The Reno: "How On Earth Are You Managing To Live Here?"

Danielle Crittenden's 1905 house in Washington, D.C. has been undergoing a major renovation for the past year (and off and on for over a decade). In this weekly summer series, which appears weekends on HuffPo, Danielle records what it has been like for her and her family to live through the construction with their builders, Virginia-natives Brent and John. To read previous installments, click here.

"HOW ON EARTH are you managing to live here?"

Through the fall and winter of our renovation, those were the first words out of the mouths of guests and visitors. Good friends would be blunter: "You guys are insane!"

"You get used to it. Come this way."

My friend Ernest Hillen wrote an excellent book, The Way of a Boy, about his childhood in a Japanese internment camp. Wherever they moved, Hillen's mother would indomitably set up a "home." She'd string a blanket up for privacy from the other prisoners, find a tin can and stick some mangy flowers in it--whatever it took to maintain an appearance, or memory, of civil life.

Ernest's story inspired me throughout that winter - the "Valley Forge" period of the renovation, when everything was devastated and we 'd lost hope that it would ever be made right again.

I'd lead visitors around scaffolding, through the shells of walls, over tools, nails, and rubble to our improvised "oasis of civilization." John and Brent had assembled a full kitchen--down to a working sink--in the area where the new kitchen would be. I had annexed my husband's once and future study as our family area: The plan called for finishing this room last, so there was least activity here.

(Happily our upstairs, sealed off by a bit of tarp, remained habitable, so all we had to create was a cooking and eating area.)

I brought up an old Ikea table from the basement and covered it with a floor-length white tablecloth. I found six ballroom chairs, which we'd bought years ago from a caterer and used as extra seating for parties. A sawhorse served as a sidetable. As a bonus, the study's fireplace was still intact and working, and retained its mantle with gilded mirror. Our youngest daugher, Beatrice, produced magic-marker portraits and landscapes for the walls. Decorated with poinsettas (it was the holiday season after all) and about fifty votive candles, the room actually became quite magical in the evenings. Miss Haversham meets Bob Vila.

I could still turn out full meals in my kitchen. Every night the table was laid with china plates, napkins, silverware, and wine. Those who joined us occasionally were at first shocked--and then got into the spirit. My teenager Miranda dubbed our family quarter "the mouse house." It was the perfect analogy: we did feel like we were living under the floorboards of the humans in the apartment above.

The children rejoiced in the relaxed rules and lowered standards of cleanliness (admittedly, Mrs. Mouse got in the habit of brushing crumbs from the table onto the floor).
Downstairs, feet never had to be wiped. Bea rode her trike up and down the hallway. The framing and floorboards filled with graffiti. There were always blocks of wood and other treasures to play with (on one cold Sunday afternoon, three little girls spent hours amusing themselves hammering nails into wood and presenting them as "sculptures.")

And thanks to the mouse house, we enjoyed perhaps the best child's birthday party we 'd ever had. Bea turned six in December. She pleaded to have the party at home. Bea was of course too young to spell L-I-T-I-G-A-T-I-O-N. All I could imagine was our small partygoers cutting their hands off with the power saw. But finally I relented, and we turned Miss Haversham's dining room into a ruined castle. We hung sparkling foil snowflakes from the rafters and strung the windows with paper streamers. I dug out some brass candelabras, which we filled with gold candles. We made a fire, filled silver bowls with candy, and waited for the princesses to arrive.

As usual, looks of horror crossed the faces of those girls (and parents) who had not been in the house before. Then they saw the room!

For the next two hours, the guests entered into the temporary enchantment of their surroundings. They added to the graffiti on support beams, played indoor water balloon toss, ate cake and ice cream by the fire. No one chided them about getting things dirty or dropping stuff. At the end they were a smeary, dusty, water-stained band of happy princesses--and as they left, I heard one say to her father, "Daddy can we play with water balloons inside too?"

"No!" came the swift reply.

I have, of course, repeatedly warned Bea that once there is fresh paint and finished floors, all this "fun" will end.

"Basically, we will be restoring the death penalty to anyone who scribbles on a wall," I explained to her one day over breakfast. Bea was doodling with a permanent marker on the old island top. She was wearing, as usual, John's dusty cap and his reading glasses. It had become part of her morning ritual to greet John by stealing his things.

"I know, Mommy."

She sighed and added sadly, "I'm going to miss our mouse house."

The "mouse house" birthday table.

This series originates in the National Post.