Chapter 16
Changing Horses in the Middle of a Stream
(gets you wet and sometimes cold)
Table of Contents
Days 430 & 431 - It's the weekend.  On Saturday, I unfocusedly clean my things.  I use acetone to get the sealant off of all the non-stone surfaces (i.e., toilet (even inside the toilet which of course has a special Sanagloss finish, which I'm hoping wasn't ruined by the sealant or the acetone), towel bar, toilet paper holder, shower and sink fittings, medicine cabinets).  I take off the sink fittings and polish them with Faucet Brite.  I try to get the sealant off of the sink and the floor.  I had called the Miracle Sealant people and both they and the instructions on Porous Plus say to use Porous Plus to dissolve and remove the residue of Porous Plus.  I do this and although I can no longer feel it, there is still the stain of it on the sink top and on the floor where I have tried to get rid of it on individual one inch tiles.  I scrub the sink with Porous Plus and a nylon pad.  I will call Ken the Stone Man and see if he can polish it up, where I scrubbed a little too much.  Great.  I start to take the white caulk out from between the window sills and the window frames.  White caulk.  Good thinking.  Ken is going to put in black or clear silicone.
Day 429 - Mercifully nothing is happening.
Day 428 - I meet my mom in the late morning at Dallek.  Now I'm thinking of a wood desk.  We talk to Lou Pisani who comes up with an idea for an L-shaped desk that will work.  He is going to get back to me with a price.  I'm still not sure and I certainly can't decide on wood color at the moment.  After Dallek, we head on down to Lighting by Gregory.  I want to get a fan for the Master Bedroom (without the A/C, unless the wind is blowing from just the right direction, there isn't a breath of air in there) and maybe for the Office/Guest bedroom, too.   I also want to speak to Joel about my exploded pendant light.  When we get there Joel is out, but "should be back shortly."  We go look at ceiling fans and after a short amount of perusal, I decide on the Casablanca S3 for both rooms.   Graphite with graphite and cherry blades (they're reversable-- graphite on one side cherry on the other) for the Office/Guest Bedroom and brushed nickel, with platinum and maple blades for the Master Bedroom.  This will also help me decide on the wood for the desk.  These fans have no wall switch, they use a remote, so, I decide to get three remotes-- one for the back ceiling fan and two for the front, although I think they can be made interchangeable.  This will allow me to have a way to turn on the light as I enter the Master Bedroom from the bathroom, which is how I usually come in when I'm walking from the back of the apartment towards the front.   By the time I'm done buying my fans, Joel is back and I talk to him about the light fixture and I show him the evidence and my receipt.  In the end he says, he'll sell me another one for less than half the price of the fixture and he'll fight it out with the lighting company.  I agree.  I need the fixture.  He'll probably get a full refund for a defective light, but I'll never know.  After a nice lunch with my mom at Cafe Lebowitz, she goes home and I go back to my apartment.  At a little before four o'clock, Joy comes with Jorge and we talk about the window opening.  Jorge says he will make it wider and more square.  He tells us that the reason he put in different screws for the brackets, is that one side doesn't have anything to screw into and he has to get toggle screws.  Which doesn't really answer why he used three diifferent kinds of screws.  Joy says to get the toggle screws and make them all uniform.  I show them that I put nuts in the desk legs because I was afraid if someone kicked the leg, the screws would just rip out.  Joy doubted that, but Jorge is going to tighten the nuts.  We also look at the exhaust for the range hood and dryer, which are not secured to the building.  Obviously, when it rains water will come in.  I suggest that maybe they can take the dryer off of the washer and see if they someone can secure them from the inside.  Joy says, maybe she can get someone she knows to hang some scaffolding and do it that way.  This might also allow Yoshida to encase the electrical wires running up the building from the condensers below.  At 4pm, the buzzer buzzes and it's Yoshida, Lenny and Matt McDonnell from Lyric.  Matt is (apparently) my project manager.  For whatever reason, we start in the Master Bedroom where they see what an unbelievably crappy job Warren did of installing the television.  They also see that the wires were not run correctly for the television in the living room.  Not a problem.  Nothing that opening the walls up and rewiring can't cure.  Okay.   Joy notices my bedroom wall switches are (for lack of a better description) pidgeon-toed (i.e., they are not parallel to each other) and the stereo control does not lie flush on the wall.  That's because the junction box Warren used was not deep enough.   While they're opening up the walls in the bedroom and living room (where the flat screen TV was hung wrong, too), they may as well open up that wall, too.  I think I might have started hyperventilating at this point.  Then we move into the Den/Media Room (which has no media in it at the moment).  We start discussing the wall unit and that I am waiting for another price quote.  Lenny and Joy are talking around me about how it can be done, knocking out some of the brick, leaving the back open, having it jut out into the room into the middle, etc., etc.  Discussing who would coordinate the equipment with the cabinetmaker, redrawing the wall unit plan, the fact that with less doors it would be cheaper, that if it's made out of maple, Lenny has maple speakers...  Aaaaaaaaah.  It was at this point that I started to lose it.  Lenny said, "I see I've upset you."  Joy probably said, "Take it easy.  Nobody died."  I said, "I'm hemorraghing money."  Joy is going to see if her cabinet guy will come down in price.  But, it's not the money.  Really it isn't.  It's that they are opening walls again and the cabinet will take at least 10-14 weeks to make and it's been over 14 months and I am still living with contractors and according to what I told the Co-op Board, I'm supposed to have been finished with this renovation about four months ago and if they have to rappel down my building to secure they exhausts, I think somehow someone will know.  And I feel like an idiot.  It's not the money.
Day 427 -  Wed. - John calls me in the morning.  I was right.  Oy.  The paper I signed and sent in was the application for the Electrical Permit.  John tells me Warren has it (the Electrical Permit), so he'll be getting in touch with me about the inspection.  Oy.  I tell John, Warren did the cheapest, worst and often incorrect wiring throughout my apartment.  He put in the wrong size junction boxes in places, and he didn't put in junction boxes in some places, so they have to put the wall plates on with wood screws.  If there is an inspection, there will probably be violations.  John says, he has used Warren before and his jobs have always passed inspection.  He also tells me he relied on Warren to know what he was doing.  I say, "and I relied on you."  John tells me I can put in a complaint with the Department of Consumer Affairs.  I tell him, when everything is done I will be in touch with them about a lot of things.  I wonder if John understood that I meant him, too.  John is going to get me a copy of the Electrical Permit, because I don't believe anything Warren (or John for that matter) says.   I meet Ken the Stone Man (and his nephew, who has been pressed into service for the summer) in the afternoon.  We go over the things I would like him to do-- clean and seal the Guest Bathroom floor( Honed Jerusalem Gold), sink and sill (Absolute Black); clean and seal the Master Bathroom sink, sill door threshold and shower thresholds (Calcutta Marble); clean, take the scratches off and seal the slate hearth and sill in the living room.  Ken is also going to give me a price for another piece of slate to go on top of the hearth, since that one is uneven and there are gaps between the slate and the bamboo floor which are just dirt cavities.  Yoshida comes just before Ken leaves.  I wasn't expecting him, but he has brought a round canopy to replace the rectangular one for the hallway monorail.  I tell him that there may be an inspection.  He gives me the number for the Department of Buildings, Bureau of Electricity.  He says to call and see about the inspection.  He tells me if there are any violations they go against the Electrician or the Contractor, not against the homeowner.  He tells me not to worry, that I can't get in trouble and that they can take Warren's license away.  I think he thought I was a little too keen about the possibility that Warren's license would be taken away.  Before he leaves, he takes down the broken pendant light fixture in the kitchen.
Day 426 - At 7:30am, Yoshida comes with another man.  The intercom wizard.  I go over a couple of things with Yoshida (the reason for the rectangular canopy is because that's what the type of junction box Warren put in-- Yoshida will change it.  He already had to put in a deeper one, the box Warren put in was also too shallow), and by the time I leave the back intercom is working!  No breaking of brick walls, no opening up of ceilings, no running of wires!  I can't believe it.  Really, I can't.  I meet Joy and her glass man in the afternoon.   He shows me some samples and I pick one.  It's pebbly on one side.  I think they called it "Industrial."  I also decide to get full length mirrors on the inside of my walk-in closet.  While I am looking at the samples, Joy notices the window opening in the kitchen.  I tell her it's still not straight.  She says, Jorge must have done it like that so it can tilt in.  I say, no, the window still hits the side when you tilt it in.  I open the window and show her and then she has the glass man open it.  I realize the window opens badly because of the broken ballast, but it would hit the side of the opening even if the ballast wasn't broken.  The glass man takes his measurement and leaves quickly and quietly.  Joy calls Jorge and tells him he has to come and fix the window opening again.  I tell her I don't think Jorge really wants to do the job.  She says, "nobody wants to do the job."  I tell her I understand that, but I then show her that he has used three different kinds of screws in putting in the brackets and that he chipped a piece of the granite when he took it off.  Joy calls Jorge again and reams him out a little, telling him he has to be careful.  We go into the bathroom and I show her that there is sealant all over everything.  She asks me for some Windex and then for some Faucet Brite and starts going at the walls and the fixtures.   Joy says, it just needs a good cleaning.  True, and that's what I thought Jorge was going to do.  She recommends a cleaning service and calls them, while she's there.  I speak to Louisa from the cleaning service, but Joy's call waiting beeps and I give Louisa my telephone number to call me back.  She never does and it's just as well.  I've decided to try and clean it myself.  I'm hoping will be cathartic and one thing I've learned (ha!) is that no one cares as much as I do.  No one will take the time and the care that I will.  I tell Joy that when she came with Jorge and Yoshida, we never got to go through the Punch List together, because I was getting freaked out by Yoshida, while she was walking around with Jorge.  So, we go through it now.  A lot of the things I thought Jorge was going to do, apparently aren't things that he does.  The wood threshold between the kitchen and den is the floor man's job, cleaning and sealing the stone floor, sink, etc. is Ken the stone man's job.  This is why the estimate for Jorge's work was so reasonable....  Anyway, Joy calls her stone man and we make an appointment to meet tomorrow.  We shoot the breeze for a while and then Joy leaves.  I clean out the cabinets that need the glass inserts and put in the shelves.
Day 425 - Monday, July 19 - The guy from Little Wolf was supposed to get back to me last week, but he never did.  So, I stopped there on my way to work.  This time, I found other entrances (they have four different doors), and although everyone is on vacation, the same man was there, as was John Wolf, one of the owners.  He did some figuring and gave me a price for the wall unit.  It was much lower than Joy's guy.  One thing is, they don't do the finishing, but they can recommend someone.  I have one other estimate to get.  I asked Lenny from Lyric and he gave me a name of another cabinet maker, ironically named, Lenny.  The only problem is, if I don't go with Joy's cabinet maker, she is probably not going to be the General Contractor, coordinating the installation, the stereo installation and the after installation touch up (e.g., fixing or replacing moulding, repainting).  When I get to work, my cellphone is beeping.  I have a message from Joy-- Yoshida is there and he doesn't have everything he needs.  O-o-okay, what am I supposed to do?   I call Joy back.  She tells me Robin faxed me a list of things Yoshida needs.  I received nothing.  Anyway, in the end it's decided that Yoshida will buy everything he needs, which is what I thought he was going to do.  I speak to John today.  Aren't you shocked?  He must not have looked at his Caller I.D. before he picked.  He said, I was on his "to call" list.  Yeah.  So, I ask him about the Electrical Permit.  He says he has to speak to Warren.  He thinks I'm talking about the Electrical Inspection.  I inform him that there will probably be no inspection because Warren never filed the job.  He seemed genuinely  surprised.  He says he will call me back  after he speaks to Warren.  I speak to Pete from Murphco and ask whether the price of the thermostats included labor.  I now know that there was a 400% mark-up on these crappy thermostats.  He says that seems right, with their warranty, and labor and having someone come into Manhattan and park, etc. and their overhead and insurance, and, and, and...  it's a business.  Man, they must have seen me coming.  I think Pete's trying to make up for the time and money he lost on the job because of John.  When I get home I see Yoshida's hung the monorail in the hallway.  He bent it by hand and it's not as smoothly curvy as I would have liked in one place and he used a rectangular canopy (the thing that connects the monorail to the power source), when I wanted a round one.  I'll have him  change the canopy and it will be fine.  The A/C is working front AND back!  �Ol�!  Such a mecheieh!
Days 423 & 424 - It's the weekend.  Saturday it's beautiful.  I get my hair cut and colored, lay around in my hammock (remaining in it this time) and go out to dinner.  Sunday is overcast.  I type my blog, send the window pictures to Ken the Expeditor and go back into the city.  Maybe I'll polish my faucets.
Day 422 I speak to Robin, Joy's assistant and ask her when Joy might be coming over.  She's going to be there Monday at 4:30pm.  I tell her, I will try to be there, but if not, to please have Joy look at the floor in the bathroom and the window framing in the kitchen.  I think they both need a little help.  Oh, and Yoshida's coming on Monday, too!
Day 421 - I call Joy and mention that everything is covered with a film from the sealant.  She is surprised.  She thinks they sealed the floor.  I think they sprayed the walls and it got on the floor and everything else.  Joy says it's not a problem, she'll have them clean it off. When I get home that night, the bathroom floor is better, but it still needs some work.  Oscar has been there and painted the kitchen wall where they fixed the window framing.  Ed from Murphco came  and installed my new thermostats.  He must have wanted to come quickly, before I changed my mind.  They look like the same crappy songle stage non-programmable ones I had before, but these are the Robertshaw 9610 7-day programmable ones.  Oooh.  I can barely read the numbers.
Day 420 - Wednesday, July 14th - Happy Bastille Day!  Jorge and Oscar, his helper, come and continue cleaning the tiles, then seal them.  There is sealant all over everthing-- the floor, the toilet, the sink, the cabinets.  They opened up my bedroom wall.  The hole is very neat and not as large as I expected.  I also expected to come home to a bed covered in plaster dust.  Not at all.  This is the neatest job I have ever seen. My brakets are holding up my island counter and they look good.  I would have used different screws (and I still can).  Things are moving along.  Oh, and you'll all be relieve to know I have Homeowner's Insurance.  Whew.
Day 419 - I called Joy's office at 8:55am.  I was wondering when Jorge might show up.  Robin, Joy's assistant asked what time he can get in and start.  I said, 8am if he's doing quiet things, otherwise 8:30am.  They are used to doorman buildings where you can't start until 9am.  Anyway, Jorge shows up at about 9:15am, I introduce him to Jefferson and give them both all of the keys they'll need.  I wait for Jorge to bring his things in and go over a few things with him (e.g., where the paint is for touch-ups, what to use to clean the glass tiles, etc.), I also tell him the locksmith is supposed to come to fix the timing on the back door lock.  He says, okay, he'll be there and then I leave.  I have very mixed emotions today.  I am restarting the finishing of the renovation, which is good, butI'm having to trust a whole new set of people, after being badly burned by the last group.  Great.  Now I have trust issues, too.  When I get back, I see Jorge has put both legs on the desk.  It looks fine.  The window now opens without scraping the side of the wall, so Jorge feels he's done with that.  He didn't take the granite off first (which is how I wanted him to do it) and he takes the sill off with a screwdriver, taking a little notch out of the piece below-- the possbile reusable piece below.  Oh well.  I meet Joy and her plumber, Alex at the apartment in the afternoon.  Some things are simple, like taking out the water flow restrictor in my showerhead, so now I have good water pressure.  Other things..., not so much, like installing the condensate overflow pan for the steam shower.  It's a part that I asked John about and he said I didn't need it because of the way they hooked things up.  Yeah, right.  Or should I say, yeah, wrong.  Anyway, opening up a 4' x 2' hole in my bedroom wall should take care of that.  No problem.  Although, once the wall is opened up, who knows what else they'll find?  Alex will also get the gas fireplace up and running.  We don't go over anything in the kitchen, beacuse everything seems to be working okay.  Of course, later in the evening, I notice something shiny on the floor in front of the sink.  It's water.  I open up the cabinet below the sink and there's a puddle of water.  That's right, there's a leak under the sink.  I really wasn't surprised.  Are you?  I call Abbey Locksmith, because no one ever came.  They were running late in the morning, he called, but no one answered, so they didn't come at all.  Mike, my locksmith friend, was in the neighborhood and came right over.  Ten seconds later he was done.  I called Ed Mastro from Murphco and told him i wanted to pay for new thermostats and Pete never calls me back.  If they don't want the work that's fine, I would go to someone else.  No, no, he tells me what kind of thermostats I can get and he'll call me back with a price.  He calls me back with an exorbitant price for the thermostat, but what do I know from this?  I say, "okay."  More on this later.  I also get a UPS delivery from Waterworks-- my stone cleaners and sealants and something called Faucet Brite.  In my attempt to have a good, clean, easy to care for home, I bought some Method cleaning products.  They are non-toxic, biodegradable, safe on all surfaces, non-ion surfactants, nice smelling and they come in cool looking colors and containers.  It says to spray on all shower surfaces after showering and you will never have any buildup of any kind that you might have to actually clean in the future.  So, I did.  Unfortunately, safe on all surfaces, doesn't mean it won't spot nickel bath and shower fittings (Waterworks word for faucets, spouts, etc.).  So, when Dana recommended Faucet Brite, I told her to send it and put it on my tab .  I think two or three weeks polishing daily might help get the spots off.
Day 418 - Monday, July 12, 2004 - Well, I'm happy to report that Nevius is not missing.  Upon reading that he was in my blog, he got back in touch with me.  Apparently, he did not get a set of e-mails I sent requesting another copy of the wall unit plan, so he did not respond, that's all (an unsolicited e-mail, for cheering up purposes every now and again, wouldn't kill him, would it?).  So, he's back in touch and I have to say I'm happy about that.  I was beginning to have abandonment issues.  Anyway, he's helping me take care of closing out the construction permit with the Department of Buildings.  Apparently, the permit is still not closed out because the expeditor, Ken Corona (who we had some issues with before the renovation and blog started) needs pictures of the kitchen and bathroom windows, so he can first close the permit out with Landmarks.  That's right, my buillding is landmarked on the outside, which caused untold aggravation and delay when we applied for the construction permit and forced me to get double-hung windows over my kitchen counters instead of casement (the ones with the crank) windows, which, since I have no leverage, makes them fairly difficult to open.  Hopefully, the new weighted ballasts I'm getting will help.  But, I digress.  So, Ken the Expeditor told John he needed pictures and John apparently said he would get them from me.  He never told me I had to take pictures, so nothing was ever done.  I e-mailed Ken and told him that John was out and now that I knew he needed the pictures, I would send them to him.  I asked if there was any other reason the permit couldn't be closed out and he told me the plumbers hadn't had the plumbing permit signed off on, yet.  So, I called Popular Plumbing (not so popular with me) and spoke to Jay, who said he would look into it.  The only reason it might not of been done, yet (other than their laziness), is that the Schedule B might have changed.  Well, the schedule B is the list of appliances and fixtures that I was going to put in and of course it did change (curse you, you steam shower!).  I e-mail Ken and he tells me if it changed and the plumbing inspector noticed, I will have to file and amendment to the Schedule B, which is something Nevius would do.  Nice to have you back, Nevius.  Just in time.  Well, we'll see what happens.  Let's see, what else happened today... ? Oh, Yoshida (the new electrician) came, first thing in the morning, but I didn't know he was coming, I wasn't home, and Jefferson wouldn't let him in, not knowing who he was (and Jefferson doesn't have all of my keys, yet, so he couldn't let him in).  I didn't know about it until I got to my office after a meeting and listened to my messages at home and at work.  So, that was the end of that.  Rats.
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