On September 1, Labor Day, we labored.

The view from the roof and the excitement of having our own place inspire us to get an early start:

8:30 a.m.--arrive at apartment and sweep and get rid of trash

8:54 a.m.--electrician arrives six minutes early to give us an estimate on adding outlets and doing other minor work

10:00 a.m.--with the nice hardwood floors in the living room and dining room covered, and the bathrooms cleaned enough to use, Christina puts on some wash and begins washing and sealing the many brick walls; armed with a face mask and knee pads, Robert begins ripping up carpet in the hall and back bedrooms

Here's the dining room and stairway to the roofdeck, with all our tools laid out, and the floor covered in pink rosin paper to protect it. About half the walls in the apartment are brick, and many of the bricks were in good repair and were already sealed with a coat of clear gloss. Some of them, though, either hadn't ever been sealed or had been water-damaged: those we brushed dry, then washed with soap and water, then air-dryed and blotted, then coated with two coats of sealant. Up close, they now look great, and they're no longer going to crumble all over our floors.

11:00 a.m.--stop, ravenously, for early lunch after a last-minute trip to Home Depot for supplies

12:00 p.m.--more bricks, and some deck-cleaning, nail-removing, and spackling; Robert re-screens all of the windows except for the one that miraculously didn't have holes in the screen. This is a job he says he will never do again--we now hate splines.

4:00 p.m.--pizza break a block away for decent NY corner-style slices

Here you see Robert standing in the middle of the street on the way back from pizza. We're one of the yellow brick buildings on the left behind him. Note the cars, SUVs, and moving trucks parked (illegally) in the center of the street as far as you can see: on September 1, the typical Boston thing to do is to move, not to renovate. We're a little out of sync.

 

5:00 p.m.--Robert helps with brick-sealing on the high parts; Christina does more wash and cleaning

7:00 p.m.--carpet is wrestled down the stairs and onto the curb; we go home to shower and eat

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Created: 9/3/03. Last Modified: 9/3/03.