The Lost Year
From April till Now, I’ve been consumed with one big project. It’s caused me to miss a lot of my life, especially from July onwards, when construction began in earnest. I started writing this entry in September, when I thought it was nearly over. I was wrong.
September
It’s been 11 years since my last condo remodel. Lots of things have fallen apart since then. Even more pressing, my 2 bathrooms have never been remodeled! They are 39 years old! Yeah, time to go! (This whole project started because my shower door opens only with great effort and my boyfriend urged me to get it replaced. I was going to do just that ... meaning just that ... but soon realized much more would be necessary.)
My carpets are shot, too. And also inspired by my boyfriend and his beautiful house, I wanted to replace them with wood floors. So everything in every piece of furniture was packed away in boxes, so that furniture could be moved around to woodenize the floors one half of the condo at a time. It was fine finding and selecting the wood, as it was for all the other beautiful materials to be used in this remodel. Some of the stuff was a real steal, others were a decided extravagance. But I like my space to be aesthetically lovely, and I’m not going thru all this work to have things look tacky.
The brilliant part of the remodel plan, arrived at by my invaluable assistants at Tom Sawyer Designs, was to knock out a linen closet ...
... and enlarge a new glass-enclosed shower to create a beautiful and much bigger master bedroom bath and dressing area, that would create the feeling of a master suite. And a master suite in the new and groovy style of Sex Lair that’s all the rage at hotels like the Cosmo in Las Vegas (and, to my surprise, the Grand Californian Villas at Disneyland!) This is where everything is out in the open, the shower visible to people in the bedroom, designed for lovers who never hide from each other.
The old bathroom would have to be completely gutted, and I scheduled the demolition work to begin while I was spending a week in Hawaii. Wisely, I thought, because then I wouldn’t have to find someplace else to sleep while all that nasty and dirty demo work began. But it didn’t quite work out so wisely.
Things started to go wrong right away. The TSD people misunderstood my directions and let the demolition guys park their truck in the fire lane. That got the attention of my condo association and all the red tape I tried to avoid became instantly unavoidable. Worse yet, now that they were on to me, they laid down all the insurmountable fire hoops I’d have to fly through naked in order to get wood floors. Yes, I live above somebody else, so I understand the fire hoops. But it would make the project twice as expensive and virtually untenable for other logistical reasons ... so even though I clung to it for a few more weeks, I learned there and then, while on Maui, on my birthday, there would be no wood floors ... and all my work in packing up all my belongings was practically for naught.
So ... carpet it will be. But, at least the money saved on wood floors allowed me to splurge on unexpected items ... like new closet doors (once the main bathroom was done, the old doors just ruined the new swankiness).
Before -and- After. (Hard-to-see) black accordion paint-flaking aluminum doors vs. shiny new metal-framed, smoke glass sliding doors:
As is usual with a job of this nature, money tended to bleed pretty badly - even though there were very few unanticipated items. Most of the contractors were great. Our demolition and general handyman guy turned out to be an unreliable putz though, so we got him off the job as quickly as we could.
The tile guy was fantastic, and without complaint kept fixing wall tiles that inexplicably cracked on or shortly after installation. (There’s still a couple of cracked tiles, but impossible to change out and you can’t really tell unless you’re looking for it).
This is not a cracked one, but an attempt to depict the detail of the ribbed glass tile that often eludes photography.
The slab guy was great, cabinet maker cool, electrician seems to be ok (as of year-end, he’s yet to finish up), the wallpaper guy was great - and I’ll have him back to do the finishing touches on the guest bathroom as soon as I can afford it. I was less pleased with the glass guy - there’s a defect of sorts in one of the shower walls and a nick in one of the mirrors - but he refuses to do any thing to correct them or offer me any discount on the job. Again though, tiny errors which you’re not likely to spot unless you’re actually looking for them. I’ll soon forget about them and they’ll become invisible.
The painting crew was great, except for one big mistake. They somehow got it into their heads that I was wallpapering the entire master bedroom - so did not bother being careful when painting the crown molding - and ruined walls I did not want painted. I ended up getting my entire bedroom painted for free - but we chose a more muted color - and I kinda preferred the old, bolder colors in the room. Oh well, it’s a better match with the adjoining bath suite ... which is not really separate from the bedroom at all ... hence its Sex Lair vibe.
Painting was done in lots of areas of the condo. There were so many things that needed touch up or repair. So a lot of moving around of stuff was necessary, and now that the paint’s finally dry - it’s almost time for the most massive moving of stuff so that new flooring can go in. My entire apartment has been a shifting maze of stacks of boxes and bric-a-brac and furniture moved to odd places. I’ve been sleeping on the sofa for 10 straight weeks - and only now that the paint is dry have finally been able to move back into my bedroom and sleep on my comfy bed for the first time since June!
* * * *
October
But as I pick up the story a few weeks later, I’m sleeping on the sofa again, as every possible thing has been crammed into any spaces I have with tile floors so that the existing carpet can be ripped out and new carpet installed. My bed is in pieces in my shower.
(oooh - the ugly old closet doors are better visible in this photo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^ )
This week has required three different arrangements of all my remaining stuff. Once so new baseboards could be installed (everything away from the walls), again so the floors could be carpeted (everything to one side of the condo, then the other), and now one more time so those baseboards can be painted (oi - everything away from the walls again).
But it’s the last step before the constant deconstruction that began last April can be turned to reconstruction, and my Humpty Dumpty condo put slowly back together again. It’s a vital turning point that I’m really happy about!!
I’m not entirely happy with the carpet. It’s pretty. But I thought it was a greenish gray when I bought it (and it’s called “Dolphin,”) but it looks very brown and dirt-floor now that it’s in. Oh well, I wanted wood floors, and those would have been brown anyway.
The carpet looks swell with the new baseboards.
The worst thing about this remodel has been its effect on my routine and my health. Sleeping on the sofa most of the time, stuff piled everywhere, and with a constant need to shift that stuff around and around again to suit different upcoming tasks - my health routines have gone to hell. My exercise, my stretches, my beauty regimen, my supreme devotion to dental care - all gone slipshod or just plain gone.
So now I get to start putting my home and my self back together again, and it’s grand. I had to catch myself a few times this weekend when I realized I really could put this thing or that completely back to how it was when I used to live in comfort and style. It won’t have to be taken apart again! What a wonderful and unusual feeling. But for now there’s barely time to put only the furniture back where it belongs (lest it leave “wrong place” marks in the carpet that’s not as impervious as wood), and to reconstruct things like my bedroom and my computer system and my shower that are necessary for a semi-routine life.
The rest will have to wait till after Halloween - because the countdown to El Mio’s 10th Anniversary and Grand Finale Party has begun!
* * * * *
The Holiday Season
Finishing touch jobs continue in November, and I hope to be all done with this remodel by Christmas. Sure enough, new closet doors are installed in the bed & bath, and they make all the difference in the world.
In fact, the old metal, paint-flaking, accordion doors made a mockery of the entire remodel - because looking at the new bath from the bedroom - that’s all you could see. They had to go.
The new doors were pricey, but money saved on switching from wood floors to carpet helped me rationalize the expense. And the perfect finishing touch to this bathroom. Now it pops, just like it should.
In fact, now that things are wrapping up and I can tally the costs, I’m shocked at how much this remodel has cost. It would be crass to put a dollar figure here for everyone to see, but let’s just say it’s roughly 58% of my gross annual income. Yikes.
As a Christmas surprise, the new wallpaper was all ready to go for the second bathroom before the holiday. I wasn’t going to bother any workmen during the season, and was content to put the rest of the job off till the new year ... but this kinda fell in my lap. Fantastic. Now even this bathroom pops, just like it should.
Before:
... and After:
Here’s some more before and after:
The heart of the matter was replacing this pathetic, borderline disgusting old shower of the 1970's with a modern, masculine, sleek and sexy shower of the 21st century.
Also:
The tired old vanity dressing area was gutted and re-imagined.
Looking across from here at the new bathroom. The teal blue ribbed glass tile wall is spectacular, and everything else is shiny black and sexy.
The wallpaper on the walls and ceiling is beautiful. And the Primeval World art looks great against it.
These are the new light fixtures in the bath-slash-SexLair:
Other, smaller projects around my condo pleased me almost as much as the revolutionary new bathrooms. Lots of wall damage and ceiling damage fixed, and there was extensive re-painting done in every room of my apartment. Pfft, the kitchen walls which had been bare of their intended-yet-never-realized wall covering for the past 11 years were finally substitute-painted, so my kitchen looks human at least ... at last!
Nice baseboards create a symmetry with the lovely crown moldings installed a decade ago.
A leftover slice of black granite slab made a great replacement for a plain wood table top.
And after rebuilding much of the furniture and systems, unpacking more than 50 boxes, and re-hanging the slew of art work on my many walls, it was finally putting out the chatkes and knik-knacs on table tops that convinced me I really lived here again.
Sure, there are many finishing touches that will linger into the new year. Oh, and paying for this. I’ve fronted less than half of the total cost, so 2013 is going to be a year of living frugal. But I get to enjoy my beautiful condo while I live on the cheap side.
Primarily my rad new shower with the everywhere spray nozzles a'plenty, where I routinely spend 25 minutes of every waking day (and that's my "quick" shower - ask anyone who knows me!)
And I’m so pleased the goal of essentially finishing the remodel by New Year’s Eve is on track. It’s been such a year-killer for me, that I’ve been praying to have it wrapped up by the end of Twenty Twelve ... and get somewhat back on the road to good health and fitness at the start of Twenty Thirteen.
2012 has been something of a lost year for me. I’ve lost a lot of time to this project. I’ve lost or neglected a vast number of friendships.
It’s odd that what’s happened is instead of Beaumark joining up with my varied gaggles of friends, I’ve been socializing pretty exclusively with his much smaller number of peoples. Not the way I saw things happening.
Maybe life is just paring down as I get on in years. October’s El Mio Halloween Party was not just the last of that line ... it’s likely the last big party I’ll ever throw - - if only because I don’t have the stamina and energy to do that kind of thing anymore.
And I certainly won’t be doing any more remodeling of my condo. It’s taken too much out of me. I’m pooped.
I have to face facts. I’m getting a little old. My life is moving to a smaller scale. But I’m really happy and in love with Beaumark. It’s our 2nd Anniversary Today. December 28th, 2012.
And with some space and desire for a little new stuff, too ... I’m looking forward to what Twenty Thirteen will bring.
September
It’s been 11 years since my last condo remodel. Lots of things have fallen apart since then. Even more pressing, my 2 bathrooms have never been remodeled! They are 39 years old! Yeah, time to go! (This whole project started because my shower door opens only with great effort and my boyfriend urged me to get it replaced. I was going to do just that ... meaning just that ... but soon realized much more would be necessary.)
My carpets are shot, too. And also inspired by my boyfriend and his beautiful house, I wanted to replace them with wood floors. So everything in every piece of furniture was packed away in boxes, so that furniture could be moved around to woodenize the floors one half of the condo at a time. It was fine finding and selecting the wood, as it was for all the other beautiful materials to be used in this remodel. Some of the stuff was a real steal, others were a decided extravagance. But I like my space to be aesthetically lovely, and I’m not going thru all this work to have things look tacky.
The brilliant part of the remodel plan, arrived at by my invaluable assistants at Tom Sawyer Designs, was to knock out a linen closet ...
... and enlarge a new glass-enclosed shower to create a beautiful and much bigger master bedroom bath and dressing area, that would create the feeling of a master suite. And a master suite in the new and groovy style of Sex Lair that’s all the rage at hotels like the Cosmo in Las Vegas (and, to my surprise, the Grand Californian Villas at Disneyland!) This is where everything is out in the open, the shower visible to people in the bedroom, designed for lovers who never hide from each other.
The old bathroom would have to be completely gutted, and I scheduled the demolition work to begin while I was spending a week in Hawaii. Wisely, I thought, because then I wouldn’t have to find someplace else to sleep while all that nasty and dirty demo work began. But it didn’t quite work out so wisely.
Things started to go wrong right away. The TSD people misunderstood my directions and let the demolition guys park their truck in the fire lane. That got the attention of my condo association and all the red tape I tried to avoid became instantly unavoidable. Worse yet, now that they were on to me, they laid down all the insurmountable fire hoops I’d have to fly through naked in order to get wood floors. Yes, I live above somebody else, so I understand the fire hoops. But it would make the project twice as expensive and virtually untenable for other logistical reasons ... so even though I clung to it for a few more weeks, I learned there and then, while on Maui, on my birthday, there would be no wood floors ... and all my work in packing up all my belongings was practically for naught.
So ... carpet it will be. But, at least the money saved on wood floors allowed me to splurge on unexpected items ... like new closet doors (once the main bathroom was done, the old doors just ruined the new swankiness).
Before -and- After. (Hard-to-see) black accordion paint-flaking aluminum doors vs. shiny new metal-framed, smoke glass sliding doors:
As is usual with a job of this nature, money tended to bleed pretty badly - even though there were very few unanticipated items. Most of the contractors were great. Our demolition and general handyman guy turned out to be an unreliable putz though, so we got him off the job as quickly as we could.
The tile guy was fantastic, and without complaint kept fixing wall tiles that inexplicably cracked on or shortly after installation. (There’s still a couple of cracked tiles, but impossible to change out and you can’t really tell unless you’re looking for it).
This is not a cracked one, but an attempt to depict the detail of the ribbed glass tile that often eludes photography.
The slab guy was great, cabinet maker cool, electrician seems to be ok (as of year-end, he’s yet to finish up), the wallpaper guy was great - and I’ll have him back to do the finishing touches on the guest bathroom as soon as I can afford it. I was less pleased with the glass guy - there’s a defect of sorts in one of the shower walls and a nick in one of the mirrors - but he refuses to do any thing to correct them or offer me any discount on the job. Again though, tiny errors which you’re not likely to spot unless you’re actually looking for them. I’ll soon forget about them and they’ll become invisible.
The painting crew was great, except for one big mistake. They somehow got it into their heads that I was wallpapering the entire master bedroom - so did not bother being careful when painting the crown molding - and ruined walls I did not want painted. I ended up getting my entire bedroom painted for free - but we chose a more muted color - and I kinda preferred the old, bolder colors in the room. Oh well, it’s a better match with the adjoining bath suite ... which is not really separate from the bedroom at all ... hence its Sex Lair vibe.
Painting was done in lots of areas of the condo. There were so many things that needed touch up or repair. So a lot of moving around of stuff was necessary, and now that the paint’s finally dry - it’s almost time for the most massive moving of stuff so that new flooring can go in. My entire apartment has been a shifting maze of stacks of boxes and bric-a-brac and furniture moved to odd places. I’ve been sleeping on the sofa for 10 straight weeks - and only now that the paint is dry have finally been able to move back into my bedroom and sleep on my comfy bed for the first time since June!
* * * *
October
But as I pick up the story a few weeks later, I’m sleeping on the sofa again, as every possible thing has been crammed into any spaces I have with tile floors so that the existing carpet can be ripped out and new carpet installed. My bed is in pieces in my shower.
(oooh - the ugly old closet doors are better visible in this photo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^ )
This week has required three different arrangements of all my remaining stuff. Once so new baseboards could be installed (everything away from the walls), again so the floors could be carpeted (everything to one side of the condo, then the other), and now one more time so those baseboards can be painted (oi - everything away from the walls again).
But it’s the last step before the constant deconstruction that began last April can be turned to reconstruction, and my Humpty Dumpty condo put slowly back together again. It’s a vital turning point that I’m really happy about!!
I’m not entirely happy with the carpet. It’s pretty. But I thought it was a greenish gray when I bought it (and it’s called “Dolphin,”) but it looks very brown and dirt-floor now that it’s in. Oh well, I wanted wood floors, and those would have been brown anyway.
The carpet looks swell with the new baseboards.
The worst thing about this remodel has been its effect on my routine and my health. Sleeping on the sofa most of the time, stuff piled everywhere, and with a constant need to shift that stuff around and around again to suit different upcoming tasks - my health routines have gone to hell. My exercise, my stretches, my beauty regimen, my supreme devotion to dental care - all gone slipshod or just plain gone.
So now I get to start putting my home and my self back together again, and it’s grand. I had to catch myself a few times this weekend when I realized I really could put this thing or that completely back to how it was when I used to live in comfort and style. It won’t have to be taken apart again! What a wonderful and unusual feeling. But for now there’s barely time to put only the furniture back where it belongs (lest it leave “wrong place” marks in the carpet that’s not as impervious as wood), and to reconstruct things like my bedroom and my computer system and my shower that are necessary for a semi-routine life.
The rest will have to wait till after Halloween - because the countdown to El Mio’s 10th Anniversary and Grand Finale Party has begun!
* * * * *
The Holiday Season
Finishing touch jobs continue in November, and I hope to be all done with this remodel by Christmas. Sure enough, new closet doors are installed in the bed & bath, and they make all the difference in the world.
In fact, the old metal, paint-flaking, accordion doors made a mockery of the entire remodel - because looking at the new bath from the bedroom - that’s all you could see. They had to go.
The new doors were pricey, but money saved on switching from wood floors to carpet helped me rationalize the expense. And the perfect finishing touch to this bathroom. Now it pops, just like it should.
In fact, now that things are wrapping up and I can tally the costs, I’m shocked at how much this remodel has cost. It would be crass to put a dollar figure here for everyone to see, but let’s just say it’s roughly 58% of my gross annual income. Yikes.
As a Christmas surprise, the new wallpaper was all ready to go for the second bathroom before the holiday. I wasn’t going to bother any workmen during the season, and was content to put the rest of the job off till the new year ... but this kinda fell in my lap. Fantastic. Now even this bathroom pops, just like it should.
Before:
... and After:
Here’s some more before and after:
The heart of the matter was replacing this pathetic, borderline disgusting old shower of the 1970's with a modern, masculine, sleek and sexy shower of the 21st century.
Also:
The tired old vanity dressing area was gutted and re-imagined.
Looking across from here at the new bathroom. The teal blue ribbed glass tile wall is spectacular, and everything else is shiny black and sexy.
The wallpaper on the walls and ceiling is beautiful. And the Primeval World art looks great against it.
These are the new light fixtures in the bath-slash-SexLair:
Other, smaller projects around my condo pleased me almost as much as the revolutionary new bathrooms. Lots of wall damage and ceiling damage fixed, and there was extensive re-painting done in every room of my apartment. Pfft, the kitchen walls which had been bare of their intended-yet-never-realized wall covering for the past 11 years were finally substitute-painted, so my kitchen looks human at least ... at last!
Nice baseboards create a symmetry with the lovely crown moldings installed a decade ago.
A leftover slice of black granite slab made a great replacement for a plain wood table top.
And after rebuilding much of the furniture and systems, unpacking more than 50 boxes, and re-hanging the slew of art work on my many walls, it was finally putting out the chatkes and knik-knacs on table tops that convinced me I really lived here again.
Sure, there are many finishing touches that will linger into the new year. Oh, and paying for this. I’ve fronted less than half of the total cost, so 2013 is going to be a year of living frugal. But I get to enjoy my beautiful condo while I live on the cheap side.
Primarily my rad new shower with the everywhere spray nozzles a'plenty, where I routinely spend 25 minutes of every waking day (and that's my "quick" shower - ask anyone who knows me!)
And I’m so pleased the goal of essentially finishing the remodel by New Year’s Eve is on track. It’s been such a year-killer for me, that I’ve been praying to have it wrapped up by the end of Twenty Twelve ... and get somewhat back on the road to good health and fitness at the start of Twenty Thirteen.
2012 has been something of a lost year for me. I’ve lost a lot of time to this project. I’ve lost or neglected a vast number of friendships.
It’s odd that what’s happened is instead of Beaumark joining up with my varied gaggles of friends, I’ve been socializing pretty exclusively with his much smaller number of peoples. Not the way I saw things happening.
Maybe life is just paring down as I get on in years. October’s El Mio Halloween Party was not just the last of that line ... it’s likely the last big party I’ll ever throw - - if only because I don’t have the stamina and energy to do that kind of thing anymore.
And I certainly won’t be doing any more remodeling of my condo. It’s taken too much out of me. I’m pooped.
I have to face facts. I’m getting a little old. My life is moving to a smaller scale. But I’m really happy and in love with Beaumark. It’s our 2nd Anniversary Today. December 28th, 2012.
And with some space and desire for a little new stuff, too ... I’m looking forward to what Twenty Thirteen will bring.