June 1
Anticipate the difficult by managing the easy.
- Lao Tzu
Imagine a ringing in your ears that never stops, a too-loud rock concert where you can feel the bass vibrating your heart and brain, and so much machine noise that you can't sleep or think: that's what life had become at the beloved condo during the apparently endless roof project.
Imagine my excitement to head to the cottage I was renting for the summer, where the main sounds were birdsong and the rustling of leaves through windows open to nature!
I'd arranged for movers to come on June 3 to bring a few boxes, artworks, and items of furniture from condo to cottage, I'd been ordering or preparing to buy new furniture and items that I really needed anyway (like new stainless steel pots and pans) or that would be simpler and less expensive to buy than to move (like vintage furniture I'll show you soon), and I was eager to spend a couple of days and nights at the cottage getting things set up as soon as the lease began.
I finished packing, made sure Jorji the cat was comfortable at the condo as I planned to return the next day and then bring her to the cottage after setting a few things up, and I excitedly took a Lyft and a suitcase to the cottage June 1!
I arrived in the afternoon, beaming, walked up the sagging porch stairs and saw the still-peeling paint and still-gashed door after the owner said he was going to fix things, saw the owner's keys in the front door though he'd already given me a set, and walked inside, taking the keys with me to place them indoors.
I was greeted by more dirt and debris than I had seen on my initial visits, as now there were dead flies and dead bees inside, as well as tools and containers and trash. My vision of floating through a bright clean space and unpacking the items that had arrived turned into a reality of grimy walls, dirty floors, and a place unfit for sleeping that night.
No need to get upset, I told myself; the owner and I simply must have had a miscommunication as to my move-in day. I phoned him, told him I was here and excited, and asked when the place would be cleaned so that I could move in. It emerged that the owner had cleaned the place himself, was offended that I didn't think it was clean, and became angry and emotional and said he'd give me my money back.
I remained calm, wondering if this was the same cheerful man I had met twice before? I told him I didn't want my money back, I just wanted to talk about expectations and that if we had had a miscommunication I was sure we could straighten it out.
To make a long story short, the owner -- a semi-retired housepainter who'd had surgery in both eyes, and whom I didn't want to upset; he was the father of a business friend, he was doing his best, and I was here for peace and serenity -- repainted two walls and covered one of the bicycle tire track marks in the entryway, and I called the professional cleaning service I use and booked their Super Deep Clean for $390.
The professional service wasn't available for several more days though. When they did arrive, the person they sent was very helpful in terms of things like cleaning out the refrigerator and removing food particles and stains there, and removing the thick grime from most of the baseboards, but the service needed more than 1 person and more than 4 hours, and didn't end up going quite as "super deep" as I'd hoped. I put out the word for referrals, but nothing promising came back.
I ultimately ended up doing much of the cleaning myself, including scrubbing walls, and you probably do not want to know what was on the walls, though if you read the notes here from my walk-through, or peer at a few of the photos I'm including here, you will get some sense of what was to be dealt with. I will do what it takes to get a good project going right, but this wasn't what I envisioned for summer serenity.
I did enjoy doing some preliminary unpacking and arranging of items that I'd had sent to the cottage, though I left the bulk of this for post-cleaning.
I resigned myself to a couple more nights at the condo, and so got off to a rocky start at the cottage.
Side note:
I'd been renting a small private office in a new co-working space called Mox.E, to escape the noise and vibration at the condo during the day. I thought about sleeping there, as I really didn't want to play more rounds of guess-what-time-in-the-middle-of-the-night-the-improperly-embedded-condenser-lines-in-my-roof-will-start-growling-and-shaking-and-making-sleep-impossible. (If you guessed 3:52 am or 2:47 am you'd be just about right every night.) But sleeping in my little rental office wasn't an option, due to hours of the co-working space and other details.
The office was wonderful for what it was, including a fun staging area to play with new art I'd acquired or had framed.
Can you tell how desperately shattered my nerves were, from 19 almost 20 months of what was supposed to be a 2-week roof project?
I was determined to enjoy quiet at the cottage as quickly as possible. But that night it wasn't possible. I now had an uninhabitable condo and an uninhabitable cottage (plus an office where I couldn't sleep).
Happy June, I told myself, things are going to move onward and upward!
Your friend in decorating,
Valerie
Feel free to say hi via email as well: valerie.beck@post.harvard.edu.
Thank you!
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