One of the stipulations of us deciding to move into the apartment that we moved into, was that it was to be renovated before our move in date. Well, if you remember back to this post, it was in no such state when we arrived. After many apologies from our landlord, he assured us that it would be completed by the end of September. Well, that’s okay, right? We could hold off for a few weeks on unpacking a few boxes. WRONG. After many broken promises, we decided we had enough. Time to start fixing that place up ourselves. Our bathroom and kitchen were all that were to be renovated, so why not go ahead and fix everything else up meanwhile. Keep this in mind for later. It is important. So, first step, some paint! Wow, it is amazing what a little bit of paint will do. Then, onto unpacking, organizing, and decorating. Let me tell you, within about a month, we had that place looking unrecongnizable. It was THAT much better. So, months go on. There were many times that the contractors were supposed to show up the next day, but we eventually gained the “i’ll believe it when I see it” mentality. Well, finally, they arrive! They replaced all of our windows, promised to be back the next week, and then we never saw them again…
Until today.
So, this should be good news, right? Wrong again. I guess there are some upsides to this, but i’ll get to that later. Jacob gets a phone call last night informing him that the contractors would be at our apartment today to work on the kitchen. Therefore, we need to move EVERYTHING out of the kitchen. Table, food, appliances, all of it. The whole shabang. At first I was skeptical. Why move out everything, when the contractors probably wouldn’t show up anyway. Well, if they were to show up and things weren’t moved, that would cause problems, so we went ahead and got to work. In addition to finding out last night that work would begin on the kitchen today, we also discovered that our landlord had plans to do a total makeover on the entryway/living room/hallway area. Total makeover meaning replacing all the walls! Wait, what?! This is brand new to us. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have spent all that we did on paint and supplies to paint this area, and not to mention, all the time and effort it took to make this happen. Although, I didn’t freak too much. Jacob told me that the living room was still to be discussed, although, they might do a little work in there today. Are you ready for it… wrong! Again! Sure enough, the contractors arrive at our door at noon today (two hours late, by the way). They walk in, examine the place, then look at us like we are crazy because our kitchen is now in our living room, and they are there ready to work on our living room! What?! See, the thing you have to understand here is that we live in a small one bedroom apartment, and we’ve accumulated a lot of stuff since September. Where exactly do you expect me to place all of this stuff? Before I blew up on the contractors (because it isn’t there fault after all), I stepped into the bedroom to get ready for work, came out about 5 minutes later, to find our living room in the kitchen. Yes, the kitchen that we so diligently worked to get into the living room. I was not prepared for this. All the hard work that I put forth into organizing and decorating our apartment over the last several months, was now being placed back into boxes. For anyone who has had to deal with moving before, I am sure you can see how devastating this sight must have been. We were down to one last box to unpack! Now the process starts all over again. 😦
So, I have no idea what state our apartment is in at this very moment as I am at work. Although, I’m a little frightened to go home today. On top of discovering that our entire living area is being remodeled (which they will thankfully repaint, although, we are still out the money we spent to paint it in the first place), I learned a new addition to the plan… the bedroom! NO! We JUST finished painting and setting up the bedroom. Two days ago! That’s where I tried to put my foot down. Our landlord is stopping by tonight to check out the condition of our walls in our bedroom. If all is sound, they’ll leave it. BUT, if he thinks they need replacing, let the work begin… At least we won’t have to do the repainting…
You might be thinking that I sound a little unappreciative right now. Shouldn’t we be thankful that we are basically getting a brand new apartment? Well, yes, but it isn’t that simple. We don’t own this place, so why put all the effort into it, right? Well, while that’s true, I still want a place that feels like our own. It was worth the effort. Now I am just bummed that we have to repeat those efforts all over again…
On the upside, we will soon be living in a brand new apartment. In our landlord’s defense, he is going above and beyond now to really make the place look nice, instead of cutting corners and just doing the bare minimum (so he says). We will see about that.
Let’s hope the contractors actually show up tomorrow…sigh…
The Daily Doss 