Final word: Clearing the way for the horror

James Griffin. Photo / Dean Purcell

Opinion

So have you renovated yet?"

It's a standing joke among those in the know, round our way. For more years than I care to recall (and am capable of recalling, these days, to be totally honest), the possibility that we would actually renovate our run-down villa has been a source of great amusement (often leading to outright derision) among our friends. We have talked about it for years - and we have been mercilessly mocked for years by the people we talk about it with.

We (the Beloved and me) have suffered the slings and arrows of much outrageous scorn. We have lived through wave after wave of well-intentioned-but-not-entirely-helpful advice that we were mad for even considering the idea of renovation.

"Sell", the crowd bayed! "Sell and buy somewhere else." So we looked around and we couldn't find a somewhere else we liked as much as the house we would end up with, in the dream version of the palace our house will become - once we renovate the hell out of it.

We have heard all the horror stories of renovations gone horribly wrong. Sometimes we've even heard these stories from the people who actually lived through the horror - as opposed to the people who knew the people who were horrified and helped pick up the pieces after the horror. The Beloved and I have tried not to dwell on the horror because it is, quite frankly, too horrifying.

That is because, as we finally stand atop the cliff of life-long impoverishment that is undertaking a major renovation to a 100-plus-year-old villa, about to willingly step into the void, we need the horror to be a positive thing, a happy thing, a thing of joy. Yes, we are undoubtedly deluded, but there is a time when a degree of self-delusion is important in one's life and I definitely feel this is one of those moments.

Emails are flying back and forth, ink is drying on pieces of paper and assurances of undying devotion to the budget are being sworn. We are embarking on this epic journey whether we like it or not. (And we do like it, even with the whole horror factor.) Within weeks, the Beloved and I will be choosing door handles and toilet roll holders, while burly men rip the guts out of the home we've raised two children in.

But right at this moment we are at the other end of things: emptying our nest so that the burly men can come and do their thing. Eighteen years of existence in this shabby villa must be erased so that the renewal/renovation process can begin, which means that 18 years of crap accumulated by two magpies with their magpie children must be sorted and dealt with.

So it's a bit like forensic archaeology round at our place at the moment. Stuff that was accumulated in the distant past and has lain unmolested for aeons is now suddenly being gone through and assessed in terms of its survivability. Will it live to go into storage, to be reborn some months hence, to take pride of place in the new palace? Or will it simply get biffed? It's like a reality show with the added bonus that it is actually real.

Actually, I'm glad it's not a reality show, because forensic archaeology is a science that requires a level of humanity that reality-TV is incapable of. One of my least favourite reality shows ever (and there have been many of those) was the one where the cleanliness fascists made the nice people throw away their stuff. I tell you, if those people came round my place about now, they would get the slapping they deserve.

Baby crap, for example - not actual baby crap, as in the smelly, crappy kind but that dating back to the age of when babies crawled the Earth - all seems to have migrated to the garage to rest in peace. But for every tricycle and old toy that reminds us why God gave us TradeMe, there are treasures to be found beyond any known value in the real (or reality) world.

There are cool games, toys and trinkets that were much loved for a few months before the next cool game/toy/trinket came along to take its place. There are once-favourite books that I must have read 1000 times to sleepy kids refusing to go to sleep. How can you part with such awesome treasures? The answer is: you don't. There is no reason to keep these things, apart from sentimental reasons, but sentiment, I'm afraid, is the price you must pay when you're a forensic archaeologist. Now all I have to do is find somewhere to store the bloody crap.