Pa Drives a Tough Crew!

Dad surprisingly showed up this morning, and he kicked me into high gear!  ha!  It was actually much-needed after the week of being slow.  I have accomplished some in the past week, but nothing like what we did when we were doing those massive projects!

His question was simple:  "What do you need done that two people can do"?  Or to put it another way, "What do you need help with"?

Basically, "What needs done?"

I have a ton of projects left (it's time to make another list and get a game plan for checking boxes), but as far as big two-people ones, those are getting fewer and fewer...which is great!

I chose a project I have been dreading first, although it didn't really require two people.  For whatever reason (laziness?), my contractor didn't put trim back up around my door to the garage.  I will give him the benefit of the doubt upstairs since the trim was rotten at the bottom, but I didn't know why he didn't do it here.  But it's even more complex than that...he didn't even have the door ready for trim!  He left a significant gap between the door and the drywall.

The "finished" door from the contractor.  Still some work to be done!

A significant gap existed between the drywall and door.  So much so that it was too wide for trim!

Dad mentioned bringing him back to do it, but I have to walk a fine line there.  This guy came in several thousand dollars less than the others, and so while he may not have done the most professional of jobs in terms of finishing work, I still have thousands of dollars in my pocket.  So as much as I hated doing it (I really did, thinking, "This was his job!"), I just did it.  While I cut the ridiculous amount of goofy pieces for the gaps, Dad worked on pulling up staples.  Bless his heart!

Seriously, it was tedious work.  Boring work.  I had to cut thin strips of drywall, drill pilot holes through them so as to not break, screw them in, then mud them.  The contractor had put all sorts of spacing shims in there, and that made it difficult to have a straight piece of drywall.  But it all came together.  It was a big small project.  One that I hadn't had the motivation to do yet!  It's not fun!  But Pa was keeping me at it!

It took a lot of goofy drywall pieces!

His wood shims (as seen) prevented me from doing one long even cut of drywall.

My first coat of mud!  Pretty good!

It will look pretty nice!

After filling in all of the gaps, I did what I hate to do even more:  I mudded!  Actually, I didn't do too bad of a job on this one!  The key was the consistency.  I think the last time I mudded behind the cabinet, I was using too dry of mud.  Now I'm not saying I'm good at all, but it certainly spread much easier with the pudding-like consistency.  I'll let it dry, then do another coat.

But then I found the craziest thing!  My contractor had gotten rid of the door trim!  I mean, it's gone!  I looked all over for it, but I'm pretty sure it's deep into a landfill somewhere.  It's so frustrating!  I don't think that trim was bad!  It might have some mold on it, but I think it was still in fine shape.  Maybe it broke, maybe it was rotted, maybe it was ruined, who knows.  But it's long gone.  Even having the top piece would have been better!  But as it is, I'll have to buy all new pieces for this door.  Probably cost me an extra $20?  Plus staining time?!  Plus cutting time?!  Agh!!!

I then tackled another black mold project.  Seriously, it's everywhere in this house.  Because this door or fridge leaked originally, the wood had been wet around the garage door.  Well, that became a breeding bed for mold.  So I removed the baseboard trim and found exactly what I expected (you could see it around that area).  Black mold.  So I sprayed bleach and scrubbed.  Oh, this house...

Oh, hey, look!  More black mold!

All better now.

After this project, we decided to try to fix my diverter spout in my main bathroom.  Ever since I moved in, this shower was deader than dead.  I took a couple of showers in there, but the water just sputtered out...and the rest came out the diverter!  So I took the Moen diverter off and took it into Lowe's, but they didn't know how to fix it.  They just told me to call Moen for a free replacement.

How my bathtub has looked for more than a month!

Well, we were ready to get this fixed, so we tried pushing the plastic washer out a bit with another washer, but it still leaked.  So I decided to just install a new diverter I had bought over a month ago.  I was hoping to fix the Moen one, but at $9.99, I wasn't really out that much money for a new one.  Sure enough, after trying with no success on resurrecting the Moen, the new one worked perfectly!  It had absolutely no water coming through at all, and the shower was powerful!  Perfect.

A brand-new diverter spout!  No leaks!

Look at that beautiful shower stream!  And not a drop out of the diverter!  Project complete!

Another project done!  I've been taking showers in the Master Bathroom for over a month now because of that.  So it's nice to have that fixed!

After that we decided to tackle the perhaps last big project of all inside (for now).  For a couple of months now, I had been wanting to install a new light fixture in my upstairs landing.  One of the first priorities for me was updating all of the light fixtures on the main floor, and I must say, the house looks GREAT with the new fixtures!  The old gold is gone, and the house looks sharp and updated!

But I still had this old gold fixture in the landing.  I had purchased a chandelier back in October for this project, but I just hadn't got around to installing it yet.  Well, Pa was the driving force today!  We gave ourselves a goal of two hours.  We started at 2:30 P.M.

The view from the landing.  Ugly!

Seriously, it's just not a pretty fixture!  It screams 1991!

And it put off very little light.  It was so dim in this hall at night.

I was on an extension ladder with Dad being the parts and weight-lifting guy from upstairs.  The old light came down quick...within a few minutes.  Nice!  We put together the light downstairs and then went to mount it.  I did the wiring with Dad coaching.  Thankfully, the whole process actually went really, really well.  The new light went together nicely, and we made sure we had it installed correctly before hanging it (I messed up on the dining room light and had to take it down and do it all over again!).

And even with a 40-minute delay from another roof repair bidder, we were done by 4:30 P.M.!  And the light looks awesome!  I installed a new LED light bulb in it, and I'm not kidding when I say that one light bulb was brighter than the three that used to be in the old fixture!  So much so that it instantly showed off some missed ceiling paint spots from my painter!  ha!  I mean, it was bright!  Too bright!

Such a more welcoming view!

So very bright!

I LOVE the new look!  Gorgeous!

So I changed out the LED for incandescent bulbs.  I am so happy with the update!  It's amazing just how much change can be done with "simple" updates like a light fixture!  This house looks so sharp now!  I love it!  I painted the ceiling around the new fixture, painted the spots that now showed up that my painter missed, and painted some spots I found in the kitchen a couple of weeks ago.  We had to get creative to paint the spots on the ceiling that my painter missed, but we simply duct-taped a paintbrush to the end of a long metal pole!  It worked!

This just needed to be done!

So back to the contractor.  After having numerous roofing guys come over the last few days and telling me to replace the roof, I decided to try a different route and call in general contractors.  Seriously, these roof guys drove me nuts.  They were trying to sell me a $10,000 roof when I just wanted a fix!  It was so aggravating.  YES, my roof is old.  YES, it has 3-5 years left.  But, YES, it has 3-5 years left!!!  If it's not leaking elsewhere, why replace it now?!

The shingles are showing age, and in some spots they are even starting to curl on the edges.  But this house "flip" did not have a new roof budgeted, and I'm not planning on doing it right now!  And $500 is certainly more doable than $10,000 right now, too!  So that was my goal.  $500.  I was hoping for $300-$500 when I first started looking, but these guys have come in ALL over the place.

1st bid--build a cricket/saddle--$1295
2nd bid--$1800 for repair or $4410 for entire garage or $8625 for entire house.
3rd bid--$700 to re-do valley with no guarantee of it not leaking or $1300 to re-shingle entire section of roof on the back!  Uninsured and unlicensed.
4th bid--$11740 to do the entire house.  Or $700 to re-flash wall and install ice and water shield in valley.
5th bid--That was this guy.  He said he would literally just do the corner and nothing else because that is where it was leaking.  He was honest about everything.  He said it was a $5 part, but guess what he bid...$500!  I'm not even saying that as a slant against him since $500 was my goal, but once you realize what these guys are doing...you feel like you paying them royalty wages!  I would be paying him more than $100/hour to work.  It's certainly better than the $200-$500 from the first guy, but wowzers!  Why not pay myself?

So I asked my brother if he would help me this weekend when it's 60 degrees.  I can remove shingles.  I can remove siding.  And to save several hundred dollars?  Why not?!  He agreed.

I do have ONE more bidder coming tomorrow, but at this point, I am just going to do it myself.  Sure, it may take me an entire day, but come 5:00 P.M. when the sun is setting, I will have an extra $400 in my pocket.  Not bad for a day's wages!

Dad left around 5:00 P.M. after the light was installed, but I was happy with all of the progress, so I continued working!  My front door didn't open easily (the slide plate needed set back in the wood),and I've been avoiding doing that project.  But when Dad went to open the door this afternoon for the contractor with me on the ladder to no avail, I knew it had to be done.  (Granted, I would learn that Dad still had the dead-bolt lucked, but still!).  So I grabbed my rotary tool and started sanding.  It was a pretty easy fix!  The door now opens and closes easily!  Again, this is something that my contractor SHOULD have done, but I just have to remind myself about the thousands in my pocket.

A quick 5-minute sand job with the rotary tool.

The door opens easily now!

(I just checked my pocket, and nothing is there, but still...).

Wow, what a great day!  Thanks for the motivation, Pa!  We made HUGE strides forward today!

Now if I could just get my former house to sell to fund these new floors!  I swear if it sold, I would install the new hardwood myself with this free time!  I could save myself some money!  As of now, I think I'm 0 for 25 on the house sale.  Ouch!  It just takes one, though!  C'mon!