Under Construction.

I pretty much spend my life in a building that's under construction. If you're going to be doing any construction to a building you occupy, or even if you work in a place that is about to undergo serious remodeling, demand to see the palettes before work begins. Even if work is almost complete really, you should demand to see them. Specifically, demand the smell palette. What you say? You don't even know what a smell palette is? Prolly neither does your builder, which means you need to educate them on what they need to supply. Each phase should have a smell palette. The demolition phase might have a palette that smells a lot like dust, and concrete. Maybe with a hint of electrical fire... Make sure to add cigarette smoke to the palette. (California has strict no smoking policies. I think it might even be illegal to smoke inside your own house. It's weird to smell cigarette smoke inside a public building, but the night time construction workers obviously smoke while working inside, so add it to the palette and give me no more lip). Also, add the smell of 2 week old fast food. Just do it.

The second phase should smell like disappointment. As deadlines get pushed back further and further, the smell of disappointment is palpable. Also somewhat indescribable, but I need the palette delivered to me. It is up to the builder to come up with the smell of disappointment, which I am sure is particular to each builder anyways. I need to know what I am going to be facing when the job is 2 or 3 months over due.

Waterless Urinals in the men's room? Lemme get a whiff of that swatch before I say yes or no. 40,000 gallons a year is a lot of water to save, on the other hand, if you can't flush it, why spend money on toilets at all, why not just put in a couple of extra drains in the floor. The smell test will be critical to this decision... Anyone who smells one of those urinals after it has been in business for awhile I am sure would opt to skip it and drive into the bad part of town and use the oldest gas station bathroom they can find. It would smell better.

I am prolly gonna want the smell of burnt metal as a swatch. I don't even know what they were doing to produce that smell, but it was there, and I would liked to know I was going to be subjected to that before hand. A variety of paint smells should be represented. I am sure there are going to be a lot of swatches that I smell first and go "what the hell is this?!?!" and then look at the description so I will know about where construction is when I smell it. The smell of new carpet mixed with a wretched stink that makes me dizzy means the rooms are almost ready to occupy. But the smell of electrical fire mixed with dead rodents and fiberglass means "don't open that door...seriously"