New roof in Paris

[tod2]

Anymore news on the repair front Kerouac?

[kerouac2]

I have workers coming to fix the hole in my kitchen this afternoon* and other workers coming to install the shutters on the attic windows on Monday. It is never going to end. No news on when they will check my living room ceiling for humidity and set up a schedule for repainting it.

* They were already supposed to come on Monday and didn't show.

[kerouac2]

So, about ten months after the living room ceiling disaster, the painter is finally here. I was a bit surprised that she would show up wearing a minidress, but now she has changed into coveralls. It is also a bit odd for her to be French, because just about all of the workers with whom I have dealt over the past ten years have come from the other side of the Mediterranean.

[kerouac2]

The painter actually left before noon and did a brilliant job, particularly because she has a vacuum sanding machine with prevents the entire apartment from being buried in dust, as is usually the case. She put the first coat of primer on.

Tomorrow she will sand the ceiling again and put the second coat of primer on, followed by the first coat of paint.

If I'm lucky, it will be finished on Wednesday.

Last time, there were two Maghrebi workers who were not nearly as efficient. They were half her age. This woman hauled all of her equipment up my three flights of stairs, and there was quite a bit of stuff. I happened to be downstairs getting my newspaper on the first trip, so I carried the bucket of primer up and the roll of plastic sheeting, and she seemed to think that I was amazingly helpful -- she is not used to getting any sort of help. I bet she learned to do all of that stuff in prison.

[mossie]

Sept 16, 2019 7:14:20 GMT kerouac2 said:

but now she has changed into coveralls.

What a disappointment

[lagatta]

Could be, but she has to work, and she is a bit too old for that line of work.

There are no level floors in my flat either, though it is much younger than Kerouac's - about 100 years old. It was generally well-built, but Montréal is an island and there were streams everywhere, many covered over, including one under our street. These run off from Mont-Royal. The buildings have all been shored up, but the floors will never really be level. They'd have to rip them out and I'd have some kind of plastic floors I'd be allergic to, rather than hardwood. I have learned that I have to put a big sponge in one corner of my kitchen when I mop the floor, even though I'm careful not to use too much water.

I was suprised at how old K2'S flat was, as I'm familiar with that area and it isn't so old. In another thread he explained why the original construction was much older than most of the eastern 18th arrondissement.

[bixaorellana]

How do you know how old she is, LaGatta or, for that matter, how old is too old for that line of work?

Sept 16, 2019 14:50:15 GMT kerouac2 said:

The painter actually left before noon and did a brilliant job, particularly because she has a vacuum sanding machine with prevents the entire apartment from being buried in dust, as is usually the case.

I am intrigued to hear about this machine, even though it's probably not something very new in the first world. My mother just had her roof replaced and is not looking forward to having the part of the living room ceiling where the lead was repaired. The clean-as-you-go machine makes the process seem much less horrible.

[kerouac2]

Here's the ceiling after the repair work and primer.

imagizer.imageshack.com/img924/5882/o7s5ak.jpg

And here is the finished product.

imagizer.imageshack.com/img923/6457/asZOXE.jpg

Sept 17, 2019 22:50:43 GMT bixaorellana said:

I am intrigued to hear about this machine

This is the magic sanding vacuum machine.

imagizer.imageshack.com/img922/2751/2DZCIM.jpg

[lagatta]

Oh, it was just a jokey allusion to the so-called "oldest profession" after Mossie's quip (which it isn't, by the way). K2 had said that she was considerably older than the two young men who had been doing the work before, but capable of hauling that impressive thing.

[bjd]

Your painter certainly did a good job.

Is your apartment warm in winter? I see you have those little electric radiators called "grille-pains" (toasters). Not very efficient are they?

[htmb]

Your ceiling repair looks pretty close to being perfect! I’m sure it’s nice to finally have it finished after all these months.

[kerouac2]

What amazed me the most, besides the work being extremely well done with absolutely no mess (she cleaned the living room better than I did), is that she came and scraped and sanded on Monday and put a first coat of primer on, from 8 to 11. On Tuesday, she sanded and put the second coat of primer on from 8:30 to 10. And today she sanded and then painted the whole ceiling from 8 to 11 and it was all finished. She was pleased that I helped to carry down all of her stuff -- buckets, ladder, paint cans, vacuum sander, roll of plastic tarp and bags of miscellaneous stuff and put it in her car because I could have just been an old turd and sat there doing nothing.

She told me that she always works alone and that it is better that way. She also implied that she is a bit more expensive than most painters but the difference is worth it. Since I'm not the one who is paying, I totally agree. I decided to wait 24 hours before validating the job, just in case all of the paint falls on the floor tonight.

[kerouac2]

Sept 18, 2019 11:16:51 GMT bjd said:

Is your apartment warm in winter? I see you have those little electric radiators

I do need to change the radiators some day since there has been a lot of progress in the last 25 years, but I really do not have any major complaints.

[lagatta]

I know people here who have more heavy-duty (probably Scandi) versions of those heaters here and like them better than the long, low ones we have here that take up so much room (as we can't put solid furniture in front of them, a problem in small flats).

Some of you might recall that we had a major renovation some years back because our foundations had to be shored up; if not, our buildings would have eventually collapsed.

There is an underground stream beneath our street - there are many in Montréal, an island. I'll spare you the whole story, including Renzo's value in keeping me warm enough when I didn't have a real side wall in the kitchen, as late as November, but the people who did the same work here did an utterly shitty job.

Not anything that threatens my roof caving in, but it is sloppy work. I could probably have done it better myself - I have no experience in the building trades, but visual arts, yes, including sculpture and bas-relief working with cement. What they re-did doesn't match the rest of the ceiling, and there were other sloppy shortcuts.

Brava, ceiling worker! Great muralists, from Giotto to the great Mexicans, need such anonymous colleagues.

[bixaorellana]

Wow ~ I have ceiling envy!

I went back to the OP (Nov 3, 2018) and see that you showed the scaffolding being delivered on October 16 of that year. But obviously this was all in the works and up in the air for much longer, as you stated that the residents had been hoping for the work to be done in June or July. You went on to explain the process of getting money together from the residents, but I imagine all the meetings and fact-finding beforehand added to the overall length of this project.

So here you are well over a year later with everything finally complete and done to your satisfaction. You must feel that your life has been semi on hold up till now. Congratulations!

[lugg]

Looks great - I can imagine if it was me I would be sat with a glass of wine , looking up and thinking ... and breathe .

[whatagain]

Just one question.
Did you help carry her stuff in the stairs when she was still in miniskirt and you remained half a flight behind ?
Don't answer - let me fantasise. I could have written scenarios for porn movie. Or maybe I watched One that started like that 🤘🏻🙀