October 13, 2022
The third contractor came today, taking a peek at exposed beams in the unfinished part of our basement to provide an estimate at the cost to remediate the termite damage we inherited. In a hot urban market, waiving inspection is what it takes to have an offer accepted, and we didn’t know until the first swarm. With old houses there’s always something, I suppose, and new construction is no guarantee that a shiny surface doesn’t hide shoddy work.
It isn’t like the ceiling is caving in, not yet anyway. We could probably get away with ignoring the damage for a while–the supporting beams made slightly spongy from years of burrowing. The termites are gone now–we’ve faithfully treated the area since discovering the problem, and the termite inspector we’re on first name basis with recently gave us an all clear. If we want to remediate, go right ahead.
Do we want to?
The beams are exposed now because we just removed the last of the white panels forming a makeshift ceiling in the utility space. The panels are finally out because we’ve hired our friend Susan to make our basement look less family junk drawer and more calm passageway to a personal retreat. Instead of blocking our access to the panels, as it usually does, all the stuff usually stored haphazardly between the entry door and the apartment is in increasingly organized piles in the apartment. I find myself avoiding the utility space, air pungent with cat litter and homeless but not dispensable items shoved at odd angles onto makeshift shelves. It makes my order-loving, minimalist-envying heart hurt, but it is never the urgent thing to give attention to. I usually just grab what I need, shut the basement door behind me, shake off the angst and dive back into the unavoidable chaos of family life.
But I don’t want that to force our guests to walk through that particular dark night en route to the future beauty of Rock Creek Sanctuary. For the longest time, it felt like an immovable obstacle to the dream. How can we create a retreat space when the entrance is the very opposite of a sanctuary? Our first hint at a solution came with the realization that we could use the back entrance–and so began our extended project to prepare the way: widen the garage door opening, new garage door, install a secure door from the alley to our stairs, waterproof the garage, etc. etc. I’ve learned more about garage doors than I ever imagined–there are so many distinct details requiring dozens of individual choices. Apparently you can’t just say “get us a basic door.” It took a month or two to land on the door itself, and once it was ordered, a wait time of two or three more months. Now, we’re just hoping it’s installed before it snows.
Who would have thought that the path to a retreat center winds through waterproofing and termite remediation? Not nearly as sexy as perusing wallpaper and buying paint samples. But what good is a pretty interior guests can’t reach?
Even with the “garden entrance,” as we’re calling it, there’s no getting around the fact that guests will enter and exit through the front, picking their way through the wreckage of our camping supplies, broken electronics, outgrown kid gear, and unpacked ‘decor’ boxes. Enter, Susan.
The very space that terrifies me appears to excite her. She was full of ideas from the outset: you could move this shelf here, and those cabinets there, and extend your storage space while keeping a smaller footprint. Oh, and I have a proposal for a cat litter solution that will be much less … noticeable. The first night she started tackling the problem she noted, casually “Oh, you really don’t have that much stuff!” I could have kissed her.
And so, our things are in tidy piles in the apartment, the ceiling is bare, the beams exposed. The spongy boards we usually ignore are on display and reachable in a way they usually are not. What do we do about it?
The first quote was more than we paid for our Prius, which we bought new. The contractor literally warned us, prepare to sell your child. I promptly agreed with the wisdom of the three quote approach. The second and third haven’t come in yet, but things are looking more optimistic. There are options, versions of stability we can choose from, smaller investments that will probably keep things sturdy and safe.
And it isn’t like the ceiling is caving in. At least, it doesn’t look like it. But there’s no knowing for sure if the not-selling-a-child solution turns out to be short-changing critical remediation that just costs more later. The tidy version of the parable would say: bend over backward to remove any rot at all, anything in the vicinity, lest you miss some and the cancer spreads. If your eye causes you to sin, and all that. But what if you misjudged? What if the eye isn’t actually causing you to sin? Then you’re just a person with no eye. Besides, we only have so many pots of old-house-restoration funds to spend; do we play it safe and possibly over-correct a not-that-big-of-deal problem at the expense of having a first floor bathroom?
Sometimes it is easier to take an extreme position, even a costly one–cut out the eye!–than have the burden of judgment and discernment. We want the safety of knowing we’re right. Dallas Willard, in Hearing God, his book on developing a conversational relationship with God–of which discernment is an important part, but just one part–opens right out of the gate with the observation: “I fear that many people seek to hear God solely as a device for obtaining their own safety, comfort, and sense of being righteous;” worse, “some people want to have God’s distinct instructions so they will not have to be responsible for their actions.”
I get it. I don’t want to have to wrestle with something, I don’t want to be responsible for choices made with imperfect information in an uncertain world. What if I’m wrong about the termite plan and the ceiling falls in? Forget the termites–what if this whole basement adventure is a total bust? What if my attempt to make it beautiful falls flat? What if no one wants a Rock Creek Retreat? What if it’s a money sink, and the apartment is an expensive, vacant shell?
But sometimes uncertainty is the cost of actually moving, however tentatively and slowly, toward the direction of what stands a decent chance of being wise and good. After all, there’s another parable about an asset manager who avoids taking risks with what’s been entrusted to him. He doesn’t lose money on his investment, but he loses the right to invest.
To him who has faith to risk is entrusted more opportunities to try.
I am excited about this experiment, eager to see this dream becoming something tangible, something that creates space for people to grow, rest, be loved, become the true self God intended. I’m also nervous it will come to nothing, even as we move full steam ahead with new garage doors and (eventually!) wallpaper. But I don’t want to be the fearful asset manager who never learns to take a good chance. We’ve been entrusted with a basement apartment and we are going to invest–imperfect information, uncertain world, termites and all.
