9/21/15

Adventures with Painter Guy...

First off, let me say that we did not intend to repaint the living room this year.  But February's ice storm pressed the issue by causing an ice dam on the roof and it rained in the living room...
 
 
So we had someone come check the roof, which led to an insurance claim on the roof and they also included the repair to the ceiling in the claim.

Then, in March, Dave broke his ankle, which screwed up our lives for a while, and it wasn't until April that the roof was replaced.

First of June we had the flood/carpet crisis, so it was August before we felt we could afford our not-covered-by-insurance- portion of the ceiling job. When the guy (arranged through the roofer) originally came out to estimate the job, the amount to scrape the whole ceiling and paint the three walls (rather than just patch the ceiling) seemed reasonable.  It was arranged he would be there at 8:00 a.m. on 9/8, the day after Labor Day.

So Dave and I spent time over the weekend boxing up our stuff (Painter Guy said he would move everything, but who wants someone touching their stuff??) and moving all but the big pieces of furniture from the room.
 
On 9/8, there was an issue with the scaffolding not being available and he finally showed up at 6:00 p.m. and dropped off some tools and the scaffolding (question: he knew weeks in advance...why wasn't the scaffold reserved and ready??).
The next day they show up late afternoon instead of early morning (he had said 7:30 a.m.)...turns out, my job was "squeezed" into their schedule as a favor to the roofer so other jobs had a priority in their schedule....(what??).

But they (I mean him and his wife) assembled the scaffold...and spread plastic...and he did scrape the ceiling and retaped and bedded...
He sprayed texture (including in the skylights) and a couple of days later, eventually began painting...
 note the texture in the skylight...
note that nothing is covered in plastic and look at our new couch, covered in dust....
On "clean up" day, he at least washed the texture out of the skylights and did some touch-up painting (especially where I pointed out the spaces he missed).

But his idea of clean up wasn't the same as ours...they left without saying goodbye and didn't bother moving the loveseat, footstool and end tables back into the living room and everything, and I mean everything, was still covered in dust...
this is just the front of the cable box...I was too pissed off to photograph all of the stuff....

Rob & Xander came over and moved the rest of the furniture back (thank Heaven for good friends!). I had to wash down the bookshelves and thoroughly clean our new couch (it was grey instead of brown) and end tables; Dave had to vacuum the chairs, loveseat, foot stool, carpet and vents (he vacuumed the carpet twice and I vacuumed it once).

Painter Guy did: 
  • scrape the popcorn off the ceiling, 
  • paint the ceiling and three walls,
  • complain about the amount of money he agreed to do the job for (I referred him back to the roofer who had it bundled in the insurance claim), 
  • tell me about all of the stuff he was able to do (including scoffing at me for calling the electricians out to fix the outlets in the kitchen, cause 'he coulda done that'), and
  • complain about how much he worked and how tired he was (he actually called me one day and said he was really tired and could he come in the afternoon so he could get some rest...being a nice person, I, of course, said "sure"...found out later that he went and painted a building instead of getting sleep...).
Painter Guy did not:
  • ever show up when he said he was going to show up,
  • tape off anything,
  • cover items still in the room with sufficient plastic while he was scraping,
  • wet the popcorn before scraping it off, thus creating massive amounts of dust,
  • cover items still in the room with plastic while painting, or
  • do an acceptable clean up.
I tried to be nice and understanding the entire job. But, if we had hired him directly, I would have probably wanted to fire him on Day One for not being prepared and showing up when he said he was going to do so and would have told him so; on Day Two, I would have fired him when he again didn't show up when he said he was going to be here.

But I felt trapped since it was part of the insurance claim and could only complain to the roofer guy who coordinated this crap and he could only say how sorry he was that this happened (Painter Guy didn't work for him, but was one of the painters the roofing company uses when painting on a job is needed, i.e., a subcontractor).

But as of last night, the living room and library (which was full of boxes and furniture during the process) are back to normal and we don't feel so discombobulated...
The color of the walls is truest in the star-wall picture, but I love how the color of the walls change depending on the light at different times of day...

 Lessons Learned:
  • always have Norm supervise people to do jobs needed that he himself can't or won't do...I would trust anyone he chooses and oversees, and
  • Dave and I will never move...if packing up one room disconcerts us this much, we would never be able to cope with the whole house.  In fact, I'm surprised we ever left Garland.

9/15/15

Auction Mini

Finished another mini-quilt for the Guild's Charity Auction - a commercial fabric print embellished and quilted with embroidery...aprox. 6" square...
I think I'll name it "Crazy Chicken"...and I will also look through my beads and broken jewelry...it might look cute to hang chicken-related beads or charms along the bottom.

9/11/15

#25


9/7/15

Keeping Busy

Now that Dave has recovered (mostly) from his ankle injury, he has been tearing through the projects list!

He thought the laundry room needed to be brightened up - and who am I to argue since he does the laundry!
and he was right (as usual) - that pop of blue brightens up the whole space.

Raider has loved going under the deck and it's a pretty small space if he can't get his head through it -  
I have not loved having him go under the deck (he comes back out covered in leaves, dirt, and cobwebs). 

So Dave gets out his handy-dandy tools and set to work:
And now, it not only looks good, but it prevents Mr. R from having his way...
This is how Mr. R felt about all this...
The painters come tomorrow to do the living room, so we have had to empty out all the smaller stuff (they will move the furniture), and Dave wanted to take the star down himself...
And, somewhere in there, he also cleaned up his workbench in the garage!
Meanwhile, I managed to find the floor behind my sewing table and refold the fabric that isn't in bins...
The only thing I could think of while I was folding was "Why didn't I fold it this nicely to start with???"

9/2/15

End of Summer

Even though it's still hot, I don't think it will hit the 100 mark again and, in my mind, September is always the end of Summer.

So, I'm packing up and moving my stuff back upstairs...got a fair bit done and I'm pleased with Hello Kitty's performance.

At this moment I have over 1,000 five-inch squares done...all of them deliciously different.
and there are still scraps left!
I took this photo before finish-cutting the 1000+ (last ones in stack on right)...the remaining scraps have been string-pieced and I will keep doing them until only bags of bits remain.

I enjoy doing this each year for several reasons...
   *no rules other than 'try not to sew the same fabric to itself'
   *no deadlines
   *random (except for the one rule)
   *relaxing, because there is no pressure, and I try to treat this as a meditation exercise (even though I am binge-watching Netflix at the same time) - I deliberately stop myself from thinking about any other projects
   *uses up stuff other people toss out - and this is a big consideration since quilting cotton is around $10/yard

If I 'quilt-as-I-go' when I start joining them together, it will even use up all the leftover batting I have as well.

I'm very proud that it's already September and I've yet to buy any fabric this year. And since I've a ton of projects to finish, I'm hoping to make it all year without buying any.

So - back to regular art activities....and thinking about which deadlines are coming up.