Daylight Savings Time has expired, giving me an extra hour this morning right after the goblins of Halloween have disappeared—you know, those kids in costumes (mostly accompanied by parents, some also in costumes) who depleted our supply of Mini Rolos last night. I almost dreaded answering the door because the place is a mess. It will remain a mess for another week and a half. And then there was Roscoe, our Springer Spaniel, who for the most part behaved himself on command while people arrived and went, but at one point jumped on a futon near the front window to bark at a departing band of trick-or-treaters and nearly toppled it. I left it slightly upturned toward the window so that he couldn’t do it again, then fixed it once the ordeal was over.

You see, this was no ordinary Halloween. This was Halloween in the middle of an expensive kitchen renovation that was triggered by a slow pipe leak that almost surely had its origins in last winter’s polar vortex that brought temperatures down to the teens below zero (Fahrenheit). But there was no pipe burst at the time, which would have immediately triggered emergency action on our part to get it fixed. Because we routinely at the onset of cold weather turn off the valve behind our stove that controls water to the outside faucet, the water does not freeze. But that did not mean that the 1994-vintage pipe, apparently built closer to the outside wall than would now be allowed, would not experience some stress. So, in May, we discovered that instead it had experienced a slight split that allowed water to leak slowly and unnoticeably—until the Chicago Water Department sent us an alert that water had been running 48 hours continuously. This could be just normal usage on your part, the notice said, but we thought you should know.

We called a plumber. He found the split, and we fixed that, but the damage was already done. The drywall had gotten wet, causing mold to grow. Stopping the leak stabilized the mold, or so we thought, and we spent much of the summer contemplating our next move. Clearly, the moldy drywall had to go. But then there was damage to the lower cabinets surrounding the stove and under the sink. And then we learned we could not match those cabinets, so all the cabinets had to come out in order to replace them. Pretty soon we were selecting an entirely new set of cabinets, including those below an undamaged island countertop, and undertaking an entire kitchen renovation. That includes refinishing the hardwood kitchen floor, portions of which had gotten a bit wet.

Those following this blog regularly—and there are now more than 8,400 subscribers among you—may have noticed I have not written much lately. And I am writing this piece at 5:00 on a Sunday morning. That is because, in addition to the normal demands of my urban planning work, and the teaching demands of my fall class at the University of Iowa as an adjunct professor, I am now living amid semi-organized chaos because the kitchen renovation got underway last Tuesday. Before that could happen, my wife and I, with some help from our daughter and her husband, who are living with us at the moment, stripped everything from our cabinets and cupboards, carefully piled the contents into bins, and moved them into the garage, the living room, or into my home office, or whatever place seemed appropriate—cups, plates, pots, pans, whatever. And so I sit here, longing for those days not so long ago when I could wander into the kitchen early in the morning, fill up the carafe with water, the basket with coffee, and turn on the coffee maker and partake of my early morning pleasure along with—oh, yes, did I mention that I don’t know where someone put the toaster, and we don’t have easy access to cereal bowls, and right now I feel like driving around the corner to that Dunkin’ Donuts to make life easier by getting breakfast passed to me from a drive-thru window?

Right now, the infected drywall has been cut out, the cabinets and sink are gone, and thick plastic from ceiling to floor seals off the part of the kitchen that contains the three appliances that are left—the stove, dishwasher, and refrigerator. And you get to them through the back door, but HEPA filters are cleaning the air until an inspector runs environmental tests tomorrow to certify the job. And then the other folks come in who are fixing the plumbing, adding insulation, replacing the drywall, repainting, and then refinishing the whole kitchen floor before bringing in the new cabinets, the granite countertops, the new sink and built-in microwave, and two weeks from now on, having suppressed my longings for modern convenience for nearly three weeks, I will be exulting in a whole new look in our modernized, better insulated kitchen, and all will be well.

And all of us who live here—including our daughter, who has been recovering from surgery that took place just a week before all this started—will have demonstrated just a fragment of that community resilience I have discussed on this blog. Other than bitter Chicago winters, I have never personally been subjected to the major losses I have seen others endure in the many disaster-stricken communities I have visited and worked in. But I have some glimmer of the stress it imposes. With a good imagination, I can kind of figure out the rest. It builds character, if nothing else.

And now I can’t wait any longer. I’m going to drive to that Dunkin’ Donuts and get my morning fuel. I would have made some coffee in the coffee maker I brought upstairs to our third-floor den and parked on an antique table atop a cover, along with a bag of ground coffee, but I can’t find the dish detergent to clean it. My wife probably knows where she put it, but she’s still asleep. These are the things you get used to. For a few weeks anyway, while the house remains a construction site.

Jim Schwab