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CURRENTLY
Reading:
God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
by Christopher Hitchens
Surfing:
Naked in Public
by Monica
Eating:
Pizza from
Northlake Tavern and Pizza House
Listening:
A Winter Symphony
by Sarah Brightman
Drinking:
Stella Artois
September 22 2008
It’s clear to me now, after only 20 minutes of actual work, that I’ve bitten off more than I can chew in some respects. We’re renovating our bedroom/master bathroom.
You see, those cocksuckers who sold this place to us two years ago decided to do a lot of construction themselves when they updated. This would have been fine if they knew anything about construction and codes and laws and, you know, electricity and plumbing. We have pretty much fixed the electrical nightmare they created in our walls, with a few exceptions related to some lighting and the heat in our back room. We didn’t do this repair work ourselves because, while Janie and I are intelligent and educated people, we know our limits enough to say hey - we don’t know our ass from a ground wire, so maybe we shouldn’t do this ourselves, and we hired an electrician. A very nice electrician who felt bad that we were lied to by some retarded guys who were, well, retarded.
We’ve been talking for a while about making some changes to our bedroom and the back room as well as the main hallway. We decided that the first, and larger, of the projects would be the bedroom. In all, we’re painting the bedroom and bathroom, re-tiling the bathroom shower and floor, replacing the toilet, installing a new fan in the bathroom and removing a surplus lighting fixture, replacing a light fixture in the dressing area, replacing the vanity and sink in the dressing area, replacing the floorboards and all boards around the doorways, installing crown molding, replacing the bathroom’s pocket door with a new, regular door, replacing the sliding closet doors with other as-yet-to-be-decided non-sliding doors, replacing the bedroom door, replacing the shower door, replacing the closet organizer in Janie’s closet, adding a small door through my closet to access the water heater, which is currently boxed in and inaccessible (we’ll need to inspect it and then change it so that the hot/cold water hookups are not the opposite of what they should be) and add new flooring. This should take about 20 years. Actually, I’m feeling okay that it won’t take that long and even a little jolly about the fact that we get to retaliate against our upstairs neighbors and their incessant stomping with a lengthy construction project that will include a lot of banging around until 11pm every night for many months. The worrisome part of this all is the bathroom shower and the potential water damage caused by the bullshit tile job they decided they were fit to do on their own. I know for a fact that there has to be some leakage because I can see some small holes in the grout and they never did seal the shower head and water control handle. I’ve chipped off a few outside tiles and so far it’s not that bad, but I imagine that once we get inside the shower itself we may have some problems. This is where I will start to lose my shit and that is why Janie is happily traveling with her parents to Oregon this weekend. They’ll visit her grandmother and be far enough from Seattle that they won’t hear my crying and wailing and constant stream of expletives directed as those fuckers who we bought this condo from.
If things get real bad, which I don’t expect, I’m going to seriously consider suing their fucking asses off for lying and cheating and covering up their illegal wiring bullshit. I’m not a particularly litigious person, but one of those guys looked us in the face and told us how much they hoped we wouldn’t change anything because they were so proud of their work, and nothing makes me more angry than someone arrogant enough to lie to your face and not feel even the tiniest bit of guilt. I hope you find this, you shitface motherfuckers, because I want you to know that I have free legal help and a healthy appetite for vengeance.
Oh, man, though. This place is going to look so rad when we’re done with it. It’ll be sleek and light and properly done in a way where I can look at the people who one day purchase this place from us and I’ll tell them striaght out: “We bought this place from some real shitbags who were seriously inept. We fixed all their bad, bad mistakes - and there were many - and then lovingly renovated the rest with care and precision and I don’t feel bad looking into your face and saying this to you because I know that I’m not a fuckwhore bastard looking to cheat someone. So, move in here with the knowledge that you won’t have to spend your time and money concerned that something bad is going to happen when you turn on the heat or that light over there. This place is ten thousand times safer now that we’ve been here and the only miserable thing you’ll have left to deal with is that couple upstairs who likes to cackle and talk loud and stomp and drink cheap vodka in concerning quantities. We did our best to get rid of them, but the exterminator said that not all pests can be eradicated. Congratulations!”
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6 Responses to “Renovations”
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Home improvements? Where have I been? I totally want in on this action! No, seriously - I’d love to come help. Not that I know what I’m doing, but you know. Whatever. We can demolish shit Saturday and then go to the WinCo for some cheap groceries.
i got tired just reading about all that stuff that’s gotta be handled. geesh what a pain in the arse. i wish you luck with all of it, and i’m guessing you’ll have some most excellent stories about the contractors and sub-contractors. those dudes are crazy!
I don’t know how you can be talking about selling the place one day while you’re in the middle of home reno nightmare.
“One day” is like in ten minutes or 30 years. Of course, I do often say we’re going to sell it right now because who needs this bullshit? Actually, I love our condo, despite the crap we have had to deal with. The only reason we’ll ever really have to sell it is when we have kids, because we’ll need to have more space and I want my children to grow up in a neighborhood, in a house, with a yard and other kids to play with.
And, as much as I bitch about it, I like to fix things.
Have you considered that the previous owners weren’t trying to cheat you but just so bad they thought they had done things right.
My dad was a plumber and had constant tales of people doing a half assed job and not knowing how it had gone wrong.
What the fuck sue them for stupidity if not malice.
It is possible. Anything is possible. But I have solid proof that they did lie to us about the electrical issues, and continued to lie to us when we brought the issues up after moving in. So if they’d lie about that then I assume they’d lie and cover up other things. I won’t really sue them - it’s not worth the money, time and energy. I’ll just bitch and moan for another couple of years until I work it out.
You know, I just hate it when people are dishonest like this, that’s what’s really disappointing.