How many dykes does it take to unscrew a lightbuld, remove the fixture, and install it correctly this time?

This blog chronicles the trials, tribulations and elated moments of my apartment renovation... which is now stretching into the fifth month - this is a 600 square foot apartment we're talking about. Here's the new floorplan and the old floorplan - click to launch and wait a few seconds for it to load, then use handy Jordan's Furniture Room Planner to design your own rooms. I registered the blog in April, when it was just getting started. At the time I was excited to do as much of the renovation as I could myself, and with the help of some of my favorite ladies, got started by tearing out the vile linoleum floors - multiple layers of it, then the crumbling subfloor - and the equally gross tenement special kitchen (circa 1982).









I carted out the trash in the wee hours to a dumster set up for the incoming condos down the street. This fun project afforded me the satisfaction of saving the !!$6000!! a nice man offered to charge to do it for me. But then a reality check set in: I have to work, not just renovate my apartment. So I swallowed my pride and hired a contractor and got excited about having the whole thing done in four to six weeks. Yeah right.... that never happens. I know that. But four months later, after endless infuriating arguments with men who never wanted to believe that I could tell when they had botched a job, or that it was indeed very possible to do something they claimed couldn't be done, a pipe should go here not there, I realized I was doing a lot of the work myself after all. To make a long story short: we fired the contractor.

I learned a lot, and its a good thing because the job is only half done and there are some major F-ups to contend with. Lesson 1: be your own contractor. I read this everywhere, but at the beginning I didn't think I had time or knew quite enough to do a lot of it myself, and have the sense to hire other people to do what I can't. I still don't, but now (for better, or in this case worse) I know that doesn't set me apart from lots of men out there confidently hiring themselves out as contractors. Its not just the work, its the whole 'straight-man-knows-best' in his special domain of home improvement presumpltion that drives me crazy! I searched high and low for a woman contractor when I was getting started, but to no avail. I wanted to keep my buisness in my chosen community of women and homosexuals, would have felt more comfortable having them in my house, appreciated their skills more and resented their mistakes less, as I do my own. If I was in Charlotte, NC I'd surely call Handywoman Home Improvements Inc. Since then I've heard of a few in the vicinity of my NYC 'hood, and found lots of skilled tradeswomen and largely closeted on the job gay men, but nothing like LesbianBuilder and its brother company GayBuilder - alas these are UK outfits!

Next: pics, floorplan, and more socio-political analysis of getting the job done.