Jennifer Crusie's Blog: Argh Ink

Three Feet Through the Ceiling

May92009

You probably thought I was lounging around while Argh and the website were down. Ha.

Among other things, the construction guys putting in a new bedroom in the attic stepped through the rafters and put a hole in my bathroom ceiling. I was not happy, but they repaired it and now I have to paint in there so there’s this big white splotch which is annoying but at least no hole.

bathhole

Then the next day I was sitting at my desk in my office and I heard a crash behind me and turned and saw a foot sticking through my office ceiling. I was pretty outspoken about that one. It is also repaired, but now I must paint . . .
officehole

Then the next day I came home to find a gaping hole in my bedroom ceiling because some construction guy had . . .
bedroomhole

I’d love to make a pithy observation here about the meaning of this–there were three holes so it’s the rule of the three; it’s a sign I need more light in my private life (private rooms); three holes in the ceiling, which one will the ceiling bless??–but it was just a pain in the butt so I’m not going to assign arbitrary meaning. Sometimes three holes in the ceilings are just three damn holes.

But now all the holes are repaired so I have a lot of painting, but later for that because I’m getting a house guest tomorrow and we are going to live large: Hobby Lobby, Steak N Shake, and Star Trek at Imax.

And then Lowes to get paint . . .

Filed in Pictures

32 Comments to 'Three Feet Through the Ceiling'

On May 9, 2009 at 4:08 pm SueG said...

The “lead booted” construction crew should paint your ceilings!! It’s part of the damage that they did. OOOOH, Hobby Lobby, I am jealous! I live in Virginia Beach, VA and there is no Hobby Lobby here. Love the new website, including the collage, and all the bells and whistles. Great job. :0)

On May 9, 2009 at 4:32 pm Brooke said...

I sense some Lantern Glow coming on.

On May 9, 2009 at 5:20 pm Christine said...

I think the meaning of it is that you shouldn’t get any paint until they’re done working up there.

On May 9, 2009 at 5:48 pm Moth said...

Star Trek is REALLY good. Went to see it with my sis last night and we squealed and giggled and oggled the hot Vulcan and generally had a wonderful time.

On May 9, 2009 at 6:12 pm colognegrrl said...

Now I don’t mean to scare you but they probably did this on purpose so they could install observation cameras in all your ceilings because they were sent by a secret agency who murdered the craftsmen you had assigned to do this and replaced them by their minions. Now they’ll know everything about you and watch you make your collages and read what you are writing… and sell it to the cherry who places the highest bid. But never mind, at least they don’t have anything to do with the IRS.

On May 9, 2009 at 6:39 pm Kyra Kramer said...

Perhaps you should eschew Withered Moss when you are looking for paints …

On May 9, 2009 at 9:10 pm JulieB said...

Interesting observation Kyra — the bedroom walls look suspiciously gold to me. What happened to the angelic silvered cammo?

On May 9, 2009 at 9:12 pm JulieB said...

Ooops. Misread the comment on the first photo. I like the green in the bedroom.

On May 9, 2009 at 7:23 pm Reb said...

I definitely wouldn’t paint that bedroom ceiling till they’re through. There’s only two holes in that one, and as you say, these things come in threes. Then again, I’m lazy. I’d paint it next year.

I love the reply-to-comment feature, but I’ve thought of a potential hitch. I’m thinking of the times the comments take on a life of their own and there’s hundreds. When that happens, it’ll be hard to see which comment threads have been updated. I don’t know what’s technically possible, but could we have some kind of recently-updated links list? Or an alternative sorting mechanism to choose?

On May 10, 2009 at 12:23 am Deanna Nelle said...

I agree with SueG. They are totally responsible for painting those ceilings. On the other hand, do you really want someone that oafish loose in your house with paint-let alone power tools?!(just sayin’) I also agree that you should wait until they are done. Who knows what they’ll do next!

On May 10, 2009 at 9:42 am Mary Stella said...

Umm, sorry to state the patently obvious, but are the guys in the attic reinforcing the floor as part of the construction process? Hmm. Guys in the attic, girls in the basement. Maybe they ARE telling you something that your subconscious hasn’t surmised as yet.

On May 10, 2009 at 10:45 am Elisabeth Crisp said...

This same thing happened at my house a few years ago. I’m sorry to say that the twelve foot vaulted ceiling in my family room still has an enormous white spot. Good luck with the painting. I still haven’t gotten around to it.

On May 10, 2009 at 11:42 am Diane (TT) said...

VERY annoying, I’m so sorry. Have fun at Hobby Lobby, Lowe’s and with your houseguest!

Thanks for the Preview function! Since I try to keep up with comments in general, the “Reply” function just throws me off (I have to go BACK through them to find out what’s been happening? Argh!), but I can see where it would be useful in keeping a thread together.

On May 10, 2009 at 11:45 am Diane (TT) said...

Why, do you suppose, is your website’s time an hour off? Standard time? Or Central Daylight? These things can be very confusing – two of my email accounts are on EDT, but one is PDT and I get a fair amount of mail from folks on CDT…

On May 10, 2009 at 1:15 pm Louis said...

Maybe the Girls in the basement should get together with the the Boys in the attic and produce wondrful stories.

Just a thought.

I agree the Boys should pain the ceilings…after you pick out the paint.

On May 10, 2009 at 3:08 pm Yvonne Lindsay said...

Yep, definitely. The contractors should have cover for this kind of damage and should get painters in for you. We had something similar once, while hubby was installing the flue for a pot belly stove in our large open plan sitting room. I was below, holding the flue and because it had been a while, I pointed out to him that my arms were beginning to shake. He said he’d be back down in a minute. Um, yeah. It was less than that because about a second later I heard this almighty ‘crack’ followed by the ceiling plaster board opening like a flower (an upside down flower,) followed by a waft of pink insulation floating down to the floor, followed by hubby’s slippered foot and wee voice saying “Oh, no.” That’s it. That’s all he could say! LOL! Thankfully the house insurance covered having the hole repaired, the entire textured ceiling scraped (and by entire I mean the kitchen the dining room and the rather large sitting room) and then replastered and resprayed. Lucky thing for us, really because we had a dropped ceiling in one corner and the plastering on the seam was crooked from day dot but after the flue incident was all pretty and straight again.

Not sure we needed any more light in our lives at the time but we certainly appreciated having the crooked ceiling seams fixed

On May 10, 2009 at 10:30 pm Jenny said...

I keep meaning to say, they offered to paint the ceiling, but the last thing I wanted was them dripping paint everywhere. So I said, no. They paid to have the drywall done, I’ll do the painting.

On May 10, 2009 at 11:55 pm Melissa Blue said...

Three is a very powerful number, and hopefully for these guys they will understand four holes…well, crossing fingers it won’t get to that.

I now agree that Joelle is a genius. I played around with the site, and did the final test. I typed “glittery” in the search box. The post that still makes me snort popped up as the second blog entry.

Genius.

On May 11, 2009 at 12:58 am LilyBBlues said...

Maybe it’s time to mention to these contractors that you know a former Special Forces guy who can kill the owner of the next foot-through-the-ceiling with his pinky?

On May 11, 2009 at 8:08 am Tabs said...

When I was 5 years old, a roofer put his foot through my bedroom ceiling while I was in there playing Barbies. It was seriously terrifying at the time. We never did get around to painting it back up.

On May 11, 2009 at 8:56 am Meredith B. said...

All of this sounds like an out-take from /Agnes/. Can’t you just see it happening to her while she’s trying to keep a chocolate chiffon cake from falling?

On May 11, 2009 at 9:28 am cindy said...

Maybe your guest’s favorite activity is painting…

On May 11, 2009 at 9:44 pm Pam said...

Since it’s Steak N Shake, is it Lani?

On May 11, 2009 at 10:34 pm Ericka said...

holy smokes. it sounds like you were considerably calmer about it than me. i’d have probably given myself an aneurism after the second one.

ooh, hobby lobby. *sniffle* i miss real retail.

enjoy your guest!

random thought – did you ever figure out the pig suitcase?

On May 11, 2009 at 11:39 pm Jenny said...

We are discussing the pig suitcase now, or we were before Lani quit to go to bed. Krissie was supposed to come, too, so we spent the day buying “We really miss you!” presents, some serious and some, uh, not. Let’s just say there’s pink glitter and purple fun fur. But some time this week, we will revisit the pig. And possibly Lani’s green suitcase while we’re at it because she thinks it needs to be more distinctive on the baggage carousel. Also we both fell seriously in love with bright pink plastic suitcases lined with orange at TJMaxx that had the requisite four wheels. Never buy luggage that has fewer than four wheels. Trust me on this.

On May 12, 2009 at 9:30 am wendy roberts said...

I hope you’re wearing a hard hat around your house. At the very least, all your beverages should have lids until further notice. Sorry to hear about your holey ceiling!

On May 12, 2009 at 11:29 am Mary Stella said...

I love my luggage by Samsonite. It has four wheels and I can spin it 360 degrees. It’s the easiest stuff to roll through airports. No heavy dragging for me!

On May 12, 2009 at 12:10 pm Bethany (cherry clawed) said...

Mm, I miss Steak and Shake. We used to go to one in college all the time (I went to XU in Cinci). Now I’ll think about skinny cheese fries and giant milkshakes. Darn it.