Day Four: Too Good To Be True

Dad and I met back over at the house this morning.  I had stopped by Menard's to pick up lots of plumbing and electrical supplies last night and this morning (over $300 worth!), so I wanted to hit the ground running this morning.  Dad would work on the electrical while I worked on the plumbing.

The house is getting a make-over!

I also brought a Shop-Vac to vacuum out the drain pan of the A-coil in my A/C unit.  I had noticed that even though the house was cooling (and cooling well!), the drain line outside was not draining any condensation.  And what was worse, the drain pan itself was not emptying at all.  I had major blockage from none other than...rust.

The working A-coil with the sludge of rust in the drain pan below.

So I started to vacuum out the "sludge"...thick, wet, lumps of rust.  But all was not well.  My vacuum wasn't really picking up this sludge.  So I went to scoop it out, and that's when I noticed a major problem.  The bottom of the drain pan gave out.  As soon as I removed that built-up rust, the bottom of the pan showed its true colors.  It WAS rusted out.  The sludge was actually (ironically) keeping the drain pan from draining even MORE water onto the floor.  I knew instantly that I had a problem.  We were going to be working in a hot house today...on yet another hot day.

It's hard to see, but by trying to clean out the sludge of rust, I opened up a hole in the bottom of the pan.  The sludge was actually acting as a base layer (even though the pan leaked in other areas).  The whole thing now had to be replaced.

The drain pan leak finally explained an unknown...the damp floor ACROSS the hall in the closet.  After all, the water was turned off!  Sure enough, the A/C was leaking and soaking the entire floorboards.  So now this problem will be remedied!

I also noticed black mold along the wall that shared the wall with the A/C unit in the second bedroom.  The A-coil was leaking just on the other side of the wall, creating prime conditions for mold to develop and grow.  So while it's a $600 expense, it's a must.  I simply cannot have mold growing in this house.

The black mold in the 2nd bedroom.

I called my HVAC guy, and the news was dire.  "You'll have to replace the whole A-coil."  And he said that would run me about $600.  Yikes.  Two days ago I was quite ecstatic about the $200 fix to the A/C-unit.  And now today I realized that that was quite simply just too good to be true.  And it wasn't even the cost (though that hurt).  It was the fact that the A-coil itself was still good!  Maybe even great!  It was clean, and it cooled the house perfectly!  It was literally the drain pan alone that was the issue!!!

What is probably an $8 piece of sheet metal was the reason I was going to have to spend an extra $600.  And THAT was the part that just chafed my skin!  If the whole unit was broken, ok, fine.  But this little piece of sheet metal?!  THAT was going to be the reason for an overhaul?!  C'mon!

What is more, had the unit been installed horizontally instead of vertically, then the drain pan that would have been used was plastic instead of metal.  Yup, no rust!  The whole idea was just maddening!

But it had to be done.  The house was not fun to work in.  And I have a contractor coming to do work this month.  Plus it's hot for us, too!  We can't get a break from the heat!

The HVAC guys came over to measure the A-coil and get a game plan.  I told them that if the furnace worked fine, then I would like to keep the current set-up.  So they tested the furnace for me (it worked perfect...15 amps kicked on, then 30 amps).  So I am just going to replace the A-coil and leave the furnace and fan.  But while we had the unit opened, I noticed a charred wire in the electrical wiring.  They agreed that they would fix it with the new A-coil installation.  Perfect!  After measuring, they had planned on returning today to install the unit, but we never saw them again.  I found that odd.  I don't like when people don't keep me updated on plans!

Notice the charred wire!

Today Dad and I split up into our specialties.  Dad worked on wiring projects while I tackled the various plumbing updates needed.  Dad started with two broken light switches while I worked on replacing the kitchen faucet.

The kitchen light switches.  This house was just abused.

Dad in the middle of replacing switches and installing a new GFCI receptacle.

The faucet was quite dated (probably original).  Also, the sprayer was missing pieces.

I have picked up plumbing skills over the years simply from having to replace broken plumbing pieces!  And with the water off, I wanted to take full advantage NOW of being able to replace the shut-off valves while I could.  Dad said I should keep the old ones on, but experience has taught me otherwise.  Usually when you go to screw in the older ones, they still leak because of gunk in the lines.  And at just $6/valve, why not replace them?  Might as well update 25-year-old items with ones that will last another 25 years!  And on top of that, they are just easy to use!

I was thrilled to find out that the old valves came off super easy.  I have had to cut the copper pipe in the past because compression nuts wouldn't budge, but these just slid right off.  Perfect!  Old ones off, new ones on.  Easy!  The faucet installed easy, too.  I have nothing but good things to say about the new Moen faucets.  They REALLY make installation a breeze.  So I had the new kitchen faucet in
with new 1/4-turn shut-off valves in no time!

The old shut-off valves.  Notice the rusty pieces on the floor, too.

The valves slid off the copper pipes easily!  Woo hoo!

The new 1/4-turn valves and cover plates.

The new faucet!

And after removing the 1/4-turn valves, my, oh, my, was I glad I did.  The valves were nearly 90% blocked with calcium build-up.  They would not have held water at bay at all!  The valve would have turned down and got stuck on some hard piece of calcium.  They all definitely have to be replaced!

So happy I chose to remove the valves!  Look at that calcium build-up!  This is from the hot and cold lines underneath the sink.  Gross!

I then moved to the bathrooms.  I had wondered if I was going to be able to re-use the Main Bathroom vanity, as I was afraid that it would be covered with mold.  The floor and walls certainly are.  So what not a better time to remove the vanity!  I could then work on the shut-off valves way easier!  The vanity didn't come off without a hitch, though!  The previous contractor used more than just silicone...they used adhesive!  And that vanity was attached to the wall!  Unfortunately, during removal, I pulled off the drywall paper, too.  An extra element of work.  Grr.

But the suspicion was confirmed.  The vanity was covered in mold on the kickplate.  I didn't mind the oak vanity itself, although the sink had a yellow-ish tint to it.  I would have just updated the top and added trendy knobs, but the mold negates that.  Dad suggested rebuilding the kickplate.  I will have to think about that.  I'm just not sure.

The shut-off valves went on and off easy again!  Woo hoo!

I also replaced the toilet shut-off.

The old toilet valves.  Replacing both of them.

I then moved to the Main Bath.  I removed the vanity there, too.  It, too, was covered in black mold.  I will NOT be re-using this one at all.  The shut-off valves went on and off easily here, too!  I was ecstatic!

I removed the trim to expose the black mold.  I sprayed it all down with bleach.  Look at that infestation!

Thankfully the compression fittings slid off easily under the sinks, too!

The Master Bathroom with new 1/4-turn shut-off valves.  Look at all of that black mold!  It had destroyed the vanity.

Ready for the water to be turned on!

Both vanities removed.

The sinks are out.  I don't care for the almond color.  Makes it look dirty.

One problem that I haven't been able to fix, however, is the stained Master bathtub.  Mom has tried various products to remove what we think is paint from the pores of the fiberglass.  But nothing has worked thus far.  The tub is still stained, and I'm not sure if I'm going to keep it (it's an eyesore) or be able to clean it.  But for now, every product or method (bleach, Comet, sanding, scratching) has come up short.  Grr.

The tub came stained!  And we can't figure out how to remove it!

Dad replaced the broken switches and also removed all of the old light fixtures.  The light fixtures were either dated (and gold...which I hate) or literally in various states of brokenness.  They all needed replaced.

Hallway light was missing its glass fixture.

The 2nd bedroom light was in good shape...but gold and dated.  No thanks.

The dated hallway light.  I hate gold!

The 3rd bedroom light was missing its fixture.

The entryway light was incredibly dated.

The Master Bedroom was a combination of gold and silver.

He installed hanging lights for the contractors to work while they are there.  The painting of the ceilings should be quite easy now.

He updated the receptacles to the left and right of the oven with new GCFI-protected circuits and then spent time working on the tricky front porch light.  Again, the projects on paper weren't so difficult.  "Replace front porch light" is actually a fairly simple 15-minute job.  But that's because one simply cannot prepare for the unknowns.

The front porch light.  It proved to be a problematic project!

The previous contractor ended up installing the old light right into the bottom side of a stud (rather than on the side of the stud).  Because of this, the contractor used a shallow junction box rather than the standard-sized one.  So with the first light fixture installation, the light literally couldn't fit into the smaller box.  I had to purchase a recessed light so that the front door wouldn't hit it (it's not lost on me that the glass on the old one was missing!  I can guess what happened there!), but because of that, the LED lights are actually pushed deep into a normal-sized box.  Well, without the normal-sized box, that simply couldn't happen.

The old light was broken and ugly.

So we had to buy some new parts (which was fine, as I needed to pick up lots of supplies from home anyway).  We made the drive into Menard's and my house and enjoyed a lunch along the way (it was
hot again).

But that simple little project took more than an hour because Dad had to cut away even more of the stud.  But all is well that ends well!  And the recessed light looks great!  It's tiny, definitely not able to be hit by the swinging front door, AND puts out a ton of light!  LED is the way to go!

The new tiny yet powerful front porch light!  The swinging door cannot hit it!

This little girl puts out a ton of light!

So all in all, yet another great day of progress.  Foreclosures are certainly not without their frustrations, but this was a great step forward.  The water can now be turned on, and I can see how bad those leaks are going to be!  I called the plumber and left a voicemail, hopeful about his availability tomorrow.

Oh, one more story.  While working in the bathrooms today, I took off the sink drains so that I could remove the vanities.  Of course, each one smelled absolutely awful.  "Pungent" is reserved for times like these.  The one in the Main Bathroom smelled like seven months of stale pee.  Oddly enough, with the houses I seem to acquire, this is a known smell to me.  But the smell was repulsive.

The disgusting sink drain pipes.

I dumped the filth outside.

I see a chunk of hair!  And something round?!

I did the same with the Master Bathroom, and yet when I hurled the smelly black goo into the street, I noticed something round.  Hmm.  Upon further inspection, I noticed that it appeared like a ring.  I also noticed two dimes and an earring.  I pulled the ring out of the black mess on the street and started cleaning it up.

I had found a silver ring!  ha!  The black goo came off rather nicely, and the ring still held a nice color to it...like it wasn't cheap!  It just might be a silver ring!  What a great find!  Hopefully this house is already starting to pay dividends!

I spy a ring!

The house is already giving back!

But another great day.  The plumbing is ready for the remodel, as is the electrical.  I'm just waiting on the availability of the contractor!  I used today as kind of a demolition day...removing the old to be prepped for the new.  And I won't miss ANY of this gold!

Removing the outdated fixtures!

The outdated plumbing is removed!

One last frustration of the day is the no-show by the tree trimming company.  On Tuesday, the company told me they would be here Thursday morning.  Well, the morning came and went.  And so did most of the afternoon.  I finally called and left a voicemail mid-afternoon.  The gentleman DID call me back and say he forgot and was sorry but that he would definitely be here tomorrow morning.  Believe it when I see it.  As for now, I have lots of trees just sitting in my backyard.  I don't feel like that project is entirely over!!!  And I don't like that!

When I look out the windows, I am reminded of an unfinished project!

Day Three: The Garage Door

Happy July 4th!!!

Today's goal was simple:  fix the broken garage door!!!

When I purchased the house, the garage door was in quite a bit of need.  First of all, part of the door hung in towards the garage.  That fix was easy to spot:  it was missing a guide wheel.  Thankfully, Dad had several laying around from our dumpster diving last year with the trommel project!

So that was a simple $0 fix.

But the next problem was that the door didn't even have cables to raise and lower it!  So I purchased a set at Menard's and watched YouTube videos on how to fix it!  Ha!  But I'm serious.  I am pretty handy, but I don't know everything.  But after watching the videos, I felt prepared for the task at hand!

The garage door was missing cables on both the left and the right!

Dad and I met at 9:00 again this morning, and we went to work.  It wasn't exactly perfectly simple.  While I was able to get the cables on, I still had too much slack in the door.  It was kind of trial-and-error (emphasis on error), but we concluded that I needed to have more tension on the cable.  So I used Vise-grips and spun the torsion bar around and then hooked up the cables to the bottom of the door.  Voila!

Problem fixed!!!

Sort of.  We noticed that the track on the right side was waaaaaaaaay out of alignment.  So I removed the supporting brace and moved it over a few holes up by the ceiling.  Now that the track was lined up, the roller arms wouldn't fall out!  It was a small yet necessary fix.

We plugged the opener in and tried it out.  It would only go down a few inches, then come back up.  Hmmm.  But it was trying to move.  I tried again.  Same.  Again.  Same.  One of my tenants had this problem, and the fix was to make sure the eye sensors were lining up.

Well, wouldn't you know it, one of the sensors was completely missing?!  So I held down the garage door button, and the garage door went down smoothly!!!  Woo-hoo!!!  I pushed it again, and the door went up smoothly!!!  Woo-hoo!!!

So I need a new set of eyes.  But that is totally doable!  I had budgeted $600 for this fix when I purchased this house (planning to use a garage door contractor), and I am in it for just over $7!  So I was wildly excited about that!

That was our only goal today!  And we did it!

We broke early so that we could enjoy the rest of the holiday off.  A good day.

Sort of.  This morning before I took a shower, I put a load of laundry in.  Not 10 minutes later, I was upstairs and heard a pop and heard the dryer shut off.  Hmm.  After showering, I tried it out.  It was dead.

So tonight, I decided to take apart the dryer to figure out what was wrong.  It had been fairly loud recently, so I figured a roller finally gave way and stopped it from spinning easy.  Well, I took off the cover and felt the rollers.  They felt perfect.  Hmm.  So I looked around.

The joys of home-ownership!

And that's when I saw a wire in the bottom that had fried itself free!  I cut the wire, replaced the old, charred connector with new and was back in business for free!  I tested out the dryer, and not only did it work fine, but it was not quieter, too!  ha!  A win-win.
Things break.  Any home-owner knows that, and any landlord knows that even more.  But I was happy to be back in business at the cost of only an hour.

The black wire in foreground had charred itself away from the connector in background and arced on the heating element.  Thankfully, the circuit-breaker tripped.

Back in business!

Day Two: Completing the Forest Removal

Today's goal was simple:  complete the rest of the tree and brush chop-down and removal.

Starting Day Two...how we left the mess from yesterday.

We had a little work to do on the side; then the major focus was the backyard today.

But we were going to be faced with one known nemesis (100-degree heat index) and one surprise one (MASSIVE and repeated thunderstorms!).

But before we started outside, I made a call to my go-to HVAC man.  He came out this morning to do a look-over of the A/C and found out a pretty big problem.  "You have 0% freon."  He basically said it's not looking good.  When you have 0%, it's likely a decent leak...or it could have a slow leak over a long period of time.  I informed him that the interior of the house was like the exterior...literally zero maintenance or money put back into the home, so I said I'll take the gamble with a re-charge and see what happens.

The old and obviously dated unit.

Updated to a newer (and free!) unit!  Thanks, Pa!

He put five pounds of freon into the system, and guess what?!  It held a charge!!!  Dad brought over a digital thermostat to replace the archaic one that was installed, and we set the 79-degree house for 77 degrees while we went outside to load up brush.  Within a half-hour, the house was already down to 77!  The A/C was working!!!  Woo-hoo!!!  The HVAC system was an unknown budget item, but I was thrilled to be having a working one for $200.

Back to the work outside!

We finished cleaning up the bushes on the south side of the house.  And I tied a rope to the pesky leaning tree over the fence, and we dropped it beautifully.  It definitely started to fall towards the fence, but Dad's pressure on the rope had it pivot nicely away from it and hit the ground perfectly!  We were actually doing great work felling these trees!

The forest in the backyard.  Most of those tall trees were coming down.  The obstacles were a house, fence, and deck!

Dad pulled on the rope as I cut in between the tree and the house.  Tricky!

The house can be seen again!

Such a huge difference!

Wow.  Just Wow.

But we still had the backyard to go.  And according to the neighbor next door, "you have your work cut out for you back there."  Yes, yes, we did.  The landscaping was a mess of volunteer trees again and some sort of plant that grew tree-like branches all in one spot.  I fired up the chainsaw and just went at it.  They cut so easily.  I love a good-running chainsaw!!!  I had to be somewhat careful dropping a large tree in the mess, but then again, I didn't.  That tree was tied to another tree during the fall, so it didn't really fall, per se.  It was more of a lean and hold on the way down.  And I was thankful for that.

Walking towards the jungle in the backyard.

Walking through the gate into the backyard, you were met with trees and overgrown brush.  The lack of grass is due to the ground not being to receive any sunshine!

Turning to the right after walking through the gate.  Wow.

The backyard forest viewed from the deck.

The tree on the right was staying.  The tall one on the left was going to go.

But I wasn't perfect in my felling of trees.  For that tree had a portion that I tried to fell one way, and the weight and lean of it simply wouldn't overcome my cut.  Once the tree went, it went right over the deck.  Agh!!!  I mean, I missed my target by a long shot!!!  Thankfully, the deck held.  I just cut the tree up into pieces on the deck.  Hey, we can't all be perfect, right?!

One of the large trees toppled over my deck.  Oops.  But it didn't do any damage, thankfully.

But the best part of this whole clearing out of trees and brush was the surprise find in the middle of all of it!  I had noticed a gorgeous and quite mature Japanese Maple in the middle!  I definitely wanted to keep her.  And as I cut around her and pulled the other trees out of her, she kept looking more and more beautiful!  A keeper, for sure!

The view from the gate as I cleared out trees.  Notice the Japanese Maple appearing in the top right!

We had one last tree to go...the hardwood I wanted to wait to cut just in case my chainsaw chain dulled out.  It was a nasty mulberry tree.  And it grew right in the corner of the fence.  So much so that it had actually bulged out the fence.  So much so that the previous owner actually used the tree as a place to screw the fence into.  And so much so that the foreclosure company actually decided to remove the fence portion altogether.  Out of all of the trees, this was probably going to be the trickiest.  It was fairly thick and in a precarious location.  To fell it meant having it dropping over on the fence.  But my options were limited.

The hardwood growing (of course) in the corner of the fence.  The previous owner just screwed the fence to the tree.

I ended up cutting down various branches first (really various trunks).  But then I had to go after the top portion that hung over the fence.  So I grabbed a ladder and tried my best to not have a ton fall on the fence.  It was a mild success...the tree fell but it was definitely on the fence.  I just removed branch by branch.  And then I moved back inside the fence to finish off the trunk.

The top of the tree fell over the fence.  So much tree!

The mulberry was pretty thick!

Wow, we had a lot of tree.  And on top of that, we had the other trees from the backyard.  The neighbor was right.  There was just a lot of tree back there.  And that was our problem.  We had hauled off one more load of trees over lunch, but the burn pile at Dad's was just too much.  For safety's sake, we just couldn't haul any more.

The "volunteer" trees were thick!  This is the tree that ended up falling onto the deck (pictured left).

The backyard filled up quick.

The mulberry tree is down...and quickly filled up my neighbor's yard.

And that's when a Tree Cutting truck drove by.  Slowly.  Likely admiring our work.  :)  He tapped on his horn as a sign of affirmation, and I quickly memorized the number on the side of the truck!  I called him and asked him to "do a U-ey" and come back for a question.  He obliged.

I took him to the backyard.  "Sir, how much would your charge to haul off the rest of this brush"?  He looked it over and threw out a number.  "$200, and I would chip it all."  Without missing a beat, I said, "It's yours."  He agree to come back by July 5th after the holiday in the morning.  Excellent.  I hated the thought of leaving the mess back there (I love wrapping up projects), but I loved the fact that I could have this exterior all complete by Thursday!!!

He also informed us that his crew had to call it quits just south of here due to a massive deluge of a thunderstorm.  We could hear thunder in the distance, but it didn't look overly foreboding in our direction.  Boy, was I sure to be wrong about that.  You could actually see the rain fall from the clouds above you.  Dad and I hauled off the trailer and truck which was already full to his house and saw experienced exactly what he was talking about.  The storms just dumped massive amounts of rain!!!

The rain moving towards us.

We dropped off the last load of trees at Dad's and headed back.

I was fairly content with the current situation of the exterior of the house, but I also had two trees that I wanted to get down.  In other words, these weren't Priority #1 like the rest of the trees were.  They wouldn't hurt anything, but they were certainly ugly.  We decided to knock 'em down.  Might as well.  And then the entire exterior would be complete!!!

The two large and ugly pines I wanted to cut down to complete the project.

I mean, these two guys were massive!

Of course, these two trees posed a little bit of a challenge in felling.  The first one was fairly straight-forward.  Make good cuts, and I would miss the A/C unit, the neighbor's house, my house, and my neighbor's basketball hoop.  Make bad cuts, and well...

I made good cuts!  The tree fell exactly where I intended.  And the pine cut up so easily.  It was tall and skinny, and the branches cut off like butter.  I worked my way from top to bottom once it was on the ground, and the "trunk" (which basically extended up to the top) cut up into nice firewood pieces.

A job well-done!

Tree #1 is down!  Woo hoo!

But the second tree was tricky.  The "trunk" split off into two rather quickly from the ground.  And the "Y" it created posed a threat to my neighbor's house.  For if I cut the trunk below the "Y," the tree would most certainly fall towards the weight of the side branch and land on the corner of my neighbor's house.  Certainly not an option.  I told Dad that I would need him to pull the tree with a rope towards the small space between our two houses, but I doubted even that being possible.  The tree simply leaned too much.
Mom had showed up after work by this time (she got off early for July 4th).  As we discussed our most-certain poor felling of this tricky tree, I had her tell the neighbor to move his truck out of the driveway.  I just had a terrible feeling about this tree.  It just had too much lean.  And I couldn't fell it to the easiest place because it would then land on and destroy my A/C unit.

And that's when an idea struck me.  Why not cut the tree down in sections?  From as far up as I could get?  In other words, even if the tree fell the wrong way, it wouldn't even be able to hit the neighbor's house.  Why didn't we think of this before?!  So we grabbed the six-foot ladder, and I had Dad hold it as I cut the tree as high as I could.  Ok, so so far we had had great results and safety with the chainsaw cutting.  And believe you me, every time I cut I am aware of kick-back, pinching, wrong pivots, and the like.  And we were combining some pretty big no-no's on this nearly last cut.  I was working above my head with the cut (not much control), standing on top of a ladder (not allowed in ladder talk), held by another guy who was in the felling zone (if he gets hit by the tree, he loses his grip on the ladder with me on top with a running chainsaw).  I'm not going to lie, it wasn't the best of decisions.  And with the start of my cut, I warned Dad that the branch WAS going to come back towards us.  You can just read a tree.  I prepped not for the worse but for what to do when it happened.  Hold the chainsaw at all costs.  Protect Dad.  And hold the chainsaw at all costs.

Sure enough, the branch broke and whipped back towards us.  It wasn't an entirely heavy hit, but it was certainly a direct hit.  I was in a mess of pine, and Dad took the brunt of it.  But we all kept our holds, he with the ladder, me with the chainsaw.  Success!!!

With the tree now unable to hit the neighbor's house, I chopped it the rest of the way down.

The second tree is down!  Look, I found a house!!!

What a difference two days makes!

And that's when I could see the next thunderstorm brewing just south of us.  They had been moving northwest all day, and this one was just southeast.  "Mom, Dad, we have 20 minutes.  Tops."

The goal was to load up my truck with the two trees and haul them to the backyard for the chipping on Thursday.  So we loaded.  Thunder.  Darkness.  Grey skies.  "Ok, we probably only have 10.  Tops."

And we had an entire tree to get into the truck....and then two entire trees to unload!!!

We carried the "trunk" of the trees to the front street.  Someone can have them for FREE!!!

We worked feverishly.  It became incredibly apparent that we were going to get wet.  And soon.  We filled my truck, then drove it to the open fence in the backyard.  The rain was impeccably close.  "Just toss it off!!!  Hurry, or we are going to get soaked!!!"  So that's just what we did.  I hopped up in the truck and just hurled the branches into the backyard.  Small rain drops.  We all knew the big ones were coming.  Hurl.  Hurl.  Hurl.

The rain was less than a mile away.

We cleared the truck just as it began.  "Ok, let's call it a day!!!"

We just filled up the backyard with the pine trees!  So many trees cut down today!

And as we called it another hugely-successful day, the deluge began.  And it was apparent that it was going to rain for quite awhile.

The rains just kept on coming all day.  Massive rainfall.

Pulling away on Day 2!  Look at that house!!!  You can see it!!!  Leaving in a heavy downpour.

You can see the house from the road!!!

It's a beautiful house!  Just needed some hard-working men to let her shine!

But WOW, what a day!!!  We literally finished up the chainsaw work!!!  The trees were down!!!  The bushes were down or trimmed!!!  And the forest was gone!!!  And all of a sudden, in just two days, we had a very beautiful house in front of us.  I mean, it was there all the time.  But it just needed someone to allow it to shine.  I was more than happy to be that person.  What a difference.  I was thrilled for in just two days we had completed what I had expected us to take four days!!!

I mean, we worked our tails off.  Yesterday alone I lost five pounds (literally).  I couldn't tell you what it was today, but Dad and I sweated.  Wow, did we sweat.  We were in a constant state of wet the entire day.  So much so that we literally put our clothes in the dryer as we ate lunch!!!  Part of that was rain, but most of it was sweat!

But what a successful and encouraging two days!!!  The house was so cute from the road now!  You could see actually see it!  Plus I have a new working thermostat, a house which is cooling beautifully, and a yard which one can eventually be proud of (it needs a lot of grass to come in in those bare spots that can finally see the sun for the first time in years)!

We left earlier tonight...around 7:10 P.M.  Fine by us.

At supper tonight (thanks again, Ma!), we were talking, and I said, "You know, if I didn't plan on keeping this, I could probably get $20,000 more than I paid for it already...in less than two weeks."  And that is true.  I would imagine someone would pay $100,000 for this house...knowing that it is worth $125,000 in good condition.  They get a deal ($25,000 to fix up the inside which won't take all of that), and I get a deal ($20,000 for two days' worth of work).  But, alas, that is not the plan.

But it's so encouraging to see a plan come together.  I still plan to keep it and do the repairs myself (some of those with a contractor).  But it's so fun to see hard work pay off.  I'm guessing we just saved at least $3000 by doing the tree-cutting and brushwork ourselves.  Not bad for two days.

You see, Pa?  I don't mind buying you lunch both days!!!  :)