My ode to Shel Silverstein

I am doing some spring cleaning right now, and it's a little more involved this year with a cross-country move looming in the near future. I found a poem that I wrote for Mister T during our renovation of our brownstone apartment a few years ago and thought I would share it. First, let me give you some background.

We bought a floor-through, or a flat as they call it in London and San Francisco, in a brownstone on the Upper Westside. We did a gut renovation, meaning we tore everything out except for the beams that framed the apartment. The renovation took about seven months. We decided to restore as many of the original features as we could, which dated back to the 1890's. This included restoring the original wood accents around the fireplace and doors, as you can see in the photo of the finished fireplace.

We hired three Italian men to restore the wood and they sanded the wood for weeks, and weeks and weeks. I thought they would never stop sanding. As the date approached for us to actually move in to the apartment, they were still sanding, we had no kitchen (no cabinets or appliances just newly painted walls) and I was buying lunch everyday for everyone working in the apartment. The problem was that some of the workers wanted McDonald's, others wanted Chinese or Cuban take-out and the Italians wanted mama's home cooking which was really difficult in a kitchen without a stove or refrigerator.

One day I stopped in to check on the progress and opened the door to the sound of wood sanding. I immediately closed the door and sat on the outside hallway step and wrote this impromptu poem for Mister T. I should also mention that this brownstone was a self-managed co-op and the outside hallways were a mess. It took two years for us to convince the rest of the owners to renovate the hallways. Just in time for us to flip the apartment with only one open house (and a feature in On the Market in the Times), make a nice profit before the downturn and thankfully move downtown where I met all of my mama friends!

My apartment will never be complete
With all the dust it will never be clean and neat
The Italians won't stop sanding
I'll be lucky if any of the original wood is left standing
McDonald's #7, pork fried rice, chicken and beans
We better still live here when our kids are teens
Everyone wants cash and more money
You better get a really fat bonus honey
We won't have a kitchen until summer
Our first contractor couldn't have been dumber
It will be great to breathe in all the fumes
Which will lead us straight to our tombs
The hallways look like a crackhouse
There better not be any bugs or rats, not even a mouse
We'll have no TV or stereo, just wires
And you know they're all just a bunch of liars
Maybe when its all said and done
Our apartment will be worth a ton
And we'll still be together
And New York City will have warmer weather