The bathroom is gutted. Stripped of everything, cut the tub apart into four pieces with the recip saw, left in awkward fibreglass pile in garage.

Did I mention jackhammering out the back walkway, hauling four thousand pounds of concrete to the dump? And then hauling another two thousand pounds of topsoil to fill in the space?

Or, the weekend that we ripped out the mature crab apple tree, dug out the stump, and trimmed it all into burnable kindling and logs?

Mental labour during the day. Physical labour on weekends and evenings. I take on the minor chores, the fussy bits that retard the larger project, on weeknights. Late evenings in the basement, something old and lame on the CD player like Bryan Adams or the Rankin Family - you know, singable garbage to keep you going - paint roller in hand, the strap of my overalls perpetually slipping off my shoulder. Toes spotted with Manuscript beige instead of Eternal Optimist pink.

There are moments when I am resentful of the house, of the previous owner's shoddy workmanship and maintenance. There are moments where I want to run away from it all, back to Victoria where we lived in a second floor apartment around the corner from fresh produce and video rentals, where our evening activities include long walks, window shopping, and the occasional spontaneous pint at the local pub. And then there are moments when I know that we are doing this so that we can go back and do just that, only this time with more stability and happiness. We are building equity and character and experience, and our time here has more long reaching effects than the immediate self pitying moment of painting a ceiling on a Monday night.