Over the Labor Day weekend I put up some new curtain rods in the living room, which required removing the old hardware, drilling a few holes and mounting the new.

(A relatively straightforward task that, for some reason , turned into a Five Blasphemous Oath project. I predicted it would be only a One or a Two — and for the record, I don’t use the family-friendly term “Blasphemous Oath,” but you get the idea — yet with a few errant directions, stripped screw heads, dropped tools and pinched fingers, suddenly there I was at Five.)

In between removing the old and installing the new, I paused to look at all the holes in the woodwork left by us (in a few cases) and the families unknown to us who’ve lived in our house and dressed the windows since it was built in 1905.

No one ever seems to repair these holes — the new drapes and shades always block them from view — unlike the all the other holes and dents and dings hidden under strata of paint, putty and patches as well as new wood and drywall.

These holes are our domestic archeological ruins, telling a story of ever-renewed house-beautiful ambition that can never be fully told.