Laying Floors

A tenant had a washing machine leak last week. It made an old carpet even worse. For some reason the tenant felt she should have new flooring. What? New flooring just because the old carpet is wet and stained? Come on, it adds character right?

Ok so I could understand, she did not want her 9 month old boy crawling on that awful carpet. I tore  up the old carpet and carried it out of the house. The tenant kept asking when my sons would be coming to help me. I finally explained to her that is was just me on this job. Micah is a CPA and has a job that pays better than I get paid (yea, I know that is a bit of a blow to a father's ego) and Matthew is studying in seminary (if I am helping to fund that in a small way, he had better be studying).

We lay a lot of new flooring. Right now we are putting in laminate snap together floors only, no carpet. This is a picture of a bedroom when we bought a house.

Same bedroom with new flooring and paint. The tenant this week told me she wanted carpeting. I have learned you do not explain, you do not argue, you simply state facts. We do not put carpeting in rentals. If you want new flooring I will install it if you want to keep your carpeting, I am fine with that. "But I want carpeting" she said. My reply is simple, "we do not put carpeting in rental houses."

Sometimes when we buy a house the carpet is so horrid you have to wear gloves to touch it. The carpeting in this room was so bad it felt greasy. I really don't want to know what was embedded in it. I think there was a lot of tar in it from smoking. If you smoke, come tour some houses with us and see the residue you are leaving in your lungs. 

Same room with laminate flooring and new paint. Those are cut open apples lying on the floor. Apples remove the smoke odor. The amazing information available on the internet.

This room had a lovely stick down tile floor, although the pink walls really made it say "a professional decorator was here" to me.

Sometimes just neutral and bland has a cleaner look. We are not fixing up houses to sell so we do not have to worry about buyer preferences. I just have to please me (that is as long as Sharon is too busy to check on my work). When we started this buisness Sharon chose the colors, but she is usually too busy to show up until the deed is done. I have found that if you take all the remnants of paint we find in houses we purchase, add all the paint we have left from other projects and you get a nice gray or tan color. If you run out before the room is finished, well you were going to paint an accent wall weren't you.

I do get some satisfaction taking a floor that really has no redeeming value other than it is solid

and spending the time and effort to turn it into something I can say (in my opinion anyway) looks a lot better.

 (and for those of you who were wondering my opinion is the only one that matters until Sharon sweetly asks "your not going to leave that, that way, are you? Then of course my opinion doesn't matter anymore.)

I did get the new floor installed. This was the first floor we put in while a tenant was living in the house. We have still been installing floors as tenants were moving in, but when they are living there it makes it more difficult.

You have to work around their schedule and their furniture. When installing a snap together laminate floor, on some types you have to tap the floor together. (the manufacturers idea of tap is my idea of a good hit on the "tapping" block with a hammer. Now when I do that I am looking behind me to see that the pieces are joining correctly while hitting the block blind. I now know this is not a good idea. 

Wow does that hurt. I found out you can split your finger nail in half and take a chunk off the side of your finger with just one whack of the hammer. We have 1200 square ft. of flooring to install next month. I think that Thanksgiving vacation will be a good time for the boys to get that little item finished. I am kinda gun shy about laying flooring at the moment.

A Painted House.

John Grisham authored the book "A Painted House". He writes-
...I headed for the Mexicans. "Buenos Dias." I said to the group. "co'mo esta'?"
All nine answered in some fashion. They were going back to the barn for another wasted day. I walked along with them until I was far enough away that my parents couldn't hear. "Y'all want to paint some?" I asked....
Ten minutes later three of the six paint buckets were open and there were Mexicans hanging all over the west side of our house. They fought over the three brushes. ( A Painted House by John Grishom, page 348 published by Doubleday 2001. )

In August I was contacted by Chris Hurley of Joshua Christian Academy if I would paint a house that had been donated to the school in Des Moines. In a weak moment I agreed. We have a paint sprayer and have painted several of our houses.

There is a difference though, between painting a house that has just had all new siding and trim installed

The corners are all so crisp and straight. The siding has no old uneven paint and the end result just looks sharp. (at least from the curb)

They paint fast and a house can be finished in a day and a half. One day to paint the siding and the next morning paint the trim.

Well, I went up to Des Moines on Tuesday morning to start painting the house. Had been pushed back since the end of August as the contractor was getting the house scraped and the bad siding replaced. 

I was surprised to find the siding was not all on the house yet and the windows still needed to be replaced. I thought, well here we are the 3rd week of October and we are running out of time so I will paint what I can. 

I had to leave at noon on Tuesday and as I loaded my pickup I realized I was in trouble. I had some of the primer and a small portion of the finish paint on. 

Sharon and I went to visit Joan and Tony that afternoon and I asked if they would have any time to help paint a house. Joan told me her father loved to paint. So I went to see Marvin. Marvin is 89 years old and still stays busy. "Hey Marv, Y'all want to paint some?" Yea, he thought he could make that work.

Marvin is a good man with a paint sprayer. We got most of the body of the house painted on Wednesday. I went back on Thursday to see how much of the rest I could get done. 

I hate to leave a job unfinished but with the windows still needing to be replaced, the rake boards rotten on the ends and having spent two and a half days on what I thought would be a 12 hour job it was time to walk away. The only way we got as far as we did is because Marvin is still out there donating time and expertise at the young age of 89. It showed me that you are never too old to give of your time and talents to build the kingdom of God.

Where the tree falls

Ecc 11:3 If clouds are full of water, they pour rain upon the earth. Whether a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where it falls, there will it lie.
Ecc 11:4 Whoever watches the wind will not plant; whoever looks at the clouds will not reap.

Ecc 11:5 As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb,   so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things.

I was reminded of the above passage from Ecclesiastics when I went to survey the damage on Wednesday morning last week. My cell phone was ringing at midnight on Tuesday. That is a sound I never want to hear because no one calls me at midnight just to tell me what a lovely person I am. It was a tenant who although he knew it was late just wanted me to know a large branch had fallen on the neighbors lawn shed. (we also own the neighboring house so he wanted me to know we had a problem) This picture really does not show just how large this branch was. if you look closely you can see my 16 inch chain saw on the stone fireplace and it is much shorter than the diameter of the down limb. 

I had been sharpening the chain on my chain saw every time I used it this year. It was getting dull but it worked for what I needed it if I just spent a little time sharpening it. This tree limb was too big and the chain was cutting just off enough it was getting stuck. I went to Orscheln to get a new chain. I thought I remembered that the saw was an 18 inch blade. Now I want you to know that I did measure the blade just to verify that I was right before I went merrily off to buy a chain. Only problem was I measured the entire blade instead of just up to the slots on the blade. The helpful clerk at Orscheln , as I was checking out, perkily said "The senior citizen discount will help you out on this purchase today." That smarted a bit as I don't know at what age they give the senior citizen discount, but I am pretty sure you have to be past 60. Ouch, but thanks I guess. I just didn't ask her how old she thought I was. Now if you look at the picture above you will see the chain in that package is a 14 inch chain. Well of course I had measured the blade to the wrong point and the 18 inch chain was way too long. I had cut the packaging open and had to go back to the store and buy another chain after measuring exactly as the diagram on the back of the 18 inch chain package had shown how to measure. The clerk was very kind when I told her what had happened and told me she would take the 18 inch chain back and exchange it for a 14 inch. Well guess what, it was not a 14 inch blade either. It is a 16 inch blade. There was no way I was going to bring in another cut open package and tell them I had measured wrong twice, so I have a 14 inch chain if anyone needs one.

Sometimes we think we have our lives figured out and we know what tomorrow will be like. But then the unexpected happens and our world changes. The tree falls where it will. I often get too caught up in the tasks of the day and lose the vision of eternity. Don't worry so much about the fallen trees in your lives. Worry about whether you are loving those God has placed in your life right now. God will take care of everything else if you just go where He leads you.