The Restoration Project Continues

The movers will be bringing my stuff to the new apartment on Thursday.  Whether the bathroom will be finished enough by then so that I can sleep there Thursday remains uncertain - but I don't care.  Thursday is the day.  I figure that since Wednesday is the end of the world as we know it (although that really might be at solstice later next week), Thursday can be the first day of the rest of my life.

I gently, quietly but forcefully blew my stack at the contracting company so that the owner is meeting me over there later this week to address my concerns:  Specifically who will be paying to refinish my bathtub now that his workers used it to store the old mortar they removed from the walls before they put in the tile and then doused it with toxic chemicals while they were stripping the doors to the old kitchen cabinets.  Somehow, I don't think I need to pay for that.  I don't think I need to pay to replace the sheets of marble floor tile on which the very same cabinet doors were resting when the fellow doused them with toxic chemicals.  Apparently, this sort of shit happens all the time.  Mother says that all I have to do is deduct the cost from the final bill and tell the owner if he wants the money he can sue me.

I'm thinking the owner is well aware of that tactic which is why he called me up to say that everyone's main goal is to make me happy.  I love it when people say, "All I want is for you to be happy, Patricia."

Meanwhile, the place looks outstanding.

Here's my closet.  The pink paper on the door knob is a note pointing out the paint on the crystal door knob.  Richie did a nice job on the moldings and the walls, though.  I'm hoping he won't mind doing a little more work in the bedroom.

Here's Velvet's closet:

The doors wouldn't shut because the drawers from the base cabinets were inside on the shelves while the floors were being refinished.  The floors show up pretty well in this shot of Velvet's radiator:

They had to repair the floor around the radiator because it had apparently been leaking for years and fucking up the floor.  It's all good now, and Richie didn't splash any paint on the steam pipe.  He did a good job fixing the wall to the right, too.  It was damaged by water from the shower since the grout in the shower had fallen out years ago.  The room was a mess - especially with all that popcorn shit on the ceiling - but it's lovely now and Velvet is excited.

The floors look pretty good here too:

I'm hoping Richie has to come back to clean the paint from these doors.  Then I'll see him this afternoon or tomorrow when I'm monitoring the progress.  He painted over the hardware on the left side which is why I left a note.  Somebody's got to clean that up, too.  Here's a before shot of the same area:

You can see where I was testing colors on the wall.  Turns out that I didn't use any of those colors.  I got a ridiculous white chandelier to go in the dining room.

The tulips are ultra goofy, but I figure that since I'll be hanging all manner of stuff from that chandelier, they're perfect hooks.  I'm looking at that light kind of like the Christmas tree in Eloise at Christmastime:

Eloise hung bananas and cookie cutters and tooth brushes and pretty much anything she took into her head on her Christmas tree, and that's exactly what I'm going to do with that light - starting with the love beads a hippie made for Granny the Ho back when she first moved to Laguna Beach in the Sixties.  Over time, I'll add pink quartz crystals and amethyst crystals that I can get at the bead store off Columbus Avenue down by Buzz Kill's house.

Last time I was over there, the kitchen was in a state of disarray with the stove sitting on top of the refrigerator so they could fix the floor in there too.

You can't tell from the picture, but there's tile on the kitchen floor - the old hexagon mosaic.  It's where the stove sits when it's not on top of the refrigerator.  The refrigerator has been sitting on a platform for years and years.  The reason was a mystery until we discovered this pipe under the platform the other day:

Mother and I figure this pipe drained away the water from the melting ice in the old ice box back in 1916.  Somebody should have cut it down and capped it off under the floor, though, especially since the board behind it is totally gone and a whole parade of mice could march right through it.  Something must be done, and I'm sure it's going to cost me.  A standard size bottom freezer refrigerator will fit in the space perfectly when it's done.  I'm not sure if I'll get stainless or white. For now, the old one will remain.

I couldn't get in the bathroom to see about the tub the other day because the guys had stuffed the base cabinets and all their equipment in there:

Looks to me like they didn't protect the tub surface when they put all that shit in there either - but at least this time I have photos to show the owner when we talk about refinishing the tub and my bill.  I'd rather have that discussion with him on Thursday evening once my Great Granddaddy's 1912 Remington shotgun is back in my possession.  That little shotgun has been busted for years, but the contractor doesn't know that.  I'll just prop it up in a conspicuous corner.

In other news, I haven't heard from The Man from San Antone since I invited him for Christmas.  I may not hear from him for another year.  He's the very best Unavailable Man ever, so as long as he's out there ignoring me, I don't have to ever get involved with another Unavailable Man again.  More to the point, though, is that I recently concluded that The Restoration Project has a lot to do with restoring my original spirit - the one I was born with - to this Self I have become.  It's like PENolan is who lived inside of me all along but as I was growing up, I morphed into a Nice Girl, then a Troubled Child, then there was Mrs. Buzz Kill - and all the personas I adopted out of Self defense.  It's good that PENolan is a pseudonym because I mouth off a lot and it's generally better when people at work don't know what you really think about anything at all.  Work is Work - and it may not be a good idea for people to think a free wheeling divorcee with socialist and anarchist leanings is in charge of their two year olds.  I have a feeling that most of them would think it was great - until they heard me call Obama a Corporate Cocksucker.  So it's good to wear different hats for different occasions.

I was thinking about The Man while I was running errands the other day and noticed that my old punk self - the one I was when he and I first met in Austin, Texas in 1979 - is the very same woman walking up Broadway.  I may have on a black cashmere sweater when I stroll into any restaurant in town, but it's got a hole in it because I threw it in the washer.  It looks like PENolan and Tricia Ellen are finally integrated into one authentic self - just in time to move into Menopausal Stoners World Headquarters in Harlem.

Thing of Beauty #063-101 (Explore Beauty, a challenge from realia)