Friday, December 09, 2005

At least it's not a cold whine

The workers arrived yesterday to erect scaffolding in front of our building. It's finally happening. We've spent months chasing masonry contractors around for estimates and in October, we hammered out a deal with one of them. Then we heard nothing. When it turned brutally cold this week, I thought "Construction time is over, they'll probably come in the spring."

Wrong.

No, we're going to remove that-which-keeps-your-homes-protected-from-the-elements and then we're going to leave it that way for weeks before we get around to putting it back up.

See, here's the deal, the stone facade must be dissassembled, and then later, reassembled. Oh and did I mention that we could have a brand new car for the price of essentially breaking down a wall and re-erecting it with the same materials. In fact, it costs extra to use the same materials. (?!)

Thankfully, we will be gone during the holidays but I fear for our tenants. Tenants? Oh yeah, we own the bank owns the triplex we live in and the two apartments above us are rented. It's a great deal except when you have to alter your retirement planning to tear down a wall and rebuild it.

I'm not telling you how much we're paying, but I will say that one of our estimates was (gasp) forty-eight thousand dollars. Oh how I laughed when we received that one. The kind of laugh that leads one to the kitchen to play with the big knives.

And just because, here's a picture of our next door neighbor's house. Although you can't see it, the Christmas dog moves and carols are emanating from hidden speakers. I feel the urge to ridicule but that's not very charitable, is it?

7 comments:

St. Dickeybird said...

Thank you for putting 'erect' into the first line of this post.
Thank you.

Patricia said...

whine, ridicule, throw a hissy fit. you're justified. spending ridiculous amounts of money on something like a wall will get a person bitchy. that's justified.

oh, and i counted two erections in your post, but that's just me.

dantallion said...

*Groan* - been there. Just keep sight of how you'll feel once it's done and beautiful again.

Try get a picture of the next door neighbours house side by side with yours - the juxataposition of the Tranquil Christmas scene with the construction zone.

epicurist said...

one, why is this work necessary?
two, that is the most hideous Xams display, but at least they have spirit.

For a real cool Christmas light display check out: http://members.cox.net/transam57/lights.wmv

Anonymous said...

Well, technically you engaged in riducule just by posting the picture. Of course I *may* just be in a bad mood.

I can't believe the construction is going to happen in the dead of winter. Wow.

I like you big knife line.

Adam said...

Thanks for this story. We're going out this sunday to look at homes to buy, I'll keep your situation in mind.

Love the display. If you ever get a chance drive around the dago haunts in brooklyn for some really tacky x-mas displays. You have not lived till you've seen corinthian columns and statues of venus, jupiter, and neptune wrapped in lights.

r said...

Like em, I like the knives line. Funny. How come you have to tear down and build again?

Where have you been? Seems ages.


And one more thing:
Adam?

Careful with the "Dago" comment.