Surviving Home Remodels - This Time, It's Personal!

I have upset my house painter. I have. I didn’t mean to, I just needed to have something done very fast, because I only have a 26-hour turn around. Did I insist that he did it? No. That’s not me. Even if I pay you, I often feel very bad asking you to do what I pay you to, because, polite. Yes, this makes no sense. Most of the time people want to do what they’re hired to do. I have been in a couple of careers where I’ve done a lot of things for free, because I was so desperate to do it one day for money. No, I was not a prostitute. Have I been treated like an unpaid prostitute at work? Sure. But that’s a very different story. I worked in my career choices for free sometimes, because I wanted to be in a friend’s project, I wanted them to be in mine, or it was just plain fun.

But at this moment my house painter is upset. He told me he didn’t think he could paint a whole house in 26 hours. He is very clear. It cannot be done. But I disagree. The reason I know it can be done is that I’ve done it before, in a different life with roommates, and too many paint rollers to the tune of Abba. I have also refinished both wood and concrete floors, because “how hard could it be?” Well, if not hard, then freakishly tricky. As are results you have to live with, whether physical or emotional. However, the reason I have upset my painter is that I have told him that if he can’t do it, I can do it myself. This is not meant to be offensive. This is just meant that if he can’t, I can, and I will probably still pay him. What I’m gathering is that it is offensive and I don’t know why. I’m not saying he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He really does. And I need it. In 26 hours. I’m M and he’s James Bond. This doesn’t help.

What I’m saying is that I understand the time constraint, and I’m internationally known for being able to not stop doing something just because the ship might very well be sinking, but I always get to shore. It’s a terrible thing to know about yourself, that no matter what happens, you survive. Of course, I can’t say this to this lovely man. He doesn’t need to know. I have a 26-hour turnaround in a house, and it needs to be adhered to, because I don’t want people to breathe in paint fumes, even if they are ecologically safe. So is CBD, and it doesn’t work for me. I know it works for others, I don’t want to fight, but I also don’t want to hallucinate about jellyfish on a regular basis. That’s just me. I have houses to paint. Maybe. The painter takes in my arguably not huge frame and says: No. He, not me, shall paint.

This makes me happy, but now I’m worried that I have upset him. This is not unfounded. I have a long history of upsetting large men with tools, brushes, and sometimes a law degree and bad ideas, because I think I’m being helpful to people who I’m paying to help me. I have a couple of careers, and one of them involves old houses that I renovate and rent out. I have offended people with my Scandinavian need for light wood floors and white walls. Wood apparently has to either stay wood, and if it’s painted or stained, it has to be brown or black, because, nature. Apparently where we tread in nature is thought to be brown or black. I do have some experience with stepping on green and grey in nature and some white. It was a white sandy beach, but, full disclosure the sand had been flown in to give a rebel Emirate better PR for their beaches. It was nice sand.

I wanted to keep the original 1939 floors, but they were damaged, so I decided to treat them, bleach them, and stain them white. This was upsetting to the construction company that I was working with, because they were known for laminate floors, and had never worked with wood. Natural laminate in colors found in nature where laminate grows freely in the colors of brown and black. I did ask if I should just paint them myself as all Scandinavians do, but I think I was talked out of it by someone (who was that? I need to know who it was?) or because I was planning a wedding, and was also concerned about electricity, which I’m proud to say I have never attempted myself. So adult.

Before this company, I had hurt the feelings of another contractor. His company had demolished another house, stolen the antique door hardware, and then left the house, because I wanted something they didn’t do. Like walls. The contractor would just come over, and tell me everything was too expensive. This was odd. I had to give him a pep talk about inflation, and the rising cost of living, but he was very sad. After they left the construction site wide open and unattended for a month, the crack den that was previously there looked very promising again.

I begged and begged for them to resume work, because money and shelter. They seemed confused about the work, so in the end, I wrote an email, still begging, but as a joke (in order to be likable, this never works) I mused that maybe I should just build the house myself. This was the tipping point. I got a terse message back from the construction guy’s dad saying that that statement was very rude and hurtful, and no one was coming back.

On the tail end of that, I decided to take action. I needed an architect to tell me about bearing walls and somewhat useful things like that. He said only if he had carte blanche to build the house, no, and also only if I hired his girlfriend to design the house. Girlfriend would also need universal rights to any picture ever taken in my house, and permission by her should I ever want to post one. The thing is: I should very much want to post one, because I happen to love my own design. It’s not personal against anyone, but I like the way I live and how that interior life looks. Literally, figuratively, and Bergman’esque.

Eventually, I did build the houses and more. But rarely do I retain relationships with the people who build or paint, because whatever belongs to me, whether houses, decks, or bad ideas, become very, very personal to them. Except for a painter I had a long time ago. He was Chinese, and I had hired him to paint a bedroom red. Yes, red. As per a live-in boyfriend. I didn’t speak mandarin. He didn’t speak Danish, and, in turn, had to redo the red and black that boyfriend wanted many times. We laughed a lot about it. At least I think it was that. I think we had a great rapport. He did, however, only refer to me as Sir. I didn’t hate it.

So, my painter… He laughs and tells me, “Well, if it has to be done in 26 hours, it has to be done.” I tell him it has to be and I can help.

He shakes his head and politely declines and hopes to God I’ll focus on the electricity.