The Overhaul

Or, "How I survived the demise of the GOP by channeling HGTV."

It's been 5 long years in the making.  I moved my mother from Dallas in 2003 from a 5000 ft² home to a one bedroom apartment.  Then I moved her to a studio in assisted living and now she occupies a bedroom in a personal care home.  With each move, I accumulated more furniture, art work and family stuff.  I have a hand-tooled Western saddle that my grandfather gave to her circa 1937.  I have  the Boehm eagle sculpture that my mother picked for her birthday present in 1963.   I have lots of pretty nice furniture now, too, some from my grandmother, some from Mom.    All this stuff came in, and for five years this house has functioned as kind of a furnishings GI tract, taking the good stuff and expelling the waste. 

Last month I found out that I would have to host a get together for a bunch of muckety-mucks on the 19th of June, so all of the plans for the final house re-do were stepped up, which coincided nicely with my son's graduation (yes, he did graduate.)   I had been doing my homework, got bids from 5 different carpet installers (Lowe's, Costco, Louis Shanks, Chase Carpets and one other).  Lowe's was the lowest price by a substantial margin but there was something about the carpet and the sketchiness of the install that I didn't like.  The carpet I liked best was offered by Louis Shank's, a family-owned high-end furniture store here in Austin.  Surprisingly, they also had the second lowest bid, with carpet and pad that were clearly superior to Lowe's.  Costco had  a limited selection of really good carpet, and a slightly higher bid.  Costco uses a decorator who is an independent contractor and gives a firm bid in the first appointment at your home.   The highest bid was from the store whose name I now can't recall, but since it was a full 50% higher than the Lowe's bid, it's just as well.  Fortunately, I liked their carpet the least.

Here are some things I didn't know:

• You can't really compare apples to apples.  I didn't find the same carpet selection or even a noticeable overlap for the kind of carpet I was interested in in any of the stores.  I fell in love with the Karastan at Louis Shanks, but Karastan has limited dealerships and many have proprietary names.  The same was true for all of the other stores.
• Per square foot pricing doesn't begin to help for cost comparison.  Lowe's premium carpet was pretty inexpensive, but the one I liked had a big pattern and the estimator used a laser gizmo to measure the house.  Estimated footage was 25% more than Louis Shank's and Costco.   The big savings in the Lowe's bid: $100 for the entire house to install.  Color me skeptical.
• 
  Karastan "Natural Desire" in BasketryKarastan has a premium rep, so I was looking elsewhere, figuring that it would be too pricey.  But, I got lucky.  May was national Karastan month, so I got 15% off the list.  And...Louis Shank's is a good customer, I had a big order and the economy is going south.  Result?  On  a per ft² basis, the pad and carpet were less than Lowe's and much better in quality.  The installation is pricey, but the fellow who is here now slaving away upstairs has been doing this for LS for 30 years.   Pictured here is a close approximation of the new carpet chez Beeb.
  

Long story short, in the last week I have sent seven chairs to the upholsterer, repainted the living room and dining room, and am currently getting the carpet installed for the entire house.  I have also lugged, schlepped, carted and conveyed hundreds of pounds of furniture, clothing, computer peripherals, papers and sundry  detritus to the thrift store, the GoodWill and the curb over the last three months.  There is nothing like the prospect of having to get everything off the floor to motivate a good clean out.  I don't want to move the crap twice.

This has been rather therapeutic in many ways and has certainly given a positive outlet for the rather negative energy engendered by our politics.  Still, sometimes I wake up at night and think, "Is it really right to spend this much money and time making my home beautiful?"

Shit yes.