If you have handymen in the house

This is what you think

Yesterday was yet another day. I had gathered tons of chores and decided to let professionals handle it. First of all, I have a rather hard-working man and secondly, I prefer to spend time with him horizontally (it can also be on the couch watching Netflix, you know) rather than vertically dangling on a ladder while we fire off a cannonade of swear words that Captain Haddock (you know, him from Tintin) would still raise an eyebrow at.

So I had all sorts of things. Hanging a light next to the piano. I had ordered a nice one from Wever & Ducré. And a new television, one of those nice flat ones that could hang beautifully against the wall so that the cabinet underneath could go to the thrift store. It was a bit of a day of hustling, but by the end of the evening, I would walk blissfully through my house.

Well, here came my friends. At eight o'clock sharp. A black coffee and one with a lot of milk and both with a sweetener. I really remembered it. A little chat. A moment to look contentedly at the work done earlier and then it was time for action. First, that lamp above the kitchen table. My design piece was compared to chicken wire, there was laughter, but it hung and I was happy. Now the TV. Was there a mounting bracket included? I nodded. I had specifically asked for it: ‘But where are the cables then?’ Well, uh, I don't know. At the back? ‘But that can't be with such a flat TV. Those plugs stick out too much.’ The other contractor hero saw how it came: there was a flat plug in it. And there was a separate box. A box where all the information is that normally sits at the back of the TV. A kind of corrective underwear, I would say. You can make it look thinner somewhere, but the volume has to come out somewhere. With corrective underwear, that's where the package ends, with the TV ‘the rest’ was in a box ten centimeters wide, five centimeters deep, and five centimeters high. ‘Where are you going to put that box then?’ ‘Where is the coax cable going?’ ‘You said I had to pull electricity up, but you also want the coax, right? You want to watch TV, right?’ I raise my eyebrows a bit. ‘Uh, I just wanted you to have the TV on the wall and I asked if you wanted to hide the cables.’ ‘Yes, but you said electricity, but you also mean the coax.’ I sigh. I just want that TV there and for you to do that. ‘So you also want the coax?’

Eventually, the new TV is on the old TV cabinet. The extra box is on it. In plain sight. But I do have a Netflix button. And a Disney+ button. I just don't know how to switch channels yet.

Then there was the nice lamp. Where I wanted to have it. I had thought about it. And I had measured it. This had to be it, on the little wall next to the piano. ‘And where are you going to turn the light on and off then?’ ‘Uh...’ ‘Yes, we can make a switch for it, but then you have to go up that ladder to the piano every time.’ (our piano is on a mezzanine) ‘Uh... Can't you make a light switch?’ ‘No, no, no. Then we have to pull all the electricity along two walls, have to be all chiseled, plastered, and painted. Then it becomes a very expensive lamp.’ The other one is meanwhile tapping on the wall. ‘But this is particle board. If I start drilling in this, everything will break.’ How many times can you say ‘uh’ in five minutes? I think I have broken the record by now. ‘Then just put a floor lamp in the corner?’ one of the two suggests. The excuse that I then also have to go up the ladder every time to turn it on or off just doesn't come to mind.

Hanging a frame worked. Level too, once. But if you wonder during your next visit why so little changes in my interior, now you know the reason.