You don't buy a house, you actually buy a series of ticking time bombs you'll be paying someone else to fix. One day stepping out of the shower, I felt the floor give way under my foot and barely caught myself before falling. I got down on my hands and knees, and was able to easily pickup the tile revealing spongy soft wood underneath I poked it with my finger and it went right through. I pulled up some more tiles and found more and more soft floor and realized this was a bigger problem than I was equipped to solve. My wife and I discussed it, and given how much rot there was, and how out of date everything was, we decided to take out a loan and hire someone to remodel the room as cheaply as possible.
My wife's friend Kate had recommended a general contractor she used all the time and everything in her house was gorgeous. "He can do anything, plumbing, electrical, tile, hardwood, he's great. No permits, no fuss, it's all under the table, and he is always like half the price of every other quote," she said.
"That's too good to be true, what's the catch?" I said.
"He doesn't speak a word of English. I think he's polish maybe? Hi name is Anton, I'll get his number."
"That's kind of a problem. How did you, like, tell him what you want?"
"His cousin came the first day and translated pretty much everything. We made due the rest of the time, just pointing to things and he seems to figure it out. I get it's not ideal, but hell save you thousands of dollars. Look at this kitchen," she gestured around the room. It was immaculate. I was sold.
We called the number and setup an appointment. Two men arrived in a van at the agreed time, both in there late thirties to early forties. Anton was the slightly taller one at about 5'10, he had silvery gray hair and short rough stubble of a beard. He had the natural muscles of a guy who lifts bags of mortar and boxes of tile on a daily basis. He was wearing paint stained jeans and a T-shirt. His cousin introduced us, asked to see the space and we led them inside. He measured the walls, the shower, the counter, the gaps between them. Then he playfully pretended he was measuring me, and he we all had a good laugh. I'm a tall guy, about 6'5. "What were you thinking?" Asked the cousin.
"Nothing fancy, probably keeping the layout the same, just modernizing everything, get rid of the green countertops and maybe doing something cost effective, like Formica?" The cousins began conversing in a language neither of us understood, going back and forth a few times.
"Anton says he'll do quartz, same price. He says this bathroom is a small job, some bigger kitchen jobs, and they buy huge pieces to do the counters. After they cut, there is enough leftover to do this room, but the price is low because it's only for small jobs." We both nodded and grinned. By the time we were done and had his quote, there was no reason to meet with anyone else. He was less than half what we had hoped to pay, and was giving us some smart upgrades we hadn't thought of.
Anton returned a week late solo and the demo started immediately. He had taken the door off and hung plastic sheeting over the gap to contain the dust. He began tearing the room down to the studs. Anton came to get me after all the tile was removed, and gestured for my to follow him. He pointed to a piece of pipe proceeded to turn the shutoff valve beneath it on and off. When it was on, you could see a tiny pin hole in the pipe start to spray an almost mist like stream before he turned the valve back off. "Damnit" I muttered. "Can you fix it?" I said before realizing it was a pretty stupid question. He pointed to some fresh copper pipe and valves and held his hands about a foot apart above and below the hole. "Ah, ok, you're going to replace that section. Great." I smiled and stood there and he just kind of stared me in the eyes for a moment before giving me a thumbs up, and I took that as my queue to leave.
I tried to give him space to do his work and went back to my desk. I worked from home during the days while my wife went to her office job. I found myself peeking in frequently, watching Anton do his work, learning how things were done. Occasionally he'd have me follow him in so he could try and explain something that needed to change or adjust based on what he'd find behind the walls. It wasn't always easy to understand him, but we worked through it. Today he was tiling the floor, and I could hear him carrying tile and heavy bags of mortar into the room. After a few trips, he was dripping in sweat. The next time he came back, he had removed his shirt. Something inside me stirred. A feeling I'd never felt from an man before. Something about his hairy, muscular chest, small dark nipples, the sweat dripping down his forehead, the grunts he was making when he shifted the heavy load. I started to feel my pants tightening and I had to turn away and try to ignore the sights and sounds.