Contractors - Wham! Bam! Thank you, Ma'am!

To heck with having an exploded kitchen -- we've hired contractors to mostly finish the work.  By "we" I mean The Texan, who did the legwork. I just showed them around for bids, and then have been letting them into the house for work.

The last straw was the day after HomoDommi returned home from his latest visit, when we all realized that -- due to school functions, having to move houses (their rental expired), and summer school (not to mention recovery from the sheer exhaustion after the last working visit) -- he would not be able to get back to Portland for any reason until late June at the earliest. And then he would only be able to stay a few days, and would have children with him. We at Cattus Dommus Prime would love to see the children, but their presence would not be conducive to dawn-to-dusk work on the house. We couldn't stand the thought of 6 weeks of no-progress, followed by a mere couple of half days' work, followed by more long weeks of stalemate.

So contractors it is.  The Texan chose someone who bills himself as an "All Around HandyMan", which allows us much flexibility -- and it's already proved useful.  I'll call him "Marvellus" -- a rotund man with shiny white hair who reminds me of a generic character actor from a screwball comedy -- and his sidekick, "Gricolus" -- a wiry, pepper-bearded short man who moves quickly and constantly, who, if anything, reminds me of the generic town-drunk sidekick in a singing western (without any hint of the drunk part). (Click here for more fun with Roman names.)  Gricolus's high-school-aged son "Tertus" is working too. A summer job that comes with long-term career experience.

HomoDommi does good work -- our new Handymen have not done anything better than he could have.  They are faster though (and there are three of them, two of which have a combined 75 years of experience), and not worse. They've worked four partial days so far, and in that time have sheetrocked (and double-mudded) the remainder of the room and ceiling, and built a broom closet.  They fixed a bunch of mistakes in the mudding of the walls that I did, too. The space feels more solid now, less echoey, although it's still wide open.

The next step is up to us. We are priming the sheetrock -- putting plain old drywall primer behind all the cabinets, and special "toothed" primer everywhere else, even the ceiling. By "toothed", I mean, environmentally green gluish-paint-substance-with-tons-of-sand-in-it.  

This coming weekend, we will plaster all these toothed surfaces with American Clay, a textured plaster that gives a hand-crafted, earthy feel to the walls.  By "we", I mean, me, and The Texan.  The How-to DVD that comes with the bag assures us it is easy to apply, while recommending we hire professionals.  The Texan and HomoDommi have used it before (on the downstairs bathroom, for anyone who's been to the house) -- and assure me it is nowhere near as straightforward as implied.  They both seem to think the kitchen will be easier, however, because, "the bathroom -- that was two of us, in a small space, in 85 degree summer heat!"  

I look at the sheer volume of wall space we will be covering (about three times the size of the bathroom, and much of that is ceiling) and the forecast for this weekend (sun at last, with a steamy 83 high for both days), and I wonder about those professionals. Time to recharge my keen sense of humor, I see.