19-XI-2023.
The Aziri brothers (older and younger) worked for three days, sixteenth to eighteenth, and put up the tiles in the future bathroom and the hole, aka kitchenette. The technique advanced quite a lot since the last time we did that - they have some kind of nivelators (levelers - nivo is the french niveau), which are small plastic braces, which go between the tiles and there's a plastic wedge to run through the outstanding bit, so the tiles are flush with each other. Lean a ruler against the surface and there's no space under it. On top of it the horizontal edges are strictly aligned, they don't even start without first drawing a line under the strong green laser beam. Not to mention that we kind of wanted to brag about our tile cutter, which looked mighty to us when we bought it, as it turned out they had one twice as big and strong. Today they are taking a break and continue with floors on monday.
Added bonus is the add-ons for the grinder that they have, so they bore perfect holes for the pipes and power outlets, even cut rectangular holes where the outlet can't be dragged out to lie over the tile... the progress meanwhile is some miracle.
The kids are hitting the hay even later these days, up to 4 or 5, because they now play robloks with Anita. Nina connects on Telegram to Go's laptop, so they can see each other and talk while they play, and they keep it on for hours, third week in a row now. Which is why it's quiet in the morning, and whatever we meant to do upstairs has to wait, because it usually takes some hammer strikes or grinding. I planned to chisel, with the vekšmajzl, the molten plastic from the floor, but it's exactly above the blue room, where Raja and Violet sleep, and would surely be equally loud in the yellow one as well. The majstor have left me a disco sandpaper to don on the grinder and take it off with that.
This morning at 11:22 a message from Lena: „second pink line appeared“. I asked „on the stick?“. „Yes, yes“. „well good luck“... and so, we're waiting for the seventh grandchild :)
In the evening we chatted with Go and Stanley, talked nicely and a lot. Neša refused to appear, but we saw Anita a lot. I got inspired and remembered several good jokes (e.g. „pillows with zipper are making headlines!“). The bed is now in a new configuration, since she sanded the sloping part of the ceiling and around the window, exactly where the bed was, so we moved it against the opposing wall, and will keep it there until this half is painted. So we sat on the bed, this time with laptops on the side where our feet go now - previously we sat on the edge of my side of it. Her gugolj is on the old coffee table which came, back in 1963, with the rex armchairs (by architect Drago Kralj), which is like new, except the veneer on top was mostly destroyed when we put the plastic tub on it to bathe our babies... Another piece on the to-do list for refurbishing. My nanovo sits on a sewing chair, the revolving one, and its upholstery slosed the cooling vents, so it overheated. Put a tile on the chair, and two tile strips to additionally lift it, so it has decent air flow now.
Meanwhile Nina talked with Lena and „well screw all those stories, just trust your own body, it knows better than you do what it needs and what not“. And Milan, the future happy father, went for lunch with Stojan, the future happy grandfather, and also received an advice: „just do everything as she tells you to and don't press any buttons, can't go wrong with that“.
And then we two celebrated. With the dežurni relaxative, the cherry... which is now promoted into the „this doesn't leave the house“ list. The takeout list is now reduced to just apricot and tutifruti, and we'll see about the pear.
The majstors came in the morning. Didn't matter that we hit the hay a bit before three, she was up and about as early as seven. I woke up too, but quickly changed my mind. With the floor tiles they started from the hole, i.e. kitchen. By noon, when I visited them the second time, they were on the third row, which is a considerable success, given how many tiles they had to cut - at least two thirds of first row and all around the hole. Like I said a hundred times, we have lots of everything, just are thin with right angles.
Until the end of the day they did about half the salon, from hole to the yellow cable, which still peeks out of the floor. That cable went under the roof, spanning the distance between the yellow room and my desk, where it was plugged into the router. That corner in the yellow room was some spurious blind spot, where the reception was awful, so this made work from there possible. Wasn't used much, because the cable got cut next year, when they were pouring the concrete for the heating upstairs. But we left the cable hold the place, to at least pull the next cable if need be.
On wednesday she made sarma, which we, of course, ate the next day too. There was supposed to be a break, to eat something else one day, but Linda asked for 'peeling egg', i.e. gibanica, she loves the middle layers that baba peels off for her. I don't mind it either, just that it's one of like three dishes that I am wary about, don't dare eat more than one piece a day, or else I reguritate ugly. We ate that for two days.
By thursday the salon was done, and bathroom, so only the landing was left to be tiled and then everythng grouted. Looks... can't recognize it. And then the walls... We'll have entertainment for the whole winter.
On friday Dragana called on landline, as she lost my mobile number when she replaced her sim card, allegedly it was seriously out of date, couldn't even to 4G. Claims she recovered. Well, should I ask my majstors to replace your bathtub with a shower cabin? Nope, don't, I don't dare yet, don't need another round of them, but I'll have to do that once, it's still not a problem but it won't be getting better. Ah what, lifting your legs doesn't work as it once did? Yup, going out of routine... And so we agreed we can start with the next frendz parti cycle, though not this monday but rather on fourth of december.
The instant coffee finally reappeared in Lidl. Of the brands we tried in the meanwhile, the Nestle is so-so... standard and stronger roasted, okay, Jakobs we dislike and it's priced twice as high, Grand is cheaper and quite good.
The guys started showing small signs of fatigue on friday, even on thursday afternoon - they mixed up the last sack of glue, which would have sufficed for the remaining surface, but the just stalled at the bedroom door which is not parallel to other walls, their eyes disobeyed, the notches on the measuring tape were read at an angle, stayed more than an hour longer than usual, and eventually gave up, they'll finish it in the morning. Then they brought extra 10kg of glue (regular sacks are 25) and this younger and brighter brother went on to grout everything, while the older went to suffer the weird pieces around the door. I saw that he doesn't quite know what to do with that, so I brought a sheet of paper to make a template from, fitting that into the given space, so then to copy the resulting shape into the tile. That somehow succeeded, though not completely, and not in the best way. He just doesn't have the geometry in his head, and as a result that tile didn't quite fit, one tip is a whole millimeter up the wall, above its neighbor.
And this younger brother did wash the grout four times, and their errand boy (of around 40 years age) took out whatever we said, including the old terrace door and even took all the glass panes behind the garage, and it all looks great in the end, even the outlet holes are neatly cut and either properly grouted where the outlet was sunk, or the outlet's cover covers the edges of the hole, it's still visible that their measuring is way below perfect - they veer by 7-8mm in places, as seen in the upper edge in both the bathroom and the hole, and here around the door. And on top of that, the price wasn't the 4€/m2 as I misremembered it, it's 12... all in all 1000€ where I guesstimated it at 700, 800 tops, but okay, we agreed to this when we let them start working.
But then we gave up on the glass bricks for shower cabin, and called Đole the windower, said yes can do, and even has an accordeon door... All the better, we somehow prefer that kind. Once that is done, and Safet does the ceilings and walls, and Vasa mounts the crapper, vukašin, water heater and faucets, and we can take it from there.
Mentions: Anita Jennifer Berger (Anita), dežurni, Dragana Vitas (Dragana), gibanica, Gorana Sredljević (Go), gugolj, Jelena Sredljević (Lena), Linda Sredljevich Aquilla (Linda), majstor, Milan Nastić, nanovo, Nenad Berger (Neša), Nevena Sredljević (Nina), Ryu (Raja), sarma, Stanley Berger, Stojan Nastić, Vasa Lakatoš, vekšmajzl, Violet, in serbian