Hidden costs of home renovation – bon appetit

So after crunching numbers for a month, I thought I had a good handle on what it was going to cost to update the castle that Miss Wendy and I call home. Wrong!

Forget all the little extras – bits of trim and paint; additional siding for areas that had rotted years ago; sheetrock to provide a pristine surface for our pristine new black splash. No, it’s the stack of cash Wendy and I will be dishing out for the next 10 days or so to eat that is playing havoc with my fine-tuned renovation budget.

The kitchen is a mess. New appliances will be delivered late today, but it will probably be at least another week before they are installed. Meanwhile, unless Wendy and I plan on living on cereal and cookies, we’ll be doing our bit to pump up the local economy by visiting neighborhood bistros.

Our culinary adventure began Monday night at La Madeleine, a Frenchified café that features soup, salads and sandwiches. We both had a bowl of mushroom soup and a Ceasar salad. The soup was heaping and hot, the salad green and ceasary!

Tuesday we drove an extra two blocks and dined at Panera’s, an Americanized café that features, well, soup, salads and sandwiches. We both had soup; Wendy opted for some sort of veggie sandwich and I, once again, went with a Ceasar salad. The soup was, you guessed it, heaping and hot; the salad green and ceasary; the sandwich green and crunchy!

For all these good eats we’ve managed to pay out about $40 – for those keeping track, that would be $20 each night. I’m not all that good with higher math, but if Wendy and I continue eating at this mad pace for the next 10 days or so we might be forced to have the contractor paint only half our home.

Of course there’s always the option of saving on our energy bill, turning off the lights and dining by candlelight at home. I imagine under those circumstances, cookies and cereal might be a fun, tasty alternative to breaking the bank. Stay tuned.