Roger's Hole

Those who have known me for a while will remember Roger's hole.

In the summer of 2007, Roger decided to copy what his cousin, Eddy, had done at his house.

Except Eddy hired someone to do this work for him.

But Roger being Roger decided he could do this for himself.

We had only been in our brand new never lived in house for about three or four months when Roger wanted to re-do some things.

Now, I was very much opposed to this idea.

Why did he feel the need to change a perfectly good wall?

Did we really need this new "area" he was creating?

Roger felt we did.

I made him do lots of googling.

The project was Roger wanted to remove part of the wall where the washer and dryer sit.

They are on the other side of a wall from the staircase to the bonus room.

So he would remove the entire wall underneath the stairs to create a new storage area which I believed this wall was supporting the stairs.

A wall I thought was probably important.

"Is that wall needed to support the stairs?"

Roger said, "Not based on everything I have read."

After Roger begged and begged to destroy that perfectly good wall so we could have some "cool area" next to the washer and dryer and maybe some storage area, I finally agreed.

I gave one condition.

"It must look pretty and just like the other walls."

And so it started.

See the first picture above.

Roger had promised this project would take two weekends at the most back at the end of July/August.

For some reason, I had my doubts.

So I gave the deadline of the Halloween party.

He had lots of time that way.

No matter what happened.

Yeah right...

I called this project "Roger's hole" and took pictures along the way to document his progress.

First issue on the first day as Roger removed the first panel of dry wall that came up was some tubing hidden in the area beneath the stairs.

The builder had put all the plumbing for the upstairs bathroom under those stairs.

So Roger's plan of completely removing the wall under the stairs had to be modified.

The new area would be smaller than planned.

But no worries for my husband.

He had a plan B.

He decided to create two little closets.

The project continued and continued.

The months dragged on.

And as with any project, the scope of the project creeped a little.

Roger then wanted to store the subwoofer for the TV from the opposite room under the stairs.

So an electrician was called to install an electric outlet under the stairs.

As summer started to come to a close, the "hole" still was not finished.

Halloween was creeping up.

There were so many issues.

One, the paint color.

We could either buy a five gallon bucket costing over $100 or try to match it.

The wall is still a different color than the other walls.

But only slightly.

And only I can tell.

Two, the wall is not completely bump free.

It is pretty enough I guess.

But even now, I still stare at the major one while doing laundry.

The biggest issue occurred two days before the Halloween party.

Yep, bumping right up against my deadline.

We had paid someone to lay a few tiles in the new area.

We had waited the designated time for the new tile to set and needed to move back the washer and dryer into place.

As a team, we moved them into position.

Roger was in charge of putting all the tubes back and plugging them back in.

As soon as he was finished, I put in a load of laundry with an extra rinse cycle.

About an hour later, I walked into the laundry room aka new pool created by my dear husband.

Water was absolutely everywhere.

He had forgot to put back the drainage tube for the washer.

Water was under the stairs.

Under the subwoofer.

And starting to soak the walls.

Great...

I ran for towels.

Roger ran to the store.

Some of his work had to be undone so we could dry out the area properly.

After hand wringing out towels for about an hour or two to remove the water, I was a bit furious.

But it was presentable at the Halloween party.

In about November, Roger's hole was no longer a hole but a nice wall again.

And pretty.

In the end, it did become somewhat of a useful area.

And it still makes me smile.

Roger's hole.

NOTE: I guess I never took a completely finished photo. The closets do have handles on them.