My husband and I bought our first house just weeks after we were married; that was ten years ago. We had been temporarily living with my parents leading up to the purchase of our first home. Despite never letting us have dogs when we were growing up, my parents were gracious enough to let us take over their home with our two maniac dogs for a few months while we were getting re-established in the area. So needless to say there was a sense of urgency in finding a home of our own. In hindsight, it might have been nice for us to sort of ride out that glorious situation – no mortgage, hot dinner, unconditional love, and no home repairs to tackle. We used to joke that we should have bought stock in Lowes when we bought our home because it felt like we were single-handedly funding their business with all of the home repairs that we attempted.
My dad had built a deck onto my childhood home when I was quite young. When I think about that now it sounds to me like an absolutely impossible task. It took my husband and I four years just to paint our deck at our newest home. But in my memory, my parents had tackled any home-improvements and repairs themselves and made it look easy, so of course I thought that we could do the same. When we bought our first home we loved it for its potential. And it had a lot! We rationalized that the outdated style and small imperfections would be fun projects for us to tackle together. We soon learned that with our (lack of) skills in home improvement projects, it was far from fun most of the time.
Our bathroom was the epitome of the fifties: pink tile halfway up the walls throughout, a pink tub with the same pink tiles as the shower wall, and a tile floor to match. We dealt with this retro bathroom for a couple years but at some point I couldn’t take it anymore. I needed the pink to be gone. And once I have made a decision like that, there is literally no way to stop me from taking action.
I will never forget the look on my husband’s face when he came home from work that day. I was in our only bathroom with a sledgehammer and a scraper. Where there had once been pink tile walls there was now exposed drywall, caked with tile glue. Our bathtub was full of pink tiles that had once hung on the walls around it. You could actually see down into the basement through the tub walls. Our shower was unusable. I think I felt like I had started something really important and awesome initially, but I suddenly realized that we were now in an emergency situation. We had no way to shower for work the next morning. Did I mention we had a baby to bathe as well?
About two weeks passed before we started making some decisions about how we were going to handle the repairs. So during that time we showered at the gym, at my parent’s house, and I even showered at work a few times. I remember one very distinct time that I had showered at work. I got there in sweatpants around 6:55AM. It was early enough to get into the bathroom unnoticed (I’d done it before), but just barely. On that particular day I was met with the most unexpected of situations: the building maintenance team was walking up to the bathroom just as I was arriving. They needed to replace a few lightbulbs before the workday began.
I looked a mess but they’d seen me around before and definitely knew that I worked there. In that moment I remember being super thankful that I always said hi to everyone that I passed in the hallway. I had probably said hi to these men a few hundred times over the two or three years that I’d worked there. I pleaded with them to please let me take a five-minute shower before they went in there. I promised it wouldn’t take any longer than that although I’m certain they did not believe that to be possible. I was on the verge of tears when they conceded. Hallelujah! True to my word, I was out of there in record time. And I had a few new friends. And an intensified urgency to get my bathroom fixed ASAP because I did not want to be in that situation again.
We “fixed” the bathroom well enough to live in it for a little while. And by that I mean that we had a shower. I think that our initial fix was even more embarrassing and unbearable than the original pink. So eventually we made a real plan to actually update it properly and we executed that plan with the help of family and friends. The planned remodel went way better than the initial emergency fix and we had a much easier time selling the house years later because the only bathroom in the house wasn’t a complete disaster. The bathtub, however, was definitely still pink.
Having not learned anything at all from that situation, we went on to attempt to install a fence, replace our kitchen floor tile, repaint the entire house, re-design the landscaping in the front yard, and turn our cement and cinder block basement into a finished playroom. These projects generally started in the same signature fashion that I have become sort of notorious for in my household. I just dive in, do something completely irreversible, and then eventually manage to figure out a way to get to the end result. Or at least pretty close. Sometimes my vision for the project changes mid-way through it. Sometimes we have to try a few things before we truly understand what will work. Most times it turns out different than we had originally planned for or expected. It always works out. And none of these things would have ever gotten done if we hadn’t taken the first swing.
I have always found it to be easier to figure things out when there is at least a little bit of pressure. If given too much time and no sense of urgency, I can easily find myself in analysis paralysis. But once I’ve taken the first step I seem to jolt myself out of that state of petrified inaction and into a state of “let’s do this!” You can see from my record of home projects that this is a hallmark of my personality both personally and professionally.
In fact, I would say that this has been such an important aspect of my career that I would actually consider this to be one of my secrets to success. I have the prudence to do the research but just enough impatience to ensure that I will not let a lack of details keep me from moving forward. I take a step forward with the information that I have and then I adjust my path as I learn more. Sometimes it is a small step. Sometimes a leap of faith. It can be terrifying and it can be stressful. But it is almost always invigorating and ultimately rewarding. If you don’t take a sledgehammer to the tile, you might always live in a pink bathroom. And I simply cannot live my life in a pink bathroom.
Earlier this month I launched a new consulting business. It’s exciting to jump into something new and yet I know that if I waited until I felt totally prepared then I probably wouldn’t do this for another fifty years. People have been asking me how I know what to do to get a business going. Here’s the truth: I don’t. But I’m following my own advice because I’ve proven that it works over, and over, and over again. I’m taking one step at a time. I’m being resourceful and learning from friends and family. I’m asking for help when I need it. I’m reading a lot. I’m embracing missteps as learning experiments. I’m building up my resiliency and learning to hear “no” as a suggestion and not a conclusion.
And most importantly I’m trusting that I have the knowledge and skills that I need to be successful. I’ve been building them up for my entire life through work and life experiences. I’ve been given great opportunities to learn and grow, to fly and to fail, to remedy bad decisions and to celebrate good ones. I’ve proven that I can do this many times in different settings. All I need to do now is take one more step forward. And I urge you to do the same. I might not know exactly how to install a new shower wall, but I can tell you for sure that you get it done by taking one small step at a time. So get out there and take a step!
Beautifully written blog, Colleen. Often the first step is the most difficult, but maybe not for you. 🥰