Mrs. Fix-It: Why Carol Prisant Loves Fixer-Uppers

Via Housebeautiful.com

I have a chronic, undocumented disease. It's not familial, and it's obviously not contagious, since my late husband never caught it. Still, he lived in constant fear of it. That's because the afflicted — or should I say the addicted — have this hugely ungovernable urge to redo anything they see. I've come to think of it as Henry Higgins Syndrome. You know, "It's almost irresistible. It's so deliciously low — so horribly dirty." Well, there I am. Gone.

I suppose I was born with it, but I didn't know that until we'd bought our first house: a tiny Tudor with '30s linoleum and '50s Formica. We had no money, so naturally I couldn't do anything significant like add a room, say, or blow out a wall. So I self-medicated with paint, curtains, and endless cups of coffee. I did try to put a den in the basement. It was dismal, of course. Crypt-like, in fact. Which is why, against my husband's better judgment, I turned our dining room into a "real" den by moving the table and chairs against one wall, putting a sofa on the other, painting the flooring white (ooh, hard on the knees!), and poof, instant...half-den. I tried, too, to design a patio. This was wonderfully satisfying until our inaugural garden party, when we realized we'd angered the cesspool trolls. (Did you catch how that "I" suddenly became "we"?)

Of course, I yearned for a larger palette, so after that first heady decade of DIY, we moved to a house that needed me more: a 19th-century villager that hadn't been touched since...well, it had a working annunciator. I painted its exterior myself (ooh, hot up there!) and converted the dining room into what used to be known as a solarium by doubling the windows and installing French doors. We had green tile laid (I can't do tile), and with white banquettes, floral pillows, and a bunch of plants, we created — sort-of-poof — a sunroom. I loved that room. I still have pictures. (Ask me.) On a serious fix-it roll after that,I decided to replace our historically inaccurate front door with period double doors, and grained them tiger maple. It wasn't till passersby stopped to take photos that my husband kind of decided my affliction had an upside.

Another 10 years zipped by. Our house was looking really good. Too good, actually. So I sought out the Ultimate Wreck: a Victorian gothic — so scary, so daunting, that shortly after money changed hands, our broker confided that 11 husbands had previously fled in terror from its (peeling) doors. And frankly, mine was none too thrilled. Especially when a location scout came by just after we'd moved in to ask if he could rent it for a vampire series.

"I'm a werewolf girl," I said firmly, closing the (still-peeling) front door and dashing back to my painting, papering, gilding, bleaching stains out of white marble, putting new toilet seats in the bathrooms. This time, however, I not only spared the dining room the usual depredations, but in apparent atonement for those helpless dining rooms I'd trashed over the years, I treated it to a coffered plaster ceiling, a Gothic cornice, and some truly pretentious pelmets. And then — since my nails were already ruined — I went on to stencil a few walls, paint our porch ceiling robin's-egg blue, and add roof cresting.

Perhaps the most sensational change we made was the "stoning" of the center hall. First, we painted the whole thing light gray. Next, we measured its height and width and cut out a cardboard template for an "ideal" block of stone. Then, with my rocket-scientist husband wielding the straight-edge, I — the "artistic one" — dipped my brush into a can of black and started to paint the lines. Twenty-five "stones" or so along, we noticed that my lines were unmistakably, painfully...wavy. Oh, impulsive, feckless me! I'd started at the front door rather than the back. We switched. It was way too late, but still, we switched. I held the ruler while my so-much-better-half painted brilliantly straight, thin lines. When we finished — three days later — the effect was uncanny. That hall was suddenly stone! The walls even felt cold! And forever after, I lit the front entry with 15-watt bulbs.

Recently, I've moved to the city and...okay, I see you're way ahead of me. Yes, I asked to see only the apartments that needed help. Yes, I made an offer on everything I saw. Yes, after all these backbreaking years, I've still never met a dismal, run-down, neglected wreck I didn't fall hard for. I let other people do the fun stuff this time around, because my knees are a little iffy. But I love my new digs anyway. I plan to stay. And I think I'm out of rehab for good. Really. I swear. I am. I swear.

Kyla says: hilarious!! Anyone else have the same illness? I know I can totally relate; mine is familial. And there is no shame. Do share your design mishaps here.