There Was a Crooked Man…

 

Life in the Boomer Lane, discarding any number of current world atrocities she could wax poetic about, has instead chosen to entertain readers with her current kitchen improvement project. This project includes custom cabinetry of the one existing cabinet in her kitchen, installation of concrete counter tops to the two mini-counters her kitchen has, and installation of subway tile along two walls.  One might think that construction mishaps are directly proportionate to the size of one’s kitchen.  What LBL has learned in the past is that they are inversely proportionate.

LBL’s quaint, charming 1912 bungalow is characterized by walls that aren’t quite straight, floors and ceilings that aren’t quite level, and by fixtures that aren’t quite standard in size.  It is as though the original builder used plans for a cartoon house, rather than a three-dimensional one. The result is a quirky beauty that befuddles even the best contracting minds around.

The kitchen cabinet was installed first.  Next came the wall tile. The tile person discovered pretty quickly that if he laid the tiles truly level, they would appear to the eye be slanting downhill, given the fact that the wall had a slight bow to it and the upper shelves weren’t quite straight. He thus built put part of the wall and installed the tiles on a slant to make them appear to be level. The result was that the new lower cabinet and the stove are now approximating what the kitchen on the Titanic must have looked like as the ship began its fatal pitch.

Enter the concrete counter installers into Kitchen Funland. The smaller counter was to fit through a pass through, the family room being on the other side.  LBL suspected something might be amiss when the installer used the word “Shit” three times.  They then ripped out the sides of the pass through, in order to make the counter fit through.

The larger counter, in addition to joining the cabinet in its Titanic-pitch, didn’t quite make it to the end of the wall.  LBL was told they would make a piece that would fit and no one would be able to tell the difference. They propped up one end of the counter to make it level with the tiles, thereby creating a huge gap on one end between counter and cabinet.

When LBL’s contractor heard what had occurred, he said, “I should call those concrete people and give them a piece of my mind!”  As his mind wasn’t that expansive under the best of circumstances, LBL gave it no further thought.  Several days later, the concrete company owner called LBL and informed her that her contractor had called him, shrieking several times that his installer was a crackhead.

LBL, a former special ed teacher, knew how to handle a situation like this. She told the concrete person that he and his installer would have no recess until the counter was re-cast and re-installed. He agreed. The second piece came out of the mold in less-than-perfect condition. She is still waiting for the third piece. The contractor has informed her that he won’t finish the job until the crackhead installers finish theirs.

So, LBL has a partially complete kitchen with everything appearing to list to the right. As she has long ago accepted the trade-off of sanity for abounding charm (in both houses and in her own persona),  she will patiently wait. Beloved Daughter and Precious Grandsons will descend next week, and, if nothing else, the kitchen should amuse a three-year-old and a five-year-old.  Of course NeNe will not use the word “crackhead” when she shows them her new kitchen.