Renovations. We’ve lived through thousands of them. In fact, it’s boring when our apartment or house isn’t being invaded by electricians or plumbers or (my favorite) skim coaters. What’s a skim coater you ask? Well they take uneven or cracked walls or ceilings and make them look brand new. It’s like finger painting with plaster. And most skim coaters feel superior to all of the other workers involved in a renovation. I think it’s because they’re hiding everyone else’s messy aftermath. They are the fixer.
Now right now we have our house in contract as I’ve mentioned before. We made a butt load of dough and if the truth be told, we should give our skim coaters a cut of the profit. Not at all that we will, but we should. Our house just underwent the official inspection, which required me to yet again clean and organize four floors with furniture and closets. Vacuum four flights of stairs. I am so eff’n sick of it. But when it’s showtime, I’m your showgirl. The dusting, the fluffing (of pillows) moping the floors and sometimes even waxing them, getting into every little corner or groove with a Q-Tip soaked in rubbing alcohol. Oh and my top obsession, leveling every single picture in the house with a leveling app on my phone. I lose my mind when leveling. Even if the green bubble says leveled, I’m always suspicious. The solution is I gotta switch to round or oval frames. I can’t endure much more angst over the leveling process.
I also hang what I call Show Towels that are a look but don’t touch item. They only come out on show days. After prepping the house, I get my two dogs all emptied out (numbers one and two) then let ’em jump into the back of the car. Now that we’ve done it a thousand times, they love it. But in the early stages, motion sickness and its remnants was real. So was the lingering stench. Hopefully we don’t have any more of those show day trips to nowhere.
But back to the real hero; the skim coaters. Now hopefully the guy that just did our inspection doesn’t read this (highly unlikely that he does) we skim coated the hell outta this house which was built in 1912. I mean come on. Imagine if your face was one hundred and thirteen years old. That’s a lot of foundation to apply.
Way back in our city co-op, we had a resident skim coater named Ramon. 
He scared the heck outta me when I came home from work. Probably because … well judge for yourself.
Ramon wasn’t just your average skim coater. We referred to him as the Picasso of Plaster. The way he approached and treated a wall was artistry in motion. The problem was that he took forever. He pretty much lived with us for eight years. At one point (before the real one was found) I wanted to call the CIA and declare I know where he is.
When we had to address a few cracks in our current million dollar baby, we considered calling him and hiring the best. We have the guest bedrooms and bathrooms. We eventually saw the flaws in that arrangement and did the work ourselves. A good job in probably half the time it would have taken Ramon, but I can’t help but kvetch at our workmanship much like the whole leveling deal. Between the two, thank god we’ll be out of this house that I love cuz it’s driving me insane. It’s like that scene in Mommie Dearest when she screams nothing is clean … nothing is clean while belting the sh*t outta Christina with a can of comet cleanser.
Osama and Crawford. A force to be reckoned with.