Friday, February 22, 2013

Parade of Workers

I've had this post in draft for the longest time.  But now that we've reached this point in time in my catching up FIAR series, maybe it's time to dust off this post and publish.

After a series of complications, finally, after nearly two and a half months, the post-flood restoration work began.  A parade of workers cycled through our house, a different individual or pair each day as each came to do the work of his speciality.

Each day presented a new personality.  The drywall/painting guy seemed nice enough, but his English was iffy and his craftsmanship left something to be desired.  He also had the disconcerting habit of appearing on days I wasn't expecting him, at awfully early hours of the morning.

Then came the laminate guys.  Hard at work they would be, when out of the blue one of them would suddenly burst into song.  The vinyl guys, by contrast, were super quiet-- hardly speaking even to each other.  Their machinery was amazingly loud though, and made the lights in the rest of the house flicker.

The man who installed the cabinets and trim was outgoing and chatty.  If we were away and he was working in the house alone, we would come home to find his portable radio in the hallway blasting away--so he wouldn't get lonely, he said.   He left the front door open all the time as he constantly was gong in and out to measure and cut wood.  Of course we were having a cold snap at the time, so the house couldn't help but become frigid.  He thought it was hilarious and laughed uproariously when the sounds of T playing his kazoo came wafting through the house.

The leader of the carpet-laying pair was the most courteous of them all, shaking my hand when they were through.  Since lots of furniture had to be moved so they could do their work, the kids and I sequestered ourselves upstairs.  T was really curious to see how they had rearranged things and asked if he could take a peek at where they put the couch.  When he came back up, he told me that one of the workers had looked at him.
"Oh," I said, "did he say hi?"
"No," T replied.  "We just looked at each other's shirts." 

When all was said and done, the last of the workers finally gone for the last time (except for drywall guy who appeared a few more times to repair some of his work), the kids danced and played on the completed flooring.  How good it felt to have a real floor again, the sub floor gone for good, hopefully.

That night T's cough and sniffles, which had been flying just under the radar all week, suddenly erupted into a full-blown cold and croupy cough.  Never a dull.



1 comment:

Joelle said...

Great post! That would be so interesting have such a variety of people in your home in such a short period of time. I don't think I'd like it, though! Glad your home is all restored now!!