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catsittingstillThe kitchen floor is being redone. Only not.
Okay, so last summer I was finding water coming up through holes in the kitchen linoleum. At first we thought it was a broken pipe in the concrete slab that lies under the kitchen floor. But it turned out to be much less bad—the water heater in the kitchen was leaking, that was all, and the water was creeping under the linoleum under the hot water heater and re-emerging through the occasional hole (the inevitable result of 20 years of wear and tear) in the center of the floor. But in establishing this, the landlord and the local handyman together cut away the top layer of linoleum under the hot water heater.
The hot water heater was promptly replaced. The linoleum was not.
I didn't care that much. It looked kind of raggedy, but once I persuaded the landlord to tack down the curling edge so I wasn't tripping over it, it was okay.
But the landlord is a perfectionist. He wanted really good quality linoleum for the kitchen floor. In rural Tennessee, there isn't a whole lot of locally available in-store linoleum styles, so it had to be special ordered. Combine that with the fact that the handyman had to come in to empty and move the hot water heater (and the fridge, and the stove) and the landlord had to put sealant on the next layer down because those tiles were thought to contain asbestos, and you have a major undertaking, scheduled and cancelled at least three times before it finally happened.
A couple of weeks ago, the landlord put us up in a local motel while the whole mess went through, since asking us to go 24 hours without hot water was a bit much.
I ended up supervising the installation of the floor, since the landlord had to teach a class that morning.
And, it turned out after the floor was in, the installer noticed that it had some little holes in it owing to the linoleum having been incorrectly rolled top side out when it was thrown in the truck at the (?factory ?store—whatever).
I didn't care. But the landlord is a perfectionist, and he had apparently bought a very expensive kind of linoleum, so when he came back he was very unhappy and called the store and they offered to re-do the floor for free.
So today, the handyman was supposed (I was told) to come at 9:00am to move the hot water heater and stuff out of the kitchen again. So I got up at 7:30am, and was sitting blearily on the couch, in my bathrobe (two bathrobes, and a set of flannel pajamas—it's cold at my house) halfway through my first cup of tea, when someone knocked at the back door.
It was the handyman. Apparently the landlord had told him 8:00am.
Me not showered, dishes not washed, stove, top of the fridge, top of the hot water heater not cleaned off (the kitchen is desperately short of counter space, plus it has only 2 power outlets, one of which is behind the hot water heater. You can guess where the microwave ended up, and the bread maker sits on top of it.)
Okay, fine. I dashed through the shower while the handyman moved the stuff off the hot water heater and moved the stove and fridge out into the dining room. I threw some clothes on while the handyman started draining the hot water tank. I put a second cup of water into the microwave (now in the troll's lair) to make tea, and washed some dishes in the stream from the hose draining the hot water tank into the sink. Fine. We dealt.
At 8:45 the handyman (a very pleasant guy named Roy) left, saying the floor laying people would be coming at 9:00am. At 9:30 (the landlord shows up at my door, saying the floor laying people had called him.
They laid out the new linoleum at the store, to make sure it was okay—and it had come from the factory with a crease running from one end to the other.
AAAAARRRGGG!!!
Pardon the all caps and the multiple exclamation points. They are not my usual style. But they stand.
Later update---Roy has been and gone. I have a kitchen again.
The hot water heater was promptly replaced. The linoleum was not.
I didn't care that much. It looked kind of raggedy, but once I persuaded the landlord to tack down the curling edge so I wasn't tripping over it, it was okay.
But the landlord is a perfectionist. He wanted really good quality linoleum for the kitchen floor. In rural Tennessee, there isn't a whole lot of locally available in-store linoleum styles, so it had to be special ordered. Combine that with the fact that the handyman had to come in to empty and move the hot water heater (and the fridge, and the stove) and the landlord had to put sealant on the next layer down because those tiles were thought to contain asbestos, and you have a major undertaking, scheduled and cancelled at least three times before it finally happened.
A couple of weeks ago, the landlord put us up in a local motel while the whole mess went through, since asking us to go 24 hours without hot water was a bit much.
I ended up supervising the installation of the floor, since the landlord had to teach a class that morning.
And, it turned out after the floor was in, the installer noticed that it had some little holes in it owing to the linoleum having been incorrectly rolled top side out when it was thrown in the truck at the (?factory ?store—whatever).
I didn't care. But the landlord is a perfectionist, and he had apparently bought a very expensive kind of linoleum, so when he came back he was very unhappy and called the store and they offered to re-do the floor for free.
So today, the handyman was supposed (I was told) to come at 9:00am to move the hot water heater and stuff out of the kitchen again. So I got up at 7:30am, and was sitting blearily on the couch, in my bathrobe (two bathrobes, and a set of flannel pajamas—it's cold at my house) halfway through my first cup of tea, when someone knocked at the back door.
It was the handyman. Apparently the landlord had told him 8:00am.
Me not showered, dishes not washed, stove, top of the fridge, top of the hot water heater not cleaned off (the kitchen is desperately short of counter space, plus it has only 2 power outlets, one of which is behind the hot water heater. You can guess where the microwave ended up, and the bread maker sits on top of it.)
Okay, fine. I dashed through the shower while the handyman moved the stuff off the hot water heater and moved the stove and fridge out into the dining room. I threw some clothes on while the handyman started draining the hot water tank. I put a second cup of water into the microwave (now in the troll's lair) to make tea, and washed some dishes in the stream from the hose draining the hot water tank into the sink. Fine. We dealt.
At 8:45 the handyman (a very pleasant guy named Roy) left, saying the floor laying people would be coming at 9:00am. At 9:30 (the landlord shows up at my door, saying the floor laying people had called him.
They laid out the new linoleum at the store, to make sure it was okay—and it had come from the factory with a crease running from one end to the other.
AAAAARRRGGG!!!
Pardon the all caps and the multiple exclamation points. They are not my usual style. But they stand.
Later update---Roy has been and gone. I have a kitchen again.
