Renovation Crunch Time
Thanksgiving weekend, it was all cleared out. It was time to begin. By now, it had been 15 months since I had seen the place, and during this time, it had changed dramatically in my mind. The space was bigger, there wasn't a fireplace that I could remember, and the condition of the apartment wasn't so bad. We realized quickly there would be a lot of work. Surprisingly though, some things we thought needed to be replaced just actually needed to be cleaned.
We had a short period of time to get things going, and needed quite a bit of money. We decided to take out a equity loan on our apartment, we had gained quite a bit of it in the time we let the apartment just sit there. I called several banks trying to find someone that would finance a co-op. I finally found one, went through all of the paperwork, and again, almost ready to close when they wanted to just have a few more questions answered. Just basic ones, in fact, the same ones they asked me when I put in the application a week ago.
"Is this a co-op?"
"yes"
"Oh, I'm sorry, we don't do co-ops."
"What do you mean, we already went through this over a week ago?"
"I'm sorry, I guess that was overlooked."
More sobs. Wasn't I done with the crying? Shouldn't it have been smooth sailing from that point?
I spent hours that day calling several other financial institutions, hoping someone would help me. Finally that night after verifying several times they actually did co-ops, we were on our way. This wouldn't have been so stressful if everything else had worked out as planned, but why would they? Our contractor had already started tearing the place apart, and wanted his first payment within a few days. It would take at least two weeks to get the loan signed and deposited into our account. Thankfully, our contractor, was very understanding, very un New Yorker like, and said, get it to me when you can.
We didn't get it to him for another month.
This is what we had to work with. He did live in the apartment for over 13 years, keeping his clutter tidy, but I don't think he ever actually scrubbed anything, or used an ash tray.
As I mentioned before, I thought Mr. Wrong had the T.V. on 24 hours a day. It turns out, it was the soft glow of the glossy wall color he used in his bedroom. I also thought we would have to replace the windows because of the dark tint they had to them. Turns out, they were just stained from 13 years of nicotine, and dirt.
Thank you Rusty for the photo op and attempting to clean it.
The floors obviously needed some significant work. And why yes, those are cigarette burns.
A lot of work and not much time. We wanted to be in at least a couple weeks before I gave birth. But after walking through with the contractor and actually seeing the list, we became a bit concerned.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007 at 1:52AM
Reader Comments (3)
That's so nasty. I didn't think it would get worse once all the crap he left was cleaned out but all the grime grosses me out even more.
Yeah that window was yucky. And I remember that phone call. It was the last day I was there visiting. Oh my heart breaks all over again. A woman who is about to give birth should never be put through all this crap. Even still, it was fun having Thanksgiving with you & Tom, J, & the Riches. (This is me trying to put some positivity in to these posts because reliving this nightmare isn't as fun as I first thought it would be).
whooooa. that there is a great reason not to smoke if ever i saw one. gag.