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House maundering, part 3
Sep. 23rd, 2003 12:17 amIn which much work is done on the house, but nothing is bought or sold, and the author realizes that she isn't going to finish this saga tonight
This post may be of limited interest to people who have never owned a house. Or, for that matter, to people who have.
Tom the painter continued to work on the house, inside and out. When he got to the porch, he was a bit stymied, though. It wasn't surprising. That porch had stymied better people than him. A couple of years ago, some construction people had come by with a "we're in the neighborhood and we'd be happy to give you a free estimate" and I'd asked them to look at the porch. The porch had been added on to the house some time after it had originally been built, and while the construction appeared to be sound, the entire porch had settled. The floor had a noticeable angle down (better than the other way, I suppose), and the side windows that were once rectangular were now trapezoidal. Greg Cotton had suggested that the solution would be to have a handyman do something with them. The first time around I didn't quite understand what exactly he was suggesting. Tom wasn't able to able to get the windows open, which made painting the trim not so much difficult as totally impossible. He offered to paint them shut, but I told him to hold off and I would do something with them. He also pointed out that while painting the trim on the porch was part of the deal we'd already agreed to, the porch itself would benefit from a paint job. And was I planning on doing anything with the stairs to the basement and the walls surrounding them? (They had awful orange-yellow wallpaper that was peeling off, and the stairs were a lurid green in poor condition.) I agreed that doing those would probably be a good idea, and how much did he want to charge for it? I think it was $400 for the porch and stairs.
In the meantime, I was trying to lasso a handyman to deal with, well, the handy work. Greg had taken care of most of the items that the truth-in-housing inspector had pointed out (removed and capped the gas heater in the basement, did something with a grounding wire, added backflow valves to a few faucets, and fixed the light in the upstairs closet). He also put in the two light fixtures on the porch and the front entryway. Those had been sitting in my front closet since I moved in, and I don't know how long they might have been there before that. Nothing so permanent as a temporary emergency, and all that. Greg, of course, would have been the perfect handyman to deal with what was left to be done, but he didn't have the time or, to be honest, the interest. We were talking about a couple of days' worth of work, not a job that could be done in an hour or two. And besides, he was aobut to fly out of town.
So my quest for a handyman began. I first called someone named Eric who had done work for Pat and Elise. He didn't return my call. He didn't return three calls, in fact. So I called Doug Wickstrom's brother, who I'd had some dealings with a few years ago. Unfortunately, he'd been in a couple of road accidents, and could no longer do that sort of work. That used up the list of names I knew. Then Bob Williams called and asked how the work was going. I told him of my handyman woes, and how I was just about to start working my way down the "handy person" entries in the Yellow Pages. He said that he would make some phone calls. The next day he called back and said that his Eric -- not to be confused with Pat and Elise's Eric was busy on a job, but that his assistant, Travis, would be there the next day, which was Thursday, September 4.
Travis did indeed show up the next day, and wanted to know what I had in mind. I gave him the list of projects:
Travis spent most of the day working on the porch, and seemed to be making good progress. This was actually a pleasant surprise, since I hadn't expected him to do more than assess the job that first day. At the end of the day, he said he'd be back between 8 and 10 on Friday.
Friday came, and 10 am passed into memory with no sign of Travis. Around 10:30, the phone rang, and Travis said that something had come up, and he'd be back on Monday. "Monday!" I managed not to shriek. He was apologetic, but yes, Monday. About an hour later, Bob Williams called, and asked how it was going. He was pleased that Travis had already started, but appalled that he'd just essentially walked off the job for two days. He said he'd see what he could do, and he'd call me back. About an hour later, he told me that he'd arranged for his Eric and Travis to spend Saturday working on my place -- whatever Travis' emergency was, it had been resolved. Bob gives Eric a lot of work, so I suspect that a certain amount of leverage was applied, but I was exceedingly grateful.
So Travis and Eric showed up the next day and did a really remarkable amount of work. They put in the new vanity, pulled off the paneling on the lower walls, fixed the sheet rock behind the paneling, and slip-coated the wall with a first coat. We'd discussed pulling out the medicine chest as well (I had a hand-me down one that matched the vanity), but that was deemed too extensive a project, and not worth the time and money. Eric also brought his electric sander, which made the work on the porch windows progress better.
On Monday, Travis did the second coat of slip-coating in the bathroom. About then, Greg called from out of town to check on progress. I told him about the bathroom improvements, and the decision not to mess with the wallpaper. He said that even if we weren't replacing the medicine chest, the wallpaper should go. While I was on the phone with him, I grasped on of the looser bits of wallpaper and pulled. It came off easily. At that point, of course, I'd crossed the Rubicon. After I hung up with Greg, I pulled off the rest of the wallpaper, and hunted down Tom the painter, who was working in the basement. I showed him the bathroom, and said that I knew this meant more slip-coating and priming before it could be painted, but how much would he charge to take care of it? I think he quoted me another $250. I said go ahead. I was getting the picture as to how house improvements always cost so much more than the original estimate.
Travis finished the job on Monday or Tuesday, I don't remember which for sure. He did a couple of little extra jobs, like planing the door to the library closet so it would close, and capping something in the basement that the truth-in-housing inspector wanted. The porch windows looked much better than they had, if a little odd. A couple of them had boards put in the -- I don't know the term, the part of the window that indents -- to attach the hooks to. Those would look much better when they were painted, I was assured. And in the meantime, the windows closed, which was a vast improvement.
The next morning, Tom called me down to the basement. There was a small puddle on the floor. The toilet was leaking. It had to a result of shimming the toilet; the wax plug must have got unseated. I called Travis, and he came and fixed it. And that was the last of the handy work.
By then Tom was on the home stretch of the work he was doing. We'd planned to list the place on Wednesday or Thursday, but decided to hold off until Friday so all the painting would be done. We'd added another little project, painting the front entryway, for another $75. I don't remember exactly what all the added bits cost individually, but the original estimate was for $1400, and the final cost was $2500. And honestly, I don't begrudge the additional money. Everything that was done came out well, and Tom did some bits that were above and beyond, like painting the doors to the house. The outside of the house didn't look all that different to me, but the inside was a huge improvement. The bathroom had gone from being a huge liability to being essentially neutral. The porch was clean and bright instead of dingy and cobwebby. The stairs to the basement were a nice dark brown, and the walls there were a textured white. Tom had had to do an extra coat on those; the wallpaper glue kept trying to stain through the primer.
The place was ready to list.
(to be continued)
This post may be of limited interest to people who have never owned a house. Or, for that matter, to people who have.
Tom the painter continued to work on the house, inside and out. When he got to the porch, he was a bit stymied, though. It wasn't surprising. That porch had stymied better people than him. A couple of years ago, some construction people had come by with a "we're in the neighborhood and we'd be happy to give you a free estimate" and I'd asked them to look at the porch. The porch had been added on to the house some time after it had originally been built, and while the construction appeared to be sound, the entire porch had settled. The floor had a noticeable angle down (better than the other way, I suppose), and the side windows that were once rectangular were now trapezoidal. Greg Cotton had suggested that the solution would be to have a handyman do something with them. The first time around I didn't quite understand what exactly he was suggesting. Tom wasn't able to able to get the windows open, which made painting the trim not so much difficult as totally impossible. He offered to paint them shut, but I told him to hold off and I would do something with them. He also pointed out that while painting the trim on the porch was part of the deal we'd already agreed to, the porch itself would benefit from a paint job. And was I planning on doing anything with the stairs to the basement and the walls surrounding them? (They had awful orange-yellow wallpaper that was peeling off, and the stairs were a lurid green in poor condition.) I agreed that doing those would probably be a good idea, and how much did he want to charge for it? I think it was $400 for the porch and stairs.
In the meantime, I was trying to lasso a handyman to deal with, well, the handy work. Greg had taken care of most of the items that the truth-in-housing inspector had pointed out (removed and capped the gas heater in the basement, did something with a grounding wire, added backflow valves to a few faucets, and fixed the light in the upstairs closet). He also put in the two light fixtures on the porch and the front entryway. Those had been sitting in my front closet since I moved in, and I don't know how long they might have been there before that. Nothing so permanent as a temporary emergency, and all that. Greg, of course, would have been the perfect handyman to deal with what was left to be done, but he didn't have the time or, to be honest, the interest. We were talking about a couple of days' worth of work, not a job that could be done in an hour or two. And besides, he was aobut to fly out of town.
So my quest for a handyman began. I first called someone named Eric who had done work for Pat and Elise. He didn't return my call. He didn't return three calls, in fact. So I called Doug Wickstrom's brother, who I'd had some dealings with a few years ago. Unfortunately, he'd been in a couple of road accidents, and could no longer do that sort of work. That used up the list of names I knew. Then Bob Williams called and asked how the work was going. I told him of my handyman woes, and how I was just about to start working my way down the "handy person" entries in the Yellow Pages. He said that he would make some phone calls. The next day he called back and said that his Eric -- not to be confused with Pat and Elise's Eric was busy on a job, but that his assistant, Travis, would be there the next day, which was Thursday, September 4.
Travis did indeed show up the next day, and wanted to know what I had in mind. I gave him the list of projects:
- Deal with the windows on the porch. I had him talk to Greg for the particulars, and it turned out that what Greg had in mind was to remove all the screens, remove the window cranks, put in hook fasteners, and sand as necessary to get the windows to close. I was a bit dubious, but Greg was sure it would work, and Travis assured me that he understood what Greg was saying.
- Take out the old vanity and faucet in the bathroom and replace it with the in-good-condition hand-me-down I'd salvaged from my parents' house when they redid their bathroom. It had a Grohe faucet and Corion (sp?) basin, and was much nicer than the one it was replacing. The Corion would have to be cut, because there was a piece sticking out on the wrong side, but Greg assured me that cutting it wasn't a big deal -- and he turned out to be correct.
- Remove the horrible paneling in the bathroom and turn the surface underneath into something usable.
- Make the second light in the bathroom work. (There are two sconce-type lights, and one of them didn't have a switch -- so the light stayed on all the time unless you unscrewed the lightbulb -- and the other didn't work, period. Greg put a new switch on the working one, and bought some sort of assembly that he said would enable the second one to be fixed, though he didn't have time to do it.
- Shim the toilet so it didn't wobble.
- Sand down the door to the garage so that it closed.
Travis spent most of the day working on the porch, and seemed to be making good progress. This was actually a pleasant surprise, since I hadn't expected him to do more than assess the job that first day. At the end of the day, he said he'd be back between 8 and 10 on Friday.
Friday came, and 10 am passed into memory with no sign of Travis. Around 10:30, the phone rang, and Travis said that something had come up, and he'd be back on Monday. "Monday!" I managed not to shriek. He was apologetic, but yes, Monday. About an hour later, Bob Williams called, and asked how it was going. He was pleased that Travis had already started, but appalled that he'd just essentially walked off the job for two days. He said he'd see what he could do, and he'd call me back. About an hour later, he told me that he'd arranged for his Eric and Travis to spend Saturday working on my place -- whatever Travis' emergency was, it had been resolved. Bob gives Eric a lot of work, so I suspect that a certain amount of leverage was applied, but I was exceedingly grateful.
So Travis and Eric showed up the next day and did a really remarkable amount of work. They put in the new vanity, pulled off the paneling on the lower walls, fixed the sheet rock behind the paneling, and slip-coated the wall with a first coat. We'd discussed pulling out the medicine chest as well (I had a hand-me down one that matched the vanity), but that was deemed too extensive a project, and not worth the time and money. Eric also brought his electric sander, which made the work on the porch windows progress better.
On Monday, Travis did the second coat of slip-coating in the bathroom. About then, Greg called from out of town to check on progress. I told him about the bathroom improvements, and the decision not to mess with the wallpaper. He said that even if we weren't replacing the medicine chest, the wallpaper should go. While I was on the phone with him, I grasped on of the looser bits of wallpaper and pulled. It came off easily. At that point, of course, I'd crossed the Rubicon. After I hung up with Greg, I pulled off the rest of the wallpaper, and hunted down Tom the painter, who was working in the basement. I showed him the bathroom, and said that I knew this meant more slip-coating and priming before it could be painted, but how much would he charge to take care of it? I think he quoted me another $250. I said go ahead. I was getting the picture as to how house improvements always cost so much more than the original estimate.
Travis finished the job on Monday or Tuesday, I don't remember which for sure. He did a couple of little extra jobs, like planing the door to the library closet so it would close, and capping something in the basement that the truth-in-housing inspector wanted. The porch windows looked much better than they had, if a little odd. A couple of them had boards put in the -- I don't know the term, the part of the window that indents -- to attach the hooks to. Those would look much better when they were painted, I was assured. And in the meantime, the windows closed, which was a vast improvement.
The next morning, Tom called me down to the basement. There was a small puddle on the floor. The toilet was leaking. It had to a result of shimming the toilet; the wax plug must have got unseated. I called Travis, and he came and fixed it. And that was the last of the handy work.
By then Tom was on the home stretch of the work he was doing. We'd planned to list the place on Wednesday or Thursday, but decided to hold off until Friday so all the painting would be done. We'd added another little project, painting the front entryway, for another $75. I don't remember exactly what all the added bits cost individually, but the original estimate was for $1400, and the final cost was $2500. And honestly, I don't begrudge the additional money. Everything that was done came out well, and Tom did some bits that were above and beyond, like painting the doors to the house. The outside of the house didn't look all that different to me, but the inside was a huge improvement. The bathroom had gone from being a huge liability to being essentially neutral. The porch was clean and bright instead of dingy and cobwebby. The stairs to the basement were a nice dark brown, and the walls there were a textured white. Tom had had to do an extra coat on those; the wallpaper glue kept trying to stain through the primer.
The place was ready to list.
(to be continued)
