One Month To Go!
The new parquet flooring in my future bedroom. The wallpaper will be hung last!
The last time I wrote, I was choosing light fittings, which I’m still doing. And I’m also choosing door handles. And thinking that I will also need useful things like a washing machine, a toaster, some bins…. I also need to order a bed for myself… I have lists in my notes application on my phone, and sometimes on minuscule Post-it notes on the back of my phone. That’s when I know it’s getting bad.
My younger son, who turns 13 the day after we move in, wants to have his sleepover birthday party two days after we move in. Which I agreed to, with the caveat that it would be slightly chaotic, given the circumstances. Which he agreed to. And he wants to watch movies with his friends, using the projector, which I have. But he’s not accepting that, right now, I can’t quite get my head around the ‘must haves’, let alone the ‘nice to haves’.
So we won’t have a screen to project the movies on to. No, there are no white walls to project on to. And I absolutely will not even consider taping a bedsheet or white paper to my beautiful brand new walls to create a screen… (have to admire him for his problem solving skills though!). Sigh. Children. They always know which buttons to push. And then they just keep pushing them!
Back to the apartment! The kitchen was delivered last Friday. And, very unusually, I had to raise my voice to the delivery guy. Now, on my building sites you are very likely to hear laughter and maybe even singing, mainly because I like working with joyful people, and I try to cultivate trust and solution finding rather than blame and finger pointing. But I think the kitchen delivery guy’s nose was already out of joint when he arrived, and he started refusing to put the (very large quantity of) boxes and units in the dining room, which Hocine had specified.
He wanted to put the kitchen delivery in the salon, as there is a double door opening to the hall, and it would be easier for the kitchen installer to move stuff around, as he would be on his own. Hocine explained that he was installing the parquet in the salon the following week, so that wouldn’t suit him. Then the delivery guy started raising his voice to Hocine saying that he would put the stuff where he needed to put it.
Now, I’ve been working with Hocine for about 15 years now. And I’ve seen him riled only a couple of times. And here was a third! The other guy was out of line, he was being unreasonable. Also, it’s Hocine’s site, so what he says goes. So I ended up raising my voice trying to make the delivery guy see reason. I hate doing that. It so rarely, if ever, helps anything. So when the delivery guy continued talking over me, I informed him that I would call Monsieur Rault, the kitchen supplier, who I designed the kitchen with.
In the end Monsieur Rault turned up to calm the delivery guy down, and everything was as it should be. It really ruffled my feathers though, and for the rest of the day I went over the altercation in my head to see if I could have done something to diffuse the argument. Don’t think I could have, though…
Anyway, the kitchen has now been installed by Fernando Marcelino (whose French doesn’t sound as Italian as his name!). Who was extremely discret and caused absolutely no problems whatsoever. The kitchen is so beautiful! Even without the sparkly black work surface and backsplash. The stone specialist is coming Monday to measure up for those, and they should be installed by the time I move in. Yay!
The windows have been delayed by one week and will be installed next week. In order to avoid any delays to my move date, Hocine decided to install the parquet before the windows, and he’s very nearly finished that. The parquet is truly lovely, the oak color really finishes the floor, and warms the space, beautifully. I’m so glad Hocine was able to get the 16cm wide, solid oak parquet. A 12cm width would have added a lot of visual distraction as there would have been many more lines. And the rare noeuds (wood knots) are very small and are at surface level, which show that the wood is very good quality.
Hocine has also already pretty much finished the painting. It’s all coming together so quickly!
I had a passing thought yesterday morning that, as the works are really nearly finished, maybe I could move in earlier. But Hocine reminded me that it will soon be the month of May, which in France means several fêtes nationales (which we call Bank Holidays in Ireland, not sure what the term is in the US) and ponts (literally ‘bridges’ - when people take the days between the fête and the weekend off to make a very long weekend). Hocine and his ouvrier (employee) won’t be working those days. And that there are a lot of small finishing jobs that he has to do, so we’re maintaining the original move date. I still have one month to go. Phew.
Actually, the kitchen is darker than I thought, even with the spotlights above the work surface. So I’ll have to find brighter lights.
Back to choosing them again…!