Thursday, March 25, 2010

Some useful tips on home improvement

For this installment, Keith and I thought it might be fun to mix things up a bit and each offer our own separate reflections on the events of the past three weeks. The following is my version. Keep in mind Keith’s previous oompa loompa entry, however, when choosing which version to believe. I’m not saying that his account is untrue, I’m just saying.

On March 3rd, we moved into our new apartment. Those of you (Mom) who have been following this blog closely will remember that we were living in a temporary our apartment in the city center of Maastricht. You will also remember that earlier in January we went to look at apartment outside of the city center. It was complete pigsty and during our visit we encountered our first naked Dutch guy. Naturally, we took the place and moved in at the beginning of this month. In our new place, we no longer have to climb treacherous ladder to get into bed and the rent is dirt-cheap. Unfortunately, this was virtually all that the apartment had to recommend itself.

Now, some of you will know that Keith and I have lived in some pretty shitty apartments. There was the dorm, where collectively we paid almost twenty-five hundred dollars a month to sleep in bunk beds. Then there was the apartment on the upper west side. Enough said. And then there was Gloria’s apartment in Park Slope where we got royally Trembekeyed. Despite the radical infrequency of the heat, hot water and electricity, we stayed in that apartment longer than in any other, just over three years. Yes, we once spent eight glorious months in palace on 6th ave. in Brooklyn and another eight exalted months in an entirely presentable closet with a dishwasher next door to John Turturro. But generally, it has been nothing but squalor. It is not without a proper respect for precedence, then, when I suggest that in Maastricht we set the bar at an entirely new low.

The apartment didn’t obviously pose a threat to our physical safety and the utilities were all in proper working order. So far so good. While it is very small, not only it is set up in such a way that it is possible to cordon-off the sleeping quarters from the living space, it also has a private outdoor space. One might almost go so far as to call it a garden. Sounds like a veritable palace, our own private Shangri-La. What is the catch, then, you ask? Why all this for such a bargain-basement price? It turns out that in the Nederlands it is not uncommon to rent an apartment without a floor, appliances or light fixtures. What the hell, we thought. We spend a hundred euro-bucks at IKEA, a day’s worth of work and we’ll put down a laminate floor. We’ll buy a couple of light fixtures and hob (or what y’all would call a ‘hot-plate’). After a quick trip to Mattie’s Kringloopwinkel, we’ll have a relatively nice place, at a great price, with a patio.

I must interject two brief digressions at this point, however, before I proceed any further. First, some of you may not know that before embarking on my current foray into academia, I began a promising career in manual labor. As a nineteen year old, I thought that try my hand at house painting. My plan was to make a little bit of money and to spend my summer outdoors. What could be better or so I thought. It turns out, however, that I don’t really like being outside all that much and that manual labor is not my forte. I was fired on the fourth day for incompetence, which was fortunate since I wouldn’t have lasted more than a week by my own volition. I spent the rest of that summer working at Taco Bell, where I realized that the most I could handle in that department is squeezing sour cream onto a Taco with looked like a caulking gun.

Second, while in living our previous digs, Keith and I were fortunate enough to have T.V. and cable, a rarity for us. As luck would have it, one evening we happened across a classic Hollywood film from the eighties, The Money Pit. You know, the one with Tom Hanks and what’s her name from Cheers. No doubt you’ll all remember the plot, so I won’t bother to rehash the story line. Suffice it to say, it’s a charming tale of two New Yorkers who move to the sticks and who are foolish enough to embark the project of home-improvement. Needless to say, given my previous experience I should have seen this as omen. Of course, the saying goes, hindsight is 20/20. (Insert ominous musical foreshadowing here).

While we were intellectually prepared to move into an apartment with no appliances and no floor, the reality of it was still a little shocking. Basically, our first week was like living in a garage with a toilet: bare concrete floors and no amenities. No appliances means not even a refrigerator! We created a one by hanging a plastic bag from the outside of our back door, the one opening onto the “patio.” Meanwhile the “patio,” which was the deal clincher for the apartment, had been transformed into a huge pile of sand. It looked like someone had come by with a bulldozer, intending to make the world’s largest sandcastle but had lost interest after gathering the requisite amount of sand and depositing it outside of our back door. We lived in this glorified garage with a view for about a week before we had time to begin renovations. During that time, our diet consisted of instant oatmeal (breakfast), baguette sandwiches (lunch) and ramen (dinner).

Now, for the sake of brevity, I won’t try to provide a detailed account of the events that followed. Instead, I have attempted to distill a few gems of practical wisdom from the past two weeks.

1. Despite the interlocking system, laying laminate flooring isn’t like building with LEGO. It is less fun. And if someone tells you that you can cut the boards by scoring each side with a utility knife and then snapping them with your bare hands, that person is either a ninja or is playing you for a sucker. Regardless, it is best not to attempt the scoring method with the board resting on your lap.

2. When a small, unassuming handsaw calls itself the laminator, it’s not just bravado. It is in fact worth its weight in gold.

3. When installing a shower curtain rod by drilling into tile, “the higher the better” is not necessarily the best rule of thumb.

4. Sometimes, like in the case of electrical work, even the steepest of learning curves is not sufficient to prevent electrocution.

5. Mattie of Mattie’s kringloopwinkel will allow you to return merchandise for store credit, in case you don’t happen to measure first.

2 comments:

  1. Awwwww...your poor things! great post Annie - send us some pics!

    - catherine

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  2. Great post Anne, the more I read the more I miss you! So awesome to be able to know so much about your experiences there and how you're doing!

    Say hi to Kieth!

    xo Les

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