Boxes, Boxes, Everywhere

Let there be carpet! and some paint! Hello 'white sand.' Hello 'white cloud' with 'simply white' trim. Okay, it's not as exciting as electric yellow, but it's progress! Trust me, I can smell the difference. With new carpet and new paint, the place is a VOC ('volatile organic compound' for you non-scientists) heaven....or hell. Mmmm, I can feel the headache coming on already.

But, now you can see all the boxes that I've been moving in for last 2 weekends. Well, not single-handedly. I'm buff, but not that buff. :) The funny (or disturbing or uh-oh) part is that this is mostly just the man's stuff. Most of my things are still in storage. Hmm, i think I need a bigger place. We look a little like alcoholics if you pay attention to what all the boxes are from. We had to do a ton of drinking to get all these boxes empty and ready for moving. It was hard work.

So, I woke up this morning to a balmy 55 degree house. Thanks to Ms. Tiny Fit for her space heater, which kept the bedroom livable. Yes, I am now officially sleeping at reconstruction central. Though, last night I slept with a light on. It was scary there. No really. And it kinda has a funky smell cause no one has lived there for 9 months. Actually - now that I think about it. I slept there last night for the first time in....9 months and 4 days. Yikes. It's sort of disturbing to actually count that out.

The rest of the house won't get flooring til the second week in March at the earliest. So, I won't have a kitchen...or a living room til then. But I'm hoping to do some cooking over at R's house....and some laundry, too. Feel free to invite me over to watch TV, knit, or otherwise get me out of this place. It's livable, but definitely not cozy. (Desperate plea for companionship alert) :)

As an added bonus for you - here's a shot of my super-clorox clean bathroom...the weekend's manual labor. On my way to clean the bathroom, the poor hyundai was pelted with an egg from some wanna-be gangster children. Ahh - back in the neighborhood.

Aaaarrrrgggghhh

Not much time for posting...or sleeping...or breathing. At least not lately. Spent the weekend moving many, many things from Steve-o's place to mine. Had some doughnuts, had some help, and had a major backache after it all. He's got a ton of stuff. And I thought I was a pack-rat! What happens when you put two pack-rats together? I guess we'll see.

Still awaiting the carpet by the way. Supposed to get in on Wednesday. Lies, lies - all of it - lies!

Ah-hem. After the carpet, everything will go into the bedrooms so I can get flooring in the rest of the house. Then, I can put the kitchen back together, and do more painting...and then throw a big party! Okay, I skipped a couple thousand steps. But can you blame me for thinking ahead? A party sounds mighty good right now!

Some Visual Aids

All this talk about paint, carpets, decor, etc. would be a lot more interesting with some photos. So, let's start the tour.

First off, my apartment is an english basement...a nice way of saying it is 2/3 underground. Steve-o once called it a hobbit hole and the name stuck. He claims hobbit holes are cozy, comfy and full of tasty things to eat. Right now, mine is just full of busted stuff, dirt and a bunch of boxes.

First - the kitchen. Note the displaced cabinets, electric yellow paint and the pile of electric meters in the middle of the room. Guess who did that?






Then, the dining nook. Not exactly a room, just a nook. But you can't really see it now anyway cause there is a pile of stuff in the way - everything, in fact, including the kitchen sink! (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)







Onto the living room. Funny angles everywhere and again the fabulous electric yellow. But you can tell from the paint blobs up on the walls that I'm planning to remedy that.

Down the hall, past the disconnected washer/dryer and into the bedrooms. The bars on the window make it look kinda prison-like. Charming, huh? I wonder if that's what Martha tried to tell herself during her confinement.










Bedroom number 2 is the final stop on the tour. It's pretty much the mirror image of the first bedroom. (I'll spare you shots of the bathroom).

So, that's the place...or what's left of it. But with any luck, there will be carpet on Monday, new drywall and some paint on Tuesday and maybe a complete floor by the week after that. Plus, all the painting I'll get to do because I don't have the dough to actually pay someone else to do it. I might pay someone to do the kitchen though, cause all those cabinets are going to be a pain to tape off.

I welcome any colors you love, as suggestions. Well, anything but electric yellow.

Star*ucks really is a bad bad place!

I don't go into Star*ucks much. I am sort of opposed to their "every other street corner" takeover of America. But it was on my way to work, and I had a craving for hot chocolate. But when I walked in, I saw my sworn enemy, the developer that 'renovated' my building 4 years ago. The man who is the source of so many of my problems. I thought about throwing my hot beverage on him. But I think that qualifies as assault. And I don't have time for going to jail right now.

Then, I figured I'd just pour the hot cocoa into his briefcase. That's probably only destruction of property or something. Maybe just a fine...or probation. But by the time I got my beverage, he was packed up. So, I missed my chance. Truly a bummer. It totally would have been worth the 2.60 plus tax.

The irony of it is that I had just come from my house, where I was meeting the painter that was going to paint the parts covered by the insurance people...from the imploding sprinkler incident.....which was a result of the upstairs busted pipe incident. Gosh - there have been a lot of incidents! With any luck, they'll be painting early next week...right after the carpet gets in the bedrooms. Hopefully, without any incidents. I told them twice to avoid the sprinkler heads. I still won't have flooring in the rest of the house, or a kitchen, but at least progress is being made - sort-of. I'll be living in the bedrooms with a microwave. The bathroom is all in one piece, so that's good, at least. No bathroom would kinda be a problem. I'd be showering at the gym at work. Yuck.

I took pictures while I was there, and will post those once I get the memory card home. Hold onto your keyboards!

Sleazy contractors and puppy paws

I hate contractors. No, really...hate them! I figured the one that busted my sprinkler was just a bad one. But I think they're all bad. The woman in the cubicle next to me - she has a half-finished bathroom, because her contractor is in jail. And mine should be - if you could get jail time for failing to actually call people back in anything resembling a timely fashion. Ka-sleazio. That's their code name. Though, I don't know why I should bother to protect the guilty. :)

So, Ka-sleazio is unable to return phone calls, or to paint, put in carpet, or re-do drywall in a reasonable time frame. But you're at their mercy. Cause if you switch contractors, you need to take the time to find one, then get them on the same page as you. And then wait, wait, wait for them to schedule the work. I don't have time for waiting. 14 days and counting til we get booted out of our current place. Cross your fingers for flooring.

I recommend getting a few back issues of 'this old house' and doing stuff yourself. How bad can it be? A little electrocution never hurt anyone...well, maybe a little.

On another front, I'm trying (somewhat in vain) to pick paint colors. When I rented, I always complained about the beige walls, and the fact that I couldn't paint them. Right now, not having a choice looks kinda good. 'Honey maple" or "Mandarin" or maybe "Orange Ice." Then again - how about "cracker bitz" "lasso" or "pony tail" Keeping with the animal theme - maybe "puppy paws." Or, I could have a knit-centric house - with "llama brown" "alpaca" or "wool tweed." Don't even get me started on the blue-s!

Then, of course, there are those who say - 'just stick to white, it's easier to re-sell...people don't like color.' But I never painted over the last owners' colors (electric yellow), so I feel compelled to personalize it, re-sell value be damned!

Stay tuned - photos coming soon.

Welcome to The Reconstruction

Why this blog? Why now? The short answer is that many months ago, my poor little condo had a bit of an accident. Or, more accurately, some contractors screwed up. It's been quite terrible, to be honest, to be suddenly booted out of one's house with no certainty about when one (i.e. me) could go back. But I think I can actually see the light at the end of the tunnel (or hallway, as the case may be) now.

So...for all those folks who ask me - "How are things going with your house?" and for my own mental health (Look how far things have come!), I'm documenting the last stages of The Reconstruction. The putting back together of everything that was ripped apart many months ago. And then slapping a new coat of paint on it for good measure!

I have plenty of other things I could blog (aaahh, my first use of 'blog' as a verb!) about - but this is pretty much consuming my life right now, so here goes....