Thursday, October 20, 2011
Building home: Solving problems one biscuit at a time...
Building home: Solving problems one biscuit at a time...: The house looks like wet'n'wild and we're supposed to be moving in on Saturday... there are 3 cleaners scrubbing the windows while all aroun...
Solving problems one biscuit at a time...
The house looks like wet'n'wild and we're supposed to be moving in on Saturday... there are 3 cleaners scrubbing the windows while all around them carpenters drill, painters paint, electricians fiddle... it's almost funny. Almost.
For the first day in ages it was raining... not a great day for the 'aménagements extérieurs' to start or for an army of workers to be treading over the freshly laid carpet.
Finger pointing started promptly this morning with the carpet layer extending the famous finger at a stain on the freshly laid carpet. The first unfortunate person to enter his field of vision was the electrician (the one who only speaks polish and german) and a very noisy and a rather unfair accusation ensued.
After a few minutes of 'yes you did', 'no i nie'... 'yes you did', 'nein, es war mir nicht' the frustrated electrician kicked off his muddy rubber soled shoes in defiance and said in a mix of all the languages he knew that he would just work bare foot and proceeded to angrily poke around the electrical sockets with his metal screw driver. It seemed clear that on this day there would be a death - either a blow to the head delivered by a plinth or by spectacular electrocution.
I grunted at my shoes (so as not to be seen to be taking sides) in response to the whining and decided there was only one thing to do. I jumped in the car and went and bought a kettle, coffee and biscuits.
I thought this might re-create an Nespresso moment (as seen on tv). Failing that at least I could count on a sugar and caffeine high accelerating their mutuel annihilation...
For the first day in ages it was raining... not a great day for the 'aménagements extérieurs' to start or for an army of workers to be treading over the freshly laid carpet.
Finger pointing started promptly this morning with the carpet layer extending the famous finger at a stain on the freshly laid carpet. The first unfortunate person to enter his field of vision was the electrician (the one who only speaks polish and german) and a very noisy and a rather unfair accusation ensued.
After a few minutes of 'yes you did', 'no i nie'... 'yes you did', 'nein, es war mir nicht' the frustrated electrician kicked off his muddy rubber soled shoes in defiance and said in a mix of all the languages he knew that he would just work bare foot and proceeded to angrily poke around the electrical sockets with his metal screw driver. It seemed clear that on this day there would be a death - either a blow to the head delivered by a plinth or by spectacular electrocution.
I grunted at my shoes (so as not to be seen to be taking sides) in response to the whining and decided there was only one thing to do. I jumped in the car and went and bought a kettle, coffee and biscuits.
I thought this might re-create an Nespresso moment (as seen on tv). Failing that at least I could count on a sugar and caffeine high accelerating their mutuel annihilation...
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Building home: Adult (Predominantly Male) Crèche
Building home: Adult (Predominantly Male) Crèche: Before you get the wrong idea, let me immediately highlight the key word here - crèche. It seems that our house has turned into a 'pop up'...
Adult (Predominantly Male) Crèche
Before you get the wrong idea, let me immediately highlight the key word here - crèche.
It seems that our house has turned into a 'pop up' kindergarten in it's fleeting transition between 'building site' and 'home'.
As building lends a whole new meaning to the word 'mental' in the last few days leading up to the handing over of the keys... (3 to be exact) I'm starting to understand why workmen wear gloves!
It's to protect their most valued tool - their index finger!
The use of the index finger goes far beyond the teasing of freshly laid carpet, or the delicate removal of a smudge of paint or the tender smoothing of a hard edged wood flooring. Oh no... the index finger has a much more treasured role to the builder!
With the swift extension and tautening of the aforementioned digit, fault is seemlessly transfered from one builder onto another!
If builders lost their index fingers in an unfortunate accident, they would lose their ability to swiftly transfer blame onto someone else for work shoddily done and this would cost a company thousands in time spent correcting mistakes.
I wouldn't be surprised if construction companies employed workers primarily on the rapidity of their brain-finger reaction time when hiring them. Pay rises would be based on increased unfurled finger endurance.
So with a house full of painters, plasterers, carpenters, carpet layers, cupboard fitters, plumbers, tilers and electricians all crawling over each other (squeezing 365 days of work into 48 hours) it has turned into a bit of a dusty schoolyard and I happen to be the teacher doing the lunch break stint. Oh where is the project manager when you need him...
... actually on reflection maybe his not being here today is the smartest thing he's done in the last 2 years!
It seems that our house has turned into a 'pop up' kindergarten in it's fleeting transition between 'building site' and 'home'.
As building lends a whole new meaning to the word 'mental' in the last few days leading up to the handing over of the keys... (3 to be exact) I'm starting to understand why workmen wear gloves!
It's to protect their most valued tool - their index finger!
The use of the index finger goes far beyond the teasing of freshly laid carpet, or the delicate removal of a smudge of paint or the tender smoothing of a hard edged wood flooring. Oh no... the index finger has a much more treasured role to the builder!
With the swift extension and tautening of the aforementioned digit, fault is seemlessly transfered from one builder onto another!
If builders lost their index fingers in an unfortunate accident, they would lose their ability to swiftly transfer blame onto someone else for work shoddily done and this would cost a company thousands in time spent correcting mistakes.
I wouldn't be surprised if construction companies employed workers primarily on the rapidity of their brain-finger reaction time when hiring them. Pay rises would be based on increased unfurled finger endurance.
So with a house full of painters, plasterers, carpenters, carpet layers, cupboard fitters, plumbers, tilers and electricians all crawling over each other (squeezing 365 days of work into 48 hours) it has turned into a bit of a dusty schoolyard and I happen to be the teacher doing the lunch break stint. Oh where is the project manager when you need him...
... actually on reflection maybe his not being here today is the smartest thing he's done in the last 2 years!
Thursday, October 6, 2011
I'm back after a sense of humour failure...
I'm back after a sense of humour failure... I can't quite remember the details of what lead to the moment it happened... perhaps the small flood in the tv room that no one could account for, or the bath not being as close to the wall as I'd drawn up (getting irrationally emotional over details like these are normal I'm told when you spent 5 hours drawing a plan, measuring to scale and working out details as meticuslousy as if you were making an origami swan for a blind midget only to be told by a man who spends too much time sweeping his long locks across his face with the back of his hand that he won't even try to do as you asked - because he's a stubborn numbnuts*.)
Or perhaps it was the call from my wooden floor supplier to tell me that my wood had arrived in 2 batches and they didn't look anything alike... but maybe we could mix and match!
Thinking this sounded like a sub-optimal solution for us and a great solution for him - I decided to temporarily put him out by turning his showroom floor into my bedroom floor and sort out the planks by colour differentiation - just to see if we could work with it. After 2 hours of placing and replacing we concluded that we could not work with it. He said he would call me with a new lead time for the new order of wood to be delivered but he hasn't yet and he suddenly seems very occupied elsewhere...
Anyway - today the sun shone on me and the house - the workers were all friendly (probably because in 15 days they won't have me breathing down their necks anymore). That's right! The architect confirmed that we would do the 'etat des lieu' and the 'remise des clefs' on friday 21st and then the house will be ours, all ours! I don't think I thought the day would ever come - and though the place still looks like a tip it will be 'the tip we live in'!
* Just found out that aforementioned numbnuts has been fired! Maybe he's going to get a job in a hairdressing salon.
Or perhaps it was the call from my wooden floor supplier to tell me that my wood had arrived in 2 batches and they didn't look anything alike... but maybe we could mix and match!
Thinking this sounded like a sub-optimal solution for us and a great solution for him - I decided to temporarily put him out by turning his showroom floor into my bedroom floor and sort out the planks by colour differentiation - just to see if we could work with it. After 2 hours of placing and replacing we concluded that we could not work with it. He said he would call me with a new lead time for the new order of wood to be delivered but he hasn't yet and he suddenly seems very occupied elsewhere...
Anyway - today the sun shone on me and the house - the workers were all friendly (probably because in 15 days they won't have me breathing down their necks anymore). That's right! The architect confirmed that we would do the 'etat des lieu' and the 'remise des clefs' on friday 21st and then the house will be ours, all ours! I don't think I thought the day would ever come - and though the place still looks like a tip it will be 'the tip we live in'!
* Just found out that aforementioned numbnuts has been fired! Maybe he's going to get a job in a hairdressing salon.
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