Wilmington Weekend Update #7

Wilmington Weekend Update #7

I have to start by admitting home renovation is a subject endlessly fascinating to the homeowners and endlessly boring to everyone else. Hours, days of tortured deliberation over colors, finishes, and contractors culminate in a few seconds of your friends saying, “Yeah, that’s nice.” But we’ve been waiting five years to exorcise this house of its hideous nicotine trim, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let consideration for my family and friends keep me from giving a detailed blow-by-blow of the process!

Just for fun, here’s where we started:


After splotching the house with paint colors last weekend and polling the neighbors we were sure we had the right color. Until Monday when the tinted primer went up and Margaret noticed the house was the hue of lichen. This led to a frantic dash to Benjamin Moore, where “Cape Hatteras Sand” (gray) and “Annapolis Gray” (sand) were the top two candidates. We deliberated long enough that we almost didn’t feed the kids, and finally went with the Hatteras. Our next-door neighbor Jeff helpfully added some signage to our garage.


The painters swarmed over our house for the next few days, and each night we stood in front of the house with the neighbors assessing their progress, stressing over colors, and sipping Heineken while the children watched SpongeBob and wrecked the family room. Here’s the final product:






Exterior lanterns, new doorknobs, and a knocker should all by up next week, which means I’ll be sending more photos (sorry). We’re planning on black shutters as well, but given our current debt burden we may give those to ourselves as a little retirement present.

This week Sellers joined Abby at SOLA (School of Learning Art). This has led to some hard choices for Margaret, who curates the Hill Family Collection. The children consider every paper they’ve ever smeared with pigment to be a work for the ages. The fire marshal considers their pile of creative output a high risk for spontaneous combustion. So Margaret has to cherry-pick a rotating installation, with some works being preserved in plastic bins in the attic and others being sent as a touring exhibit to the New Hanover County Recycling Facility.

Tuesday night we had a long talk with Sellers and Abby, who espoused SOLA’s mission of love and nonviolence by shoving and kicking a couple of their classmates. We’re chalking it up to the effects of transitions and paint fumes. We clarified that our own strictures against violence might be suspended. Their behavior since has been exemplary.

Julian now rides alone to daycare. Without Sellers competing for conversation he keeps up his own running commentary: “Daddy, what your name? David? What Mommy’s name? Margaret? I Julian! You car blue? Mommy car white! You drive dangerous car? You car safe? Look, big truck! You turn on sing? I no like this sing!” It’s not the most intellectual conversation I’ve ever heard, but it’s more cogent than, say, Fox News.

Wednesday night Margaret held me against my will with a glass of Pinot Grigio until 2:30 in the morning finishing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I was so hoarse by the end that the characters who were supposed to be screaming and shrieking (pretty much everyone in the last few chapters) were croaking. We shall miss Harry, but I welcome the return of my sleep.

Thursday we met with Margaret’s billing person and learned that she is now seeing enough patients to break even filling 2/3 of her schedule. This isn’t bad for being nine months into practice, and she’s currently only staying up until around 11:00 to finish her work at night, so we figure there’s room to grow!

Saturday was given over to puttering around the house until 3:00 when we carted the kids down to Carolina Beach for a birthday party. Sellers’s friend Devin got a room at the Courtyard Hotel to host a pool party. After a week of sweltering in 100-degree heat we got a cold snap just in time to find the pool a bit chilly.



We had to leave before the cake in order to make it to supper club. The sitter arrived in time for us to bathe and whip up a watermelon and feta salad. While we were bathing Abby fell headlong down the stairs trying to open the door for the Domino’s guy; she and the pizza were both fine, and the sitter is recovering with tranquilizers.

The theme for supper club was Pink, in homage to our host David Burchnall’s hero, Elvis Presley. The spread included lobster dip, shrimp cevice, salmon, roasted beets, and lots of New Zealand pink wine. Conversation which by rights should have ranged from flamingos to communism, turned instead toward sailing, the movies of Ben Stiller, and the presence or absence of undergarments.




Sunday Abby made us a do-list (see below). She left a few items off (work on charts forever, stress over finances) but got the basics.


In addition to the above we puttered at home (more pillow forts) then returned to, say it with me now, Home Depot (or as we’ve come to know it, Home), this time just for some flowers. This didn’t keep Abby and Sellers from establishing their usual base camp on the soil piles.



We had planned to follow this up with another pool expedition, but by the time we were done with planting and puttering we were able to con the kids into washing my car with the old, “It’ll be fun!” line. It was, sort of, a little. Okay, it was no pool, but at least my car is accelerating better with 80 pounds of detritus pulled out of the cup holders.


By now you know the routine from there: bath, dinner, bed for the kids, clean-up and prepare daycare lunches for the grown-ups. Margaret has a busy week, working four days to make up for a day off last Thursday. But then it’s off to Pawley’s Island to join Francis, Diane, Liz, Mike, Bailey, and Norah for a week of shelling, boogie-boarding, and putting children in time out. If we have Internet access from there I’ll overfill your inboxes again next week!

David