips and daisies. Well, she got the tulips. Blue tulips! Blue tulips to go with a red house. Oh, and with white trimming. Do you see the pattern here? We’re a hit on the 4th of July.
The worst part is that half the tulips died because she was inept at caring for them. So some day we had half alive tulips, and half dead tulips sprawled across the grass. Not even the passing deer would eat them. When even a deer won’t eat your flowers, you know your garden might be messed up.
I wish I could say that was the extend of our home improvement woes. I only talked about what happened on the outside. I have yet to mention the downstairs bathroom that’s redesigned to look like a pirate ship, or the kitchen counters with faces on them, or the taupe carpets lining the den and living room. I haven’t mentioned them because they weird me out to think about. The only normal looking place in my house is my room, which I’ve kept simple. Almost sterile. My mom keeps asking if we should paint it, but I keep looking at her like she has three heads.
My parents are wonderful people in all aspects, except home improvement. Try as they might, they still haven’t mastered the skill of subtlety – or talent.
