Turkey with lashings of laminate. Crowbars and cranberry sauce. It’s Thanksgiving today – and, believe it not, apartment flipping often involves both roast potatoes and gratitude. So, before you go ahead and buy yourself an ugly baby – I’d recommend getting some super sweet friends.
The friends you need while renovating
- The ones that will let you show up unannounced to use their internet all day, when you’re too dusty and ashamed to show your face at Starbucks.
- The ones that have been-there-done-that and voluntarily subscribe to the grotty task of Sunday Sanding – even bringing their own Shop-Vac.
- The ones that come round to help you paint on their one day off.
What about family?
Yep, get some family, too. For one, they’ll supply the motivational alcohol. And food and general sustenance when you forgot you needed it. Best of all, they’ll answer the phone when you’ve run out of ideas and need to borrow theirs.
Repayment and edible gratitude
Paolo & I subscribe to a “keep the masses fed and happy” system of karmic repayment. When friends & fam come to help, we:
- Suggest the most appealing activities on our list (ones that don’t include breathing masks or profuse sweat).
- Stock up on help-yourself-it-won’t-run-out supplies of beer, cookies, snacks, & surprise treats for the end of work. (Weirdly, you can do no better than ice cream sandwiches or other childhood foods. Golden).
On other occasions, friends offer to loan us key pieces of home reno inventory: the aforementioned Shop-Vac, drills, saws… a roster of equipment worth more than many people’s children. Lending out expensive gear always comes with risks – will it come back in the same condition, or at all? How to say a thank you that sticks? We try to be stand-out borrowers and show utter appreciation: by making our friends fat.
- Roast chicken (or turkey, in today’s case)
- Yorkshire puddings
- Roast potatoes
- Sticky toffee pudding + custard (or perhaps pumpkin pie?)
- Wine, wine & more wine
Bom, bom, bom
These are the friends and family you need when you’re in the business of parenting an ugly baby. It’s the sweet stuff that proves a project can have multiple functions: fun for now, business at the finish line. Would I want to outsource this project to a work crew if I had the capital? Today – no way. Paid professionals might not dance to Sweet Caroline (go on, it’s catchy) while scraping/sanding/painting. Which sums our work ethic around these parts. How do you thank your free labour pool?
Merci beaucoup, mes amis – Happy Thanksgiving!
Elsewhere in my frantic mind…. 48 hours and counting ’til our house guests arrive aaand I’m scared of the repercussions if I don’t get some All-star After Photos circulating the internetty by then. Am I excited to sleep in my brand new bedroom tomorrow night? Oh man, oh man…. Back to work for this slice of Canadian bacon.
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Full photo credit to dmjarvey via Flickr Creative Commons. Love those mittens!
Hey, you want a s'more? Some more of what?
Nothing beats food as a reward for help. When my brother in law let us use his garage to replace my car’s radiator last winter, I took bread and homemade minestrone soup with me. Everybody was very happy.
From your description, it sounds like the ugly baby is the place to be!
Yummmm! That’s twice-as-nice: getting to enjoy tasty-taste during the work!
I don’t have to thank anyone. No one else helps. My mom does what she can but she runs their farm pretty much single-handedly and doesn’t have much time. Most of her help these days is in the form of letting me borrow her truck for supply hauling, but she put plenty of elbow grease into our last house. I’m repaying her for her help on this place by doing a kitchen makeover sometime soon; hopefully my sister and I can agree on things (although I’ve already been outnumbered on painting the cabinets, boo).
Happy (belated) Thanksgiving!
That’s borderline tragic – you must not be wielding a big enough stick! (And what’s wrong with a little night-time, stealth cabinet painting?)