There’s some water damage in Charlotte’s room and a new small brown mark (the width of a pencil, but not as long) on the ceiling of our living room. We live in a very old (and very charming) building with plaster (not drywall) walls, wood-framed windows and a slate roof. Cracking plaster/paint is a fact of life here, along with the periodic refinishing of the iron bathtubs, replacement of windowpanes, etc.
Last week, I was all atwitter about what to do. Our building’s repair guy is very nice, and I like him a great deal. We talk about fatherhood, car-free-dom, walking and food. He also makes a huge mess. I’m not fond of the idea of having lead paint dust all over Charlotte’s room, and I’m pissed that we have to shell out $40 for a new gallon (they don’t make pints or quarts, or least didn’t last time I checked) of the non-VOC paint I used to paint her room to fix the water damage that the management knew about before I painted the first time. This paint is great, but you can’t store it; it rots. Last week, I noticed more spots, and, frankly, Superbuildingguy would do a much better job repairing the plaster than I would. So we’re arranging for him to do it while I remove everything from Charlotte’s room (no easy task) so as to keep potential lead from her toys, crib, etc. A pain the ass, but not impossible.
I think this building’s apartments have a two-year repair cycle, wherein plaster and paint repairs are needed. We’ve lived here nearly two years. So we thought seriously about moving lately, even to the first-floor corner apartment, the only one with a fenced-in patio. Charlotte could have a sandbox, we thought. We could grow things. We checked it out last night on a whim, and we don’t like the layout. Also, it’s more expensive (three bedrooms/two baths, one of which we don’t need), and it smells like cigarettes in a major way. Something is ticking in me about getting out of dodge, though. My wife and I agreed, yesterday, after a walk-train trek to the county, that we have nomadic souls who were somewhat brought up as home-bodies. This is not a criticism of our upbringing. The importance on the home is a nice value that my parents gave me. Maybe my thirst to move and move and move is a reaction to it. We’ve lived in three apartments in the same building for nearly five years, as if we like the neighborhood/location a lot but can’t stand to be completely still. I don’t know. Maybe staying in the same four-story brick building is the ultimate homesteading, like we’re slowly claiming the entire place. Still, the first floor place didn’t get us excited once we saw it, even after we spent most of yesterday being excited by it.
Two years ago, when we decided to have a baby, the apartment in which we live now was available. I’d gotten the “your toe is wrecked forever” news from my foot doctor, and I was upset. But then we checked out this apartment one night, and we got incredibly excited. We’d envied it because it’s a corner apartment on the top floor, with a nice view, four large windows in the living room providing a nice cross-breeze, with trees outside the windows, and there are two large bedrooms with a cool old bathroom in between. It’s a beautiful apartment, despite the cracked paint/plaster. My mother said that it felt very “grown-up,” and my friend Dan (who’s a fireman and enters myriad apartments in Baltimore) swears is the “coolest apartment layout [I've] ever seen.” It’s a nice pad.
So what do we do? Move somewhere that will need repairs in two years that we’re not crazy about? Stay here and deal with the mess? Maybe fix some things ourselves?
I do have a hankering to paint the living room with the non-VOC paint, even the same color — just to freshen things up a bit. There is still the scarred hardwood floor (original), and there are cracks in and along the ceiling. But it’s not like any apartment is perfect — or any house. And if we were home owners, we’d have to fix it ourselves, or pay someone else to.
I always imagine people coming over and saying on their way back to their large houses or county townhomes:
Did you see the cracks in the ceiling at John and Frankie’s apartment?
Did you notice the marred floor?
Someone was cooking on the first floor; it smelled strong.
They’re so stubborn with their no-car apartment city life. I wish they’d grow up.
This is largely in my head, though my family and quasi-family circle includes a dozen people who feel compelled to comment on and to judge all the “crazy” things I do — loudly. This is another problem entirely. It’s hard to ignore the noise when some people get very offended if you don’t heed their advice, if they hold it against your kid when you piss them off, etc. It’s not hard to imagine people watching and judging you when you know for a fucking fact that it happens constantly.
Just the same, perfect floors and walls and ceilings don’t please people who view your valuing different things as a challenge to their own ways of life. “Johnny has a PhD and likes not having a car; what’s that mean about my SUV dependence?” (Nothing, really. Cars aren’t for us; that’s all.)
My point was that the thing I can’t ignore is worrying about lead and fumes and dust and mold and my daughter’s health. Paint’s cracked? Fuck it. Let Keith fix it and paint it. That’s all we had to do before she was here, in our last apartment. But it’s not that simple, anymore, with dust and paint fumes to think about.
Of course, when you/I look at it in a long blog post, it is simple. Fix what needs to be fixed. Repair plaster. Kill possible mold on said small brown stain. Paint with safe paint. Don’t make a mess, and then clean up what mess you really do wind up making. Bam.
In other news, Charlotte’s lead tests (at nine and twelve months) came back with flying colors. And her iron deficiency clearer up. Maybe she’s inherited our…stout constitutions?
