Remodeling and remuddling your place in the country

Spring brings out the remuddler in us. Warmth encourages knocking down, throwing out, fiddling with and adding to.

The line between remodeling and remuddling is clear after the fact. A remuddle never looks quite right and doesn’t work quite right either.

Particularly prone to immediate remuddling are new property owners who have convinced themselves that anything that was plenty good enough for the previous occupants must be done over. I’ve also observed this behavior among my local woodchucks.

I, too, have succumbed to this new-owner need to replace what is with something I’ve half thought out. I think this instinct in men has something to do with testosterone and marking territory. I’ve never met a guy who was unhappy with a crowbar in his hand.

Women in my experience remuddle less and remodel more. On the negative side, they care about interior design. I suffer constant criticism from both my wife and daughter for hanging my college lacrosse stick in our living room. They refer to it as  “decorative adolescence.” Read more