By Elissa Caterfino Mandel

When we moved from a house to a townhouse six years ago, I swore to my husband that my days of renovating bathrooms were over. (For the record, it’s the same thing I told him about a new puppy after our old dogs died. Maisie, our rescue, is now almost five years old.)

It’s weird to say I feel more alive when I’m picking out toilets. But I never want to think of myself as too old to take on a project. There’s something incredibly hopeful, or maybe just really stupid, about remodeling a space to make it yours.

There’s also a circus-like quality to renovation that reminds me of being a young mom. Someone’s always in the house, and usually that person needs something even if it’s only an extra tape measure. Sometimes, someone completely unexpected, like the caulker, rings the bell the way the kids’ guitar teacher once did. And now, as then, I’m just happy I remembered to be home.

So a sense of optimism pervaded my latest project. The bathroom in my townhouse was going on ten years old which is a great age for a kid but for some bathrooms it’s more of a finale. Demolition began in October and now in April, we are nearly done except for the planned installation of a small TV over the tub. Essentially if I put in a refrigerator and a sleeping mat, I’ll never have to leave my bathroom.

Our townhouse was meant to be lock and go, no fuss — our empty nest, something we occupied but didn’t necessarily inhabit. So, my plan when we bought it was to let it stay exactly as it was. No more TV in the bathroom, I told myself. Did I really need to be in a towel while dealing with Trump? I also swore I wouldn’t have as many books in my house as a mid-sized municipal library. That didn’t last. It wasn’t only about adding things.  In a philosophy that could as easily be applied to my post-pregnancy stomach, I decided I wanted certain things gone.

Funny — the time of my previous renovations is still vivid for me; it was far more complicated, too, with children home. As I said goodbye to the boys every morning when they left for school, I waded around workers installing fixtures, hammering shelves, ripping up floors.

It was loud. It was noisy. It was perfect. Maybe my life now would be too damn quiet if I weren’t willing to depart with a few sinks.