Instructional Video - I Don't Give Squat

I think the Asians have the right idea. Can we call this squatters rights? I am sick of cleaning toilets. Just in case I get the remodeling bug again, future guests had better take notes. We will supply the paper though, it is the least we can do. Come to think of it, we may need to put in handrails too. And then there is the video camera...Is America's Funniest Videos still on the air?

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Such a Busy Day

It is with great pleasure that I report that the kitchen is finally 100% completely remodeled. The doors that were without glass fronts have now been replaced with the matching doors of their neighbors. Six doors were supposed to have glass fronts, but the contractor misunderstood. He only installed two doors with sections for glass, making it look ludicrous. It was cheaper all around to replace the two with solid solid doors rather than four more with glass. It looks great. He also added matching floor boards at the bottom, and on the sides that show, so they are no longer anemic white. I love the granite looking sink. It is so much easier to keep clean. The stove is a marvel. We also had 14 boxes of tile delivered. In the next month or so, between guests coming and going, we will have the tiles replaced in the hallway to match the kitchen. Each little change makes this more and more our own, evicting the ghosts of tenants past.

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Sink, Flow, Drip

The plumber returned to put in the yet another new faucet, this one with the required three hoses. It took him three hours. We did not realize that our new deep double basin sink was so much lower than the old one, a hole had to be cut in the bottom of the cabinet to set the hot water heater in so it would fit. Hearing the plumber using a saw, we just sent up silent prayers, not wanting to check up on him and have panic attacks in the process. Plumbers and saws go together like carpenters and monkey wrenches. There is just something illogical in the combinations. Three hours later, he announced he was finished. The new faucet looked lovely, but we never gave it a trial run before he left. His fee was 7,000 Huf ($29.00). Yes, Americans, read it again and weep. Three hours of a plumbers work for $29.00. He told us he would have to pick up a new hot water heater for the bathroom. Fixing it would cost more for the parts than a new one, so we gave him the money to pick one up for us. As soon as he was out the door, we tested the faucet. The water pressure popped it right out of the base. Not good. Okay, I see now you Americans are no longer weeping over the $29.00, but laughing instead.

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Yea!! Boo, Hiss!!!

The plumber came today to install the faucet on our new sink. We have been doing without a kitchen sink for the week that they remodeled, but thought today was the day we did not have to wash dishes in the bathtub any longer. I was so charged, I would have volunteered to wash them. It only took the plumber three seconds to tell Ron he bought the wrong kind of faucet. Ron protested that the salesman at the store said this was the best for this sink, but as it turns out, we need a faucet with three hoses for our hot water heater. Why? Nem tudom! I don't know. While we had the plumber captive, we had him look at our other hot water heater. There has been a leak somewhere. Big mistake! It needs replacing. Miracle upon miracle, he is returning tomorrow to do both the sink and the hot water heater. Ron went back to the store he bought the faucet at, after some English/Hungarian interchange that neither he nor the service desk understood, they gave him a new faucet and a refund for the difference. Okay, I am not washing dishes tonight. Afterall, Ron has it down to a science by now. Anna, our kitchen remodel interpreter sent an e-mail asking that I spell out for her what I want done to complete this job, also jabbing that I should be so very grateful it only took one week to do all that they did. Personally, I want to cast all of them in bronze and build a religion around them, I was so impressed. What I did instead was take detailed photos of all of the little things that need to be corrected, labeled them 1-11 and sent them to her with instructions in elementary vocabulary, hoping there is no miscommunication this time. At times, I think I am repeating myself, but no one is listening or those who are do not speak English. It reminds me of an old FAR SIDE cartoon. The guy is saying to his dog "Good Ginger, you are such a good girl. I love you Ginger. You are so sweet, Ginger." What the dog hears is "Blah, Ginger, blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, Ginger...

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The Kitchen Is Done...Sort of

Thursday, the cabinet man arrived with his helper at 9:00 am. Who would have guessed they would still be here at 9:00 pm. Not I, for sure. Our old cabinets were in great shape, so we kept the basic structures, just having the doors and borders redone with replacement parts. They kept the kitchen door closed most of the day. We were not sure if this was because we kept peeking in or to block the noise and dust from their sawing and cutting of the counter top. As Ron claims, I notice things that most people don't. Alright, I give attention to detail, but most people would look at these things and wonder when it was going to be finished off. We tried occupying our time like expectant fathers waiting to hear the good news! Finally, at 9:15 pm, we had the unveiling. It was joy and disappointment at the same time. The cabinets look lovely; however, something was lost in translation. Along one wall, there are three cabinets. All six doors were to have glass panels in them. Only two of them do. The others are solid doors. If it were the center cabinets that had the glass, I could live with it, but alas, it is the two at the far end. It looks ridiculous. The cabinet exposed sides and bottoms were left white, though with new molding. I specifically requested it all be the same as the cabinets. It definitely has an unfinished look to it. A call into Anna, our interpreter and the sister of the cabinet maker, was frustrating since she said she could not remember any of these instructions when her brother took his notes. I tried tripping her memory by recalling the things that she and I discussed, but it was useless. Perhaps because she was here that night with both of her babies, there were too many distractions. Lesson learned, make notes of your own and go over them before everyone leaves. To add to the mix, they inserted the new sink, which looks lovely, but they could not put in the faucet, or the 'tap' as they call it. We need to call a plumber to do the work. Hence, we have no kitchen water yet. The stove hood is on back order and will be up to four weeks to arrive. We will look elsewhere in the meanwhile. We had asked if they could get two sliding drawers for the other lower cabinets like we have in another lower cabinet. That never happened. Now we have to look for those on our own also. They did not reinstall our under cabinet lights. We have to get the electrician back for that too. We spent the day carting things back from hither and yon to place them back into the cupboards, I mopped all of the floors since tile and counter top dust can travel all over the apartment. Ron had already done the dusting. We still owe the cabinet man money, so he is guaranteed to return. Our translator will be thrilled to have this end. I am sure it is more than she bargained for. We did get her a gift certificate for a restaurant for she and her husband, but that was some time ago and is now feeling like a drop in the bucket. Nothing other compensation will have to follow. The bright side is that we are now convinced we need to re-tile the hallway to match the kitchen floor.

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It's a Stove, It's an Oven, It's Convection

Not much happened today, while I was at school. The stove/oven with ten functions was delivered, but the cabinet maker decided to return tomorrow. He had changed his day when we thought the stove/oven was coming on Thursday, so stuck to his guns in spite of the changes. The electrician did return to put in all of the sockets and covers. However, so far, we are not cooking with gas as the old expression goes. It is still take-out dinners. I wanted to take a picture of the new cooker, but my batteries were dead in my camera. Oh, well. One of our B and B guests arrived today from the States. She is a Frommer's guide reader. I had warned her ahead of time what she may be facing, but she is a good sport. Hopefully, the two coming tomorrow are as well.

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Phase One Completed

When we were stilling living in California, we had both bathrooms remodeled, in addition to many other jobs requiring contractors of one sort or another. In my experience, it was rare when a work person, showed up on time or even on the day they promised. Sandor, our tile man has been here at 8:00 am each day as promised. Today was no exception. This was the last phase of his work. He had to cut the tiles to create the baseboard and then grout the walls, floors, and baseboards. He was not satisfied when we said not to bother with tiling the baseboard area behind the radiators. They are flat and low to the floor, so it would not be noticeable. He, however was not satisfied with this, so cut them so that they could be slid from underneath and up. By 3:00 pm, he was finished. It looks so good, we are going to have the hallway done in May, matching the tiles from the kitchen to have continuity. We have to rid the place of dust. There is dust everywhere, even in the medicine cabinet in the large bathroom. Tomorrow, the electric gets finished off and the stove is delivered.

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Construction Worker Tango

Good to his word, the tile man was here again at 8:00 am to start putting down the floor. He said that it would be ready to walk on by Wednesday, the day that the cabinet makers were returning to do that installation. This left the stove/oven installation, but first we had to go pay for it. We wanted to give them money when we first looked at it, but they said it would be better to pay when we arranged delivery. Anna, our interpreter called to say we should have the stove there on Wednesday so the cabinets can be installed around it. We walked down to the appliance store; it is just down the street from us. The wonderful gentleman we spoke with on our first visit recognized us immediately and said "I have bad news." Those are four words you don't want to hear when you are trying to coordinate a number of laborers in a language you cannot communicate in and have to use the sister of one of them to translate. The bad news could have been worse. They sold the stove hood, but not the stove. At first they could not deliver on Wednesday due to some mysterious problem. A call into Anna to tell her, but she said it was ridiculous. Her brother the cabinet maker was coming in from the country on Wednesday specifically and could not change their days. We just turned the phone over to the salesman. He finished with Anna and gave us the phone. She would have to call her brother and call us back. Four minutes later, she called and her brother would come Thursday. As she was telling Ron this, the salesman was telling me he did manage to arrange delivery on Wednesday. Yikes! I am so confused now, I am overjoyed that I start school tomorrow and Ron will be here to deal with anything that happens on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Except for the hood, we should be complete by Thursday afternoon. Ron had the foresight to ask our salesman to call the company that would need to hook up the stove. There is only one, not the gas company, who is authorized to do it or the guarantee is void. With an oven with ten different functions, I want it working all the way through its three year guarantee. It has only been days, but it has felt like a whole lot longer. When this is over, I am putting Anna's name in for sainthood. This has turned into a part-time job for her. We gave her a gift certificate for dinner out for two, but we will have to do more by the end of this adventure. The tile man will return tomorrow to do the baseboards and then grout the entire tile work and he is out of here.

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Measure, Measure, Measure

Size DOES matter, regardless of what anyone says. Before we ordered the tiles for the walls, our tile man measured and told us how many square meters we would need. It was after this that I convince Ron we really needed to redo the floor also, but it was up to us to do the measurements. We just showed the tile store the measurements and left it to them to figure out the number of boxes we needed. It was only the day before they were delivered that it occurred to me that our baseboards were also tile, not wood. After searching the tile stores' catalog again, I was assured that they did not carry baseboard tile, so called Anna, our liaison translator in a panic. She assured me it would not be a problem. The tile man would cut tiles and make a baseboard. Whew! Well, relief for a matter of minutes only, when it next dawned on me that we would not have enough tile to cover the floor and to cut up for baseboard. The tile order took two weeks. Today, this trauma was reinforced by our tile man. We decided we would get any color tiles from the Practiker store, like the local version of Home Depot. These would be hidden under the cabinets and then the saved tile from there would then be used for baseboard. We traipsed off to the store today, so he could finish up tomorrow. With our grocery trolley in hand and a giant Ikea heavy duty bag, we set off. Miracle upon miracle, Practiker had the identical wall tiles we already had. We needed two more boxes (30 pounds). We needed to pick up three boxes of grout at 5 kilos a box. For those unknowing, one kilo equals 2.2 pounds. The last item on our shopping list was two more boxes of floor tiles. We found a darker color in the same product line as what we bought for the floor already and thought this would make a nicer accent than monotone floor and baseboard. Each box is 20 pounds. I have to say that the employees at Practiker were beyond helpful and friendly from start to finish. We put the two boxes of floor tiles into the shopping trolley on wheels, but we could only fit one box of the wall tiles on top of it. The three boxes of grout and one box of wall tiles had to go into the Ikea bag. It was too heavy for either of us to lift alone. We had to each grab a handle. Now the trick was getting this on two trams and then three blocks home. By the time we reached the first tram and packed everything on, both wheels of the trolley broke off. Kaput! Never to be fixed again. We seriously thought of a taxi at the end of the line, but neither of us brought our phone. When we did get to the end of the first tram line, one of us was going to go home and call a taxi while the other waited. However, I had a better idea. We found someone waiting for the tram, a really nice African man. Explained what happend and he called a taxi for us. All that was left for us was to drag the stuff upstairs on the elevator. I think both of us were thinking heart attack by the time we finished. This is the progress made today. The electric outlets are wired, the walls were prepped, and Sandor put on all of the wall tiles today.

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The Cost of Remodeling

When one decides to remodel a kitchen, one cost that needs to be taken into consideration is the amount of money it will cost for eating out each night during the process. This is one expense I had not calculated. I guess after five weeks of eating out in Australia, the thought of eating out was blocked from my cognition. Obviously, we could not cook here, so we called Michael, the guy studying at CEU and went to the Galleria for dinner. It is cheap and close-by, fitting the needs for a damp cold evening. So when the men left last night at 6:00 pm, this is the way the kitchen looked.

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The Real Nightmare That Did Not End

This is where they finished off last night. The tile man arrived shortly after 8:00 am to start ripping out the tiles. The good news is that he proclaimed the floors and walls in good shape under the old tile, not causing any surprises or extra work. We are having a number of extra electrical outlets put in so that means coordinating with the electrician. Then there was a problem with the gas pipe to hook up the new stove, so that will be dicey also.

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Remodeling Hell

Kitchen cupboards are like any other closet. You never know how much you have stashed in them, until you have to empty them out completely and find a place to store all that crap for an indefinite period of time. Ron did the lion's share of clearing them out while I read student theses, but we completed the finishing touches this afternoon in time for the cabinet man to remove them all. The tiles arrived, sitting in the hallway, in front of one the two doors to our bedroom. Now that they are here, they look different than in the lighting of the showroom. God, I hope we did not make a mistake. However, the choices here are not the extensive range as in the States, so we were not as flummoxed when making choices. The cabinet man and his brother showed at 3:00 pm. By 8:00 pm, not only did they remove the cabinets, but the sink, the stove, and the fridge. The kitchen is empty except for the table, but we removed the inserts making it comfortable for two rather than eight. This is what our kitchen looks like in stages of mass destruction. I had forgotten the hideous green that it was painted when we first moved in here.

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And Now the Fun Begins

Yesterday, we went down to the tile store and shock upon shock, the tiles were in on the day they were promised. Good timing. The cabinet man is coming today to take off all of the cabinets. Tomorrow, the tile man is coming to remove all of the wall and floor tiles. He was over a few nights ago to remove a part of one tile to check the floor underneath. He proclaimed it in great shape, so all systems go. There will be no sleeping in tomorrow morning after 8:00 am, but no worries, I am usually up by 7:00 anyway. Ron will have to make up an hour of his sleep somewhere along the way. We hoped against hope we were going to be able to circumvent this work with guests, but we had a booking I responded to while in Australia and had forgotten about. A young woman arrives on the 11th for five nights. We have a couple coming from Stockton, CA our old neighborhood on the 13th. Because I hate surprises, I sent both of them a warning letter and promised to make their stay as uneventful as possible. The noise should all be over by then, but the kitchen may still be in an uproar. In the meanwhile, I have found an excitingly effective resource for selling things. There is a web site here called Ex-pat Loop http://xpatloop.com/. For years, I have tried selling old furniture or other things we wanted to dispose of on various local English speaking websites, but without any success. Just by serendipity, I registered and put in an ad for the old sofa bed we replaced in the small bedroom. Within 24 hours, I had four people inquire and ask for pictures. I took pictures, posted them into the ad and last night, the sofa bed found a new home. On Monday, a gentleman is coming to pick up the HP Deskjet V40 I advertised. At this rate, we just may go through our storage unit in the basement and clean out. When we bought the apartment, we bought it furnished, but over the years have been replacing furniture with new items more attuned to our own taste and sensibilities. It is not that I am out to make a killing on these sales, but it does relieve space. The old sofa was clogging our bedroom for more months than I care to remember. Now let's see, what else is hanging around I can sell?

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Kitchen Remodel

Before we left on vacation, we decided the kitchen needed remodeling. One of the former Hungarian Fulbright teachers who had gone to the US for a year, has a brother who is a carpenter. We have been in touch with her thanks to our friend Jennifer, who was the exchange teacher from the US here in Budapest. We are having the cabinets replaced and in the process adding more where there is currently wasted space. Some of the oversized drawers are being converted from three to five draws. Most importantly, we are making room for a larger stove/oven. We picked out the cabinets and the counter top before we left. I am disappointed that our first choice of counter top is not available, so we had to settle for number two. The cabinet sample is darker than it really is in reality. It is a shade or two lighter than it looks here. Yesterday, we went to pick out the tile for the splash board and the floor. We also picked out the new stove/oven. It is everything I could want with ten functions: regular oven, convection oven, broiler, combinations of the three, and it is self cleaning. Yahoo! The last thing we have to pick out is the new sink. The double sink we have now has an attached drainboard. Being stainless steel, it has become corroded over the years with our mineral infested water, so the new sink will be built in. The tiles should be here by February 5th, so we will press forward after that. I cannot wait to get started, but more importantly, I cannot wait until it is all done.

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