A recent Saturday night. Late.

Jill and I are sleeping soundly at opposite ends of the TV Room sectional. I wake up in the flickering darkness and through squinted eye, see Liam between us, nestled back into the deep bend in the middle of the couch, sucking his thumb and staring balefully at the television. He regards me briefly over his small fist, then turns back to the TV. I begin to say something to him, I think.

A cushion… then darkness.

Later, I vaguely remember a sleepy Jill rousting me and herding us upstairs to our real beds. Liam walks ahead of me, and with furrowed brow, I follow his leopard-spotted blanket up the steps. “I’m going to lie down with Liam until he falls asleep,” Jill says.

I may have nodded, but no one really knows.

At the breakfast table the next morning, I suddenly recall my encounter with Liam the night before.

“Liam, were you watching TV last night while we were sleeping?”

“Yep.”

“What were you watching?”

“I watched a movie.”

“What movie?”

“I don’t know. But some guy was sawing somebody else’s foot off, and some other guy was encouraging him.”

I look at Jill, and Jill looks at me. She blinks rapidly.

“And then he was shooting a gun.” Liam continues. “And then he called him the adult word that starts with an ‘F’.”

He points at Jill, ”You know it, Mum-mum, say it!”

“My god. I think our five-year-old was watching ’Saw’.” 

I ask him why he was up in the middle of the night in the first place; how did he come to be watching an R-rated splatterfest, complete with shrieking violence, bloody hacksaws, and profanity-laden amateur limb removal?

He looks up calmly from his blueberry waffle.

“Because I was having a bad dream.”

Nate wanders into the room, dragging a toy broom and a plastic workbench leg.

Nate: “Dada, what if I said ‘Three Popcorn Leg’? And then… and then you said ‘Three Popcorn Leg!’”

Dada: “I don’t know…”

Nate, turning and leaving: “Three Popcorn Leg.”

Dada: “…how to answer that, man.”

We’re getting our third floor ready for human habitation. When we moved in eight years ago, this level had no heat, no AC, and no electricity. It was also home to a well-established bat colony - the largest they’d seen in 5 years, according to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources - that had had the run of the place since roughly the Hoover Administration. They used to poke their wings out under the door at night.

The bats, not the Hoover Administration.

So we evicted them, had all evidence of their 50+ year-occupancy removed via HEPA vac and bleach, installed AC and heating, installed storm windows, and wired the place up to code.

Oh, and we also had water leaks. And when I say ‘water leaks’, I mean the water was coming through the roof, through the attic, through the third floor, and into my desk chair on the second floor. Inconvenient. So we had all those dealt with also. However, coupled with the bats (and earlier futile attempts to deal with the bats), they had done some long-term damage to the plaster and lathing, mostly in the ceilings throughout the level. The original wallpaper was tattered and hanging in places like bandages from a mummy.

We decided to start with one of the rooms that was in the best shape, and turn it into a workout room. Originally, we were just going to clean everything really well. But one thing led to another, and before you could say ‘Random Orbital Floor Sander’, we were renting shit from Home Depot that required two people to carry to the car.

It also turned out that, like everything else with this house, she wasn’t going to let us off easy. We discovered that there was lead paint on the floor, so we had to dress Jill up like Dexter and hermetically seal her into the room with all the equipment before she could start sanding.

“Buhbee, put your hand up against the plastic so I can take a picture of it.”

While we were at it, we decided to get the center hallway knocked out too. More to follow when we’re actually finished with the painting and putting polyurethane on the floors. Until then, click below to see all the pictures to date.

Saturday. In the car. Liam pointing.

“That tire-swing gives me an idea. We should cut other stranger’s kid’s swings down, and stop them from having fun.”