very simple

For a change of pace, and because there’s still no construction progress on Easter Sunday, I thought I’d venture back outside for a photo. This is a really old sign on Columbus, which has no actual correlation to the shops and restaurants that sit below it.

No actual updates on the construction front, since it’s the weekend and my building doesn’t allow work, but I still had to stop by and check on Sadie who is locked in cat jail. Otherwise known as my kitchen. She’s doing fine, and is usually fast asleep when I come in, but would clearly rather be out amongst all of the construction debris. I have visions of her thinking it would be fun to jump into a half-empty bucket of joint compound. So in the kitchen she stays.

The photo is a little warped looking, as its stitched together from a few photos, so it get a little fisheyed.

The tile still hasn’t shown up. More excuses today. After giving us a delivery time of 10am, which turned into a delivery “window” of 10-2, my contractor got a call after 2pm saying they were “several hours” away. Given that workers have to be out of the building no later than 5, that was clearly not going to work. So monday is the new promised day. This is now affecting our ability to get the rest of the bathroom done, as the new paneling and cabinets for the non-tiled areas (which is largely going to go over the remaining tile rather than ripping it out), pretty much requires the floor to be done. Not to mention reinstalling the toilet and sink. And, well, the shower.

The shower is a bit more boxed in than it was before, largely due to the fact that the old tile was pretty much attached to the building’s masonry rather than drywall. Contractor thought it might be a good idea to put a layer of cement board between my tile and, well, the exterior wall of the building. As I learned from Wikipedia, cement board is, by far, the best substrate to use as tile backing as it is more water-resistant than other options. But they’ve got the sample tile (the only tile I have!) in there to confirm that it will all fit, depth-wise, so I think we’re good.

Plus, a bonus photo of Sadie greedily gobbling down dinner. She’s not loving the situation, but she has not lost her appetite!

Today they definitely made more progress, finishing off the ceiling drywall and getting the underpinnings for the shower in place (at least along the back wall).

The biggest issue today revolved around something that wasn’t the contractor’s fault. The tile that I ordered hadn’t shown up yet, even though it should have definitely been there by now. My contractor spent time yesterday trying to find out what was going on, and couldn’t get a straight answer out of the supply store I had ordered it from, so I called my original sales guy who was all “it should have been there Tuesday”. Once he figured out that the delivery folks had never contacted me or my contractor, he got on the case (to his credit). During the couple of hours that we didn’t know what was going on though, I had a mild freakout that for some reason, the delivery people had absconded with my tile and this would never get done. My parents bore the brunt of that freakout via email, if only so that I didn’t have a meltdown at work.

In any event, they claim the tile will be there tomorrow. I knew I was probably being too optimistic in thinking this would be done by mid-next week, but I’ve clearly been set straight on that front. As I said to my super when I stopped by this evening, it’s a good thing that I overestimated and said all the work would take a month in my application to the board for approval!

As an added bonus, I get to sleep in tomorrow. I will have to go in for a few hours in the afternoon despite the holiday, but given that I was fully expecting to have to work the entire day, I feel like I’m getting a time dividend.

Tonight’s pic:

Not a great picture tonight, because they took the bulb out of the light fixture and I wasn’t going to attempt to put it back. They’ve started installing the new drywall for the ceiling, and the wood bracing is holding it in place. I’ve got some concerns regarding the schedule, as I was hoping the tile would have arrived by now and that work could have started as well (and that their focus on the ceiling today would have yielded a bit more progress), particularly given my home away from home’s availability (or lack thereof) after next Tuesday,

Pretty sure my parents won’t actually kick me out if absolutely necessary to stay longer, but, well, you never know.

The contractors appear to have finished ripping out most of what they were going to rip out, and the drywall arrived today, so i think this is progress. Not sure they’re going to be done quite on schedule, but it should be hopefully far enough along to be able to move back in by mid-next week while they finish up details (provided the new tile and such actually arrives tomorrow).

In other goings-on, today was a complete clusterf*ck, transportation-wise. This morning I got on the 1 train only to realize I was sitting across from some guy jerking off. I was tempted to post his picture on hollaback, but I didn’t have the energy, so I just moved. Not an auspicious start to the day though. Then, on the way home, AFTER the doors shut on the shuttle, the conductor announces that there is no uptown service on the 1, 2, or 3 trains at all, due to a “sick passenger”. If I had known BEFORE I got on the crosstown subway shuttle, I could have just gone back upstairs and hopped on the bus, but no. We were trapped. Which meant I had to trek almost a mile underground in the most ridiculous transfer that exists from the shuttle to the C train in Times Square.

So I tweet about it, and, of course, this is the response I get from the MTA: Apologies. We had a young man killed while on the tracks tonight. A bad commute for you, a horrific tragedy for his family

which is awful, and now I’m clearly the worst person in the world too. Since I’m already going to hell, I responded that maybe it wouldn’t be so horrific if they had done something to address this issue the last 1000 times that it’s happened. For some reason, they didn’t respond to that one.

How was your day?

It had to happen, but it’s always a little disconcerting to find your toilet in the middle of your bedroom. Plus another vertical panorama, now that they’ve torn away the falling ceiling. Nothing like some 85-year-old masonry!

Hopefully the rest of the shower tile will be gone tomorrow, just in time for the new tile shipment to arrive tomorrow or Wednesday.

Tomorrow is d-day. As in, demolition day. Contractors arrive to tear out all of this classic New York City bathroom-ness. Black and white subway tile is pretty much the mark of a quintessential old-school NYC water closet. As much as I like it in theory, it’s not only dated, it’s worn out. Lots of cracks, a spot on the floor where the radiator was ripped out where the tile doesn’t match up, and, well, that hole in the ceiling (the underlying issue has been resolved after much agita and threats of liens from building management against my upstairs neighbor)

I am now safely ensconced at my parent’s apartment a few blocks away, and Sadie is ensconced in the kitchen, much to her chagrin.

I will post more pics when meaningful progress has been made.

I had to get a haircut today, on top of everything else I’ve got going on, so I hopped on the subway to go downtown to my hairdresser. Wherein I noticed this pair of sneakers sitting in the middle of the railbed. presumably someone’s feet are not happy about this development.

Post haircut, I wandered up to Madison Square for a manicure and some dinner at Eataly. It’s the first time I’ve noticed this sign, even though I lived around the corner for six years, and find it kind of hard to believe that it’s new. Plus, a cliche shot of the flatiron building – I was just struck by the magic hour light that was happening at the moment.

Part of the plan for the renovation is that, while I am staying at my parents’ place, Sadie stays here, locked in the kitchen (conveniently the only room in my apartment with a door that shuts). I took everything out and made a little room just for her, with her bed, food, water, litter and toys, but there was an underlying fear that after being locked in there for one day, she would hide behind the couch and I’d never get her back in there.

No worries though, as she seems to have taken to it – she’s not even locked in at the moment, but still willingly hanging out in there. It may get a little more complicated next week when she doesn’t get to leave when I get home at the end of the day, but this is one more item on my “things to be completely neurotic about” list that I can cross off for the moment.