Painting Day – Some Observations
Well, painting day is about 7 hours away. A few observations before the super and his language challenged assistant arrive:
- My carpet is absolutely filthy. This becomes glaringly obvious after moving all of the furniture from the back living room to the front living room.
- Moving all of the stuff from the back living room to the front living room really sucks.
- Moving all of the stuff from the front living room to the back living room is going to suck even more.
- Just say no to tchotchke’s, or at least confine them to one small shelf/cabinet area. As much stuff as I thought I’d gotten rid of, it seems I still had alot of things living on one bookshelf. From now on there will be one tchotchke shelf/corner cabinet in the studio. Bookshelves will be for books alone.
- I really need a new bookshelf. I’m hoping that the Expedit unit (from Ikea) that I like will work out so that I can eliminate the two street finds I’ve been using up until now. The trick is how the heck do you get a 58″ by 31″ bookcase home from Jersey?
- Lightweight spackling paste is crap. It’s lousy to work with and you end up with more on the floor than you do on the wall. Should have gone with the heavy weight vinyl stuff.
I’ll update this as the project progresses.
—Update: 8:57 a.m.—
Well, I’m probably definitely proving the axiom “If you want something done right, you’ve got to do it yourself.” The super and two of his language challenged assistants (though specifically I guess I should say “English language challenged” assistants because they both do speak Spanish) showed up at 8:30 a.m. this morning to paint. They start spackling away and throwing down drop cloths. They start painting the hallway. The problem is that they’re painting it some egg shell color. (I want a simple white.) I call this to their attention. They call in the super. The super says that the landlord he paint all the apartments this color. Of course it’s 8:30 a.m. so the apartment manager isn’t in yet. I leave messages for the apartment manager to please call. The super gets pissed and pulls both of his English language challenged assistants away and says he’s not going to paint today. (Oh, and of course in the now half painted hallway they put the egg shell paint over the wet spackling which they’d just applied. You can imagine that this looks just lovely.) So I’m left with a half painted hallway, one empty half an apartment and another trashed half an apartment. I’m ready to tell the apartment manager to just give me a credit for the paint and I’ll go all Martha Stewart on the place. Fuck this.
—Update: 10:32 a.m.—
I reached the apartment manager. My options are to get a credit to have someone else paint the place, have them paint it using paint that I pay for myself (but don’t get reimbursed for) or have them paint it using the white that they have (apparently it’s linen white). I also spoke to him about the whole “you have to let compound dry before you paint over it” thing. He agreed with me. The way we left it was that he’d speak to the super and they’d come back tomorrow and make sure they do the spackling and such first, let it dry and then sand then paint. That was my understanding. Apparently I understood wrong. My two English challenged friends just showed up again to finish painting the hallway. The super tells me that if I want a professional painter then hire one (or something like that… his English is also a bit shaky at times…) and that if I don’t like the job he’s done when he’s finished then I should tell his boss (the apartment manager) and his boss would tell him.
—Update: 10:42 a.m.—
Just got off the phone with the apartment manager. He’s now concerned because the super isn’t doing what he told him to do. He’s going to be coming into Manhattan and will stop by to check things out. Oi, what a royal pain in the ass. And of course my two friends are still painting the hallway.
—Update: 11:15 a.m.—
They’ve moved into the back living now. I’m trying to just ignore the process and look at it when it’s completed.
—Update: 1:56 p.m—
Well, the super and his two compatriots left about 45 minutes ago, having supposedly finished painting the kitchen, hallway and back living room. I stayed out of their way while they were painting the kitchen… upon inspection it looks like total shit. Barely looks like it’s been primed… roller marks everywhere with the old paint showing through… They didn’t even paint next to the refridgerator. The hallway isn’t that bad, but still needs a second coat to my eye. Ditto with the back living room. (Stain spots on the ceiling and on the walls showing through..). The apartment manager is supposed to visit the building this afternoon. At this point I think I’m just going to ask him to give me a credit and I’ll paint the damn place myself. (The super informed me that he wouldn’t be able to come back tomorrow to finish up and I work Thursday & Friday, so the place would be torn up until Tuesday next week anyway.) I guess I’ll take the hit if he says “well, we’ve already painted the hallway and the back living room”, but I’m going to get pissy if he even thinks about calling that kitchen “finished”. (He’s been very reasonable throughout this…I’m hoping it doesn’t get up into a pissy space…). Even if I take a hit on the hallway and back living room, he should at least be able to give me some type of credit for painting the living room, kitchen and my bedroom… which would cover the paint supplies at least. It’ll take longer but I’ll have it done the way I want it done.
—Update: 4:58 p.m.—
This isn’t really an update as much as it is me clearing my head and my thinking about this whole mess. I want to think through my reasoning and make sure that my next actions are going to make me happy.
Observations & Thoughts
- The more the linen white sits in the back living room, then more I don’t like it. I absolutely want to paint the main living space of the apartment a pure white color.
- As they’ve already put one coat of the linen white in the back hallway, it means I’m going to have to repaint the back living room the color I want it. (Either by painting it myself or having the super come back and give it a second coat.
Here’s where the indecision is: The super can’t be back to do more painting until next Tuesday. That means a whole week of not being able to use my front living room, which totally sucks and basically puts any plans to get anything else done in the apartment on hold, cause I know I’m not going too be able to get anything done when it looks like a bomb hit the place. It’s 5 p.m. and the apartment manager hasn’t shown up yet. He may or may not show up to look at the place. Even if he showed up now I don’t know what I’d have him do. The thought of painting this entire place on my own quite daunting. However, the super and his crew haven’t done a stellar job painting things up until now. The fact that he would be willing to leave the place as it is now makes me disinclined to let him do anymore, especially if it’s going to take another week just to get him to put a second coat on the back living room & hallway. (I’m not even talking about the kitchen yet… I think that really needs a second coat as well, but the apartment manager may or may not agree with me.)
The thing that most sucks right now is having the back living room unusable. I’m thinking that even if the apartment manager doesn’t give me the ok I should go down to Home Depot tomorrow first thing and get a couple gallons of White paint, a couple rollers and a drop cloth and paint the freakin’ thing.
—Update: 5:39 p.m.—
I guess my writing must have generated some karma or something cause the super and the apartment manager just stopped by. (Clearing my head before they showed up was helpful.) He took a look at the areas that I thought needed a second coat . He said he’d have to speak to someone about what type of credit they’ll give me for painting it myself if that is what I choose to do. I told him that at the very least I’m going to paint the back living room tomorrow myself, and then let the super know if I want him to paint the rest of the place next week. (I can make a decision about whether or not to paint the other rooms myself based on my experience tomorrow.) It’s a whole lot less daunting to know that I can paint the place one room at a time over a period of days… and that I have the option of calling in the super if it proves to be too much. As my mom said, the hall and back living room would have needed two coats anyway… this way I have one out of the way and I didn’t have to work for it. I think what has me feeling better is just the fact that things are back in my control. It’ll cost me some bucks (buying the paint) but as it turns out I should have probably done that in the first place rather than trust the super to have a plain white. The only other expense will be the painting supplies, but that shouldn’t set me back too much. I’ll have to spend time doing the painting, but I’d have to be here supervising people anyway, and this way I’ll get it done the way I like. So tomorrow I paint!