See the Good

I pulled the old medicine cabinet out of the house we are working on.

Imagine my surprise to find this cache of old double edge razor blades behind the cabinet. I looked at the cabinet and there was a slit in the metal backing that allowed who ever lived in the house to slide their old used razors through and out of sight.

I did get 1 bedroom finished

 Walls are painted, mini blinds are up, smoke detector in, and new door knobs installed. I bought the door knobs at Walmart. When I got back to the house and started installing them I noticed one of the packages had been taped back together. I checked and all the pieces and screws were there so I thought, well someone must have changed their mind after they opened the package (ok, I cruelly thought maybe his wife didn't like the style so he had to return it). I put the knob in the door and as I was shutting the door this random thought flashed through my brain, you should turn the handle to make sure that thing works. But did I grab the door and check before it closed? Oh no I just let the door close and latch. Yea that knob was returned because their was an important piece missing. The handle turned just fine but the catch that pulls the latch open was not there. That door was not going to open. Of course instead of thinking a minute and pulling the hinge pins I put my flat bar between the jamb to try to pry it open. Yea, that didn't work so well. I could hear the door starting to crack. I was about to quit when it popped open. I went back to Walmart and exchanged it for a new knob. I did tell them to not resell that knob because it didn't work.

I hate painting the inside of closets. Quite often they don't need to be painted, but these were really bad. Black marks on the walls. It looked like those black marks that used to be left by the soles of shoes. But 3 foot high? Come on really?

Friday was a warm day and I got the exterior doors painted.

I can paint the siding and exterior trim after a tenant moves in but the doors have to be open to paint them and it is much easier when the house is vacant. I saw the weather forecast and used the warm day to get them done.

Remember this bedroom floor with the carpet pad stuck to it? Every day I worked on cleaning that baby.

  I would pour water on a section in the morning and scrape off anything that had loosened by 3 pm. Then pour water on a section and scrape that area the next morning. It has come up in 2 layers. First the top layer gets wet and releases and then you have to soak the bottom layer. Just watch I am going to have hours and hours invested in this floor only to have the last washing make the wood buckle and a new floor will have to be put in anyway.

 

Friday was Sharon's last day of work until next year. She wanted to get away for the evening, go out to eat and stay away overnight. I looked on-line and found a really cheap hotel room. The hotel didn't look very fancy in the pictures but we just needed a place to sleep right? When we pulled into the parking lot it looked a lot nicer than I had anticipated. We went in to the front desk to register and the woman who checked us in said "Oh, you have a king suite." I am thinking "I don't think so, not for what I paid" She gave us a map of the motel and showed us which room was ours and which door to use. As we walked back to the car I asked Sharon "did she say king suite?" Sharon said "yes." I looked at the map and saw that the size of the room we had the key to was larger than all the rooms except 2 others. When we opened the door we entered the sitting room with the bar area.

Then you could walk down the hallway to go to the Bedroom.

  We had 2 fridges, 2 microwaves, 2 TVs. In the sitting area with the wet bar there were cupboards with glasses and plates. I don't know who messed up our booking, but they can book a room for me any time. I measured the room (hey, I am in the real estate business, its what I do). It was over 600 square feet. We have a couple of rental houses that size with kitchen, living room, bathroom and 2 bedrooms squeezed in. Here that was the size of the king bed suite.

This summer some members of our church built this building for Lake View Camp. I helped with the planning but never made it out to actually work on the building. That might be the reason the building is straight and square, I wasn't there (see how I made that rhyme? I don't want you to miss that linguistic flourish). Anyway we stopped on our way back from Des Moines because I had heard lake View Camp had gotten someone to install the overhead doors. And yes indeed, there were doors in the building. So any of you reading this who helped to build this machine shed, the doors are in and thanks for all the work, money, and time you donated to this project

So, lets see, I found old razor blades in a wall, had to paint 2 closets (ugh) , installed a door knob and locked myself out of a closet, spent a couple of hours every day scraping old stuck carpet pad off a floor I may not be able to salvage anyway. Now there is a good time, right??

On the flip side I finished a bedroom and shut the door on it. ( when we shut the door on a room that means it is finished and ready to rent.) Painted exterior doors in December, Spent a night away, (First Saturday I haven't worked in a long time) at a much upgraded hotel room that was bargain priced to start with. Saw that someone else had completed a job our church members had started. 

 A lot of life is attitude. Remember the question, how do you see the glass? Is it half full or half empty? I could complain about purchasing a door knob that was defective, but instead I find it humorous that I was too stupid to check it before I installed it and closed the door. What kind of an idiot does that, anyway? I don't want to see a glass half empty. I want to see life as not only half full but full to over flowing. There will always be things that don't work out in this life. We live in a broken sin filled world, but I have a God who cares for me, watches over me and fills my life with good things and joy.

Next week is Christmas. 2000 years ago Jesus changed the lives of all who accept his saving grace from totally empty to overflowing. May your eyes be open to the blessing God gives you every week. May you see the gifts of God even when things go wrong. Revel in the love of God and all the bad will fade away.

How much good to bad

We bought a house a couple of months back that had a 10 year old furnace in it. I did not open the door of the furnace and look inside. Why would I? I never have before. Well that was a mistake this time. The case of the furnace was there and the inside had been taken out. The question becomes, why? Why would someone remove the working parts of a furnace. They left the Air conditioning coil which was what would have had value to sell to a scrap yard.

Tom and Brandt put in a new furnace this week. We have another house to finish before we start on this one but a least there is heat in this house now. It is never good to let a house freeze through. 

Although as they were putting the furnace in I realized that the windows leaked air and we had a budget for new windows.

So 11 new windows went in this week so we could at least contain the heat once the furnace was working.

That led to another new pleasure. I actually broke a new window installing it. The other old windows all came out fairly easily except this one. Both top and bottom panes broke when I removed them. then the top pane on the new one broke when I put it in. The space must be out of square and puts pressure on the glass is all I can figure out. Oskaloosa glass is going to come out and install a new double pane in place.

I was putting in the last window and the furnace was up and running when I smelled gas. Now kids don't try this at home. I checked for a gas leak with a lighter. Yes, there was a leak. I have checked a lot of lines with a lighter, Tom our furnace guy told me he checks lines with a lighter all the time. I held the lighter by the regulator and just kept lowering it down the pipe.Usually if there is a leak you get a little blue flame, not this time. I found myself crouched down when a 3 foot ball of flame engulfed me. Wow, that was a head rush. It made quite a woof noise as the air exploded. I did have to stomp out the flames as the dead grass was burning but other than that, no damage. Amazing! I think I will use the detergent with water in a spray bottle next time to check for a leak. Might be prudent.

The house, we started on this week Thursday, had no lights working. Both pull switches were gone from this ceiling fan. Could not turn the fan off or the light on. Not real handy.

Work light there now until I get the ceiling fixed and painted.

Kitchen light fixture is replaced with a work light also.  I am pretty sure the former owners smoked. If that is how much tar sticks to ceilings what does it do to a smoker's lungs? It is difficult to clean that up as new paint will not stick to the tar. That means, clean the ceiling and then paint. I hate working over my head and now I get to do this ceiling twice.

The light fixture in the back entry is replaced with a work light as well. The fixture was bad and the light switch was also stuck in the off position. 

Nothing like a good sized hole in the sheet rock. That will have to be cut square and patched. Funny how we raised 3 boys and never had to patch the sheet rock in our house. Makes you wonder just what happens in these houses.

And how exactly did the pad under the carpet in one bedroom get totally stuck down to the hard wood floor?

I took a mud knife and started scraping it up. Before I put too much work into it, I thought I should check if it would come up everywhere. Yea, not so much any where else. I did pour water and let it soak on some of it and the next day it sort of came up. I don't know how much time I want to spend trying to save the oak floor or if we just put a new floor over the top. I know that old oak floor will last a life time and a new laminate will last through 2 tenants, so there is that.

There was a base cabinet in an odd place in the kitchen.

It was great to find out it was not attached and I could slide it to a better spot right beside where the stove will go.
So if I calculate correctly I found 9 bad things this week and 1 good thing, not a very good batting average. I keep that average when looking at houses and figuring repairs costs, the boys might fire me.
I wonder if I could figure out how many good things I did this week and how many bad things what my average would be. More good or more bad? That might depend on who I asked. I was listening to the radio and heard this story of a man watching a video of all he had done and thought in his life, after he had watched it, the video was going to be shown to the public. As I listened to that, I thought "I don't think I want everyone to see and know my sins". I don't think I want everyone to know my average of good and bad.
Thinking about that, I sure am glad Jesus paid for all my "bad" thoughts and deeds. makes my average better in God's eyes.

Sprint to the finish

It has been a busy 2 weeks since I last updated the blog. We took possession of this house October 30 and had to get a new roof on the house and the garage after we bought it. Looking back I'm a bit stunned that Jason and family moved into the house yesterday.

Last Saturday Micah washed out all the cupboards

I think he was tired of it by the time he was finished. He has just a little less patience than I do and I do not have much.

All of the blinds or curtain rods were on the windows.

The flooring was all in.

We hung an additional cupboard in the bathroom.

The bathroom was finished and looked a lot better than when purchased.

The front porch carpeting was torn out and new flooring put in.

Got everything carried out of the basement.

Washer and dryer hookups were repaired in the back basement room.

 

Chris and Julie had given us a bunch of cupboards. I had moved them into the garage at this house as a quick place to store them. I stacked them in our storage building. Micah had told me they would not fit. Oh, he was wrong. It took me a full day and a half to get them stacked in there but I succeeded. 

Thursday afternoon Jason stopped by this house to pay his rent on the house he was renting. He had told me earlier he was looking for a larger house. I suddenly remembered that and asked him if he was interested in this one. Friday evening he called and said he was going to start packing. (Sharon tells me if I did that to her I would be in deep trouble.)

Having Jason moving in on Saturday made us scramble to get a few finishing touches done. The rail for this closet door arrived in the mail Friday. It went in Saturday morning.

 As I was driving home on Friday, I thought, oh no, we don't have a fridge in there yet. Saturday morning we bought a fridge. I asked if that was delivered price. Doug said "no". Then he said he was going into town anyway so he would drop it off. When he stopped by the house to drop off the fridge he got out his tape measure and measured the doorways, unloaded the fridge and put it in place. Thanks Doug, it was greatly appreciated. So the hole where the fridge goes is now filled with a fridge.

 We did some work on a house we have in the country to fill the rest of the week. Tom is putting in a new furnace (or just putting in a furnace as the last owners left only the outside case of the one that is there) this week. The front door was going to leak air and all the windows let in plenty of fresh air even when closed. I replaced the front door on Friday.

yesterday Micah and I put the old front door on the side of the garage to replace a door that would not lock. Then we installed 2 of the 11 windows that have to go in. We might have been able to get in another window but we had to meet Harrison for inspection of the house we just finished. Harrison was early and as Jason was moving in the house was open, so by the time Micah and I drove up Harrison was ready to sign paperwork. 37 days from start to finish including Sundays, thanksgiving and days off. That was a quick turn and it was a race to the finish.
This year is almost over. 3 weeks and 2 days and it will be 2020. We are now in the race to the finish of the year. I have been evaluating what I have accomplished so far this year. Not how many houses we fixed, or rented. I have been evaluating if I have used the time God gave me this year to build God's kingdom. Have I helped those who have been in need that God placed in my life. Have I given Godly advice to those who needed it. Have I loved others the same as I loved myself.
II Timothy 4:7 Good News Translation: I have done my best in the race, I have run the full distance, and I have kept the faith.
I am not sure I was always running my best this year, but if I do not look back and evaluate what I have done, I will not improve. As you sprint to the finish of this year and you look back, How was your year? Did you run your best?

The big con

We have a house that we purchased in October that we have stopped working on and moved on to another easier to fix house.

The I received an email and a phone call this week Monday morning. We are using this house for collateral on a Line Of credit. I was e-mailed that there would be an independent evaluation this week. The phone call was from our insurance company that they were going to downgrade the insurance on the house because there was a boarded up window.

That was a double call to action. I drove down to Ottumwa on Monday afternoon and purchased a new window. Tuesday morning I installed the new window. Sent a picture to the insurance company at noon to get the insurance issue corrected.

On Wednesday the house was evaluated and given a value of between $111,000 and $124,000. We purchased the house for $40,000 and put on a new roof and a few quick fixes before deciding to move to another house. Looks like time and money well spent at this point. 

Spent the rest of the week laying floors in that other house.

The bedrooms are all finished

The kitchen had a laminate floor that was starting to come apart. 

You can see we have been walking over the new floor to finish other flooring but it is in.

Yesterday I put in the bathroom floor and Micah installed the living room floor. Now all we have left to floor is the heated front porch.

While I was putting in the new window and laying floors this week I also had some fun.

Last house I advertised on Craigslist for rent I was contacted that the house was listed by someone else also. I went on-line and flagged the ad as fraud. The man was still able to get his ad up for short periods of time.

On Monday a lady called me and asked if she had been contacting me by phone to rent a house. She had not. They were ready to send "Steve" $1,000 when they thought something did not seem right. After checking with the Mahaska County recorder to see who owned the house, she called me to check if I was the person who she was sending money to. No, that house was rented.

She gave me the phone number she was in contact with, so I decided I should see if I could rent our own house from this guy named Stephen Louis Huspek (his phone is through Verizon out of Queens NY. here are our texts with my commentary in parenthesis).

Me: Is the house still available? (I figured I should find out if our tenants were still there, right?)

Steve: Hello thanks for you interest in my house, the house is available for move in now and I'm looking to rent to a reliable and trustworthy tenant. Lease 1yr,2yrs/6month also month to month. You should drive by to check it out because I'm presently not in town to show it then contact me if you want to proceed for the application. Thanks Stephen (Boy he wants a reliable tenant not sure that would be me)

Me: That looks like a nice house from the outside. When can I see the inside and get an application? (is always nice to ask to see the inside of your own hose before you take your key and go look. It is just being polite)

Steve: I won't be in town till December, and am looking to rent before then since the house is available now. Will want you to drive by first, then if you like it we go from there. requirement- stable income and clean record. Am owner of the house so I do not check credit. Just a good income and a person that will always pay his or hers rent and bills. (um excuse me I already texted that I drove by, getting redundant here Stevie boy and that good income thing might be a problem for me.)

Me: Ok how do I fill out an application. ( come on baby give me an address, I need an address to send the app to so you can be charged by the FBI for mail fraud)

Steve: I would like you to provide me with:

1. 3 references and their phone numbers

2. Your full name

3. Your full address

4. Phone number

5. are you married

6. How many people will be living in the house

7. Do you have a pet?

8. Occupation

9.When you would like to move in (date)

10. How many months /years are you willing to rent?

Get it and text me once I get these I will check it out for review and if approved we proceed to next step. I wait to read from you soonest with these details so that I can fill out my document. ( I actually thought about who I could use for references but couldn't think of anyone who would say I was reliable so though it was time to go a different direction)

Me: I found a key under the doormat. I have put electric and gas in my name and have contacted Oskaloosa Water department. I am going to move in and I will pay you when you get back to Oskaloosa. Can't wait to meet you. (Oh yea, Stevie come on down and evict me as a squatter)

Funny but I never heard back from Steve.

The house we had evaluated for collateral is not worth $111,000. It might look like it from the outside to someone who has not seen the inside but they are fooled by appearances. We put new flooring over old floors. It covered the ugly. If you take up the new floors the ugly is still there you just can't see it.

Satan is like that. He makes a life with out God look like the real thing. He tries to convince people that they are not bad people. You don't need forgiveness. You look pretty good on the out side. If there is a heaven you deserve to be there because you have lived well. He is a liar.

Satan is also like Stephen Louis Huspek (or whatever his real name may be) He is selling a false bill of goods. If you choose to believe his lies, you will have paid the price but you will have no home. He is running the big con and anyone who believes him and lives for self and the pleasures of today will pay the price and no eternal life with God. Don't be fooled by the big con.

Cleaned up

We had a tenant move out last Sunday. One bedroom needed to be repainted as they had the furniture up against the walls and had damaged the paint. There were a couple of cracks in the plaster that needed to be filled and sanded down. I painted the rest of the bedroom on Monday except for the uncured patches. When I closed the paint can I set it in a cardboard box so I wouldn't get any paint on the wooden floors. Then I started picking up the some of the stuff they had left behind. I was filling boxes to go to the landfill. 

Tuesday morning I loaded the pickup 2 times and hauled furniture to the landfill along with the boxes i had filled with everything else including the food out of the fridge. I was going to finish painting the bedroom and looked for my can of paint. I looked for a while when I realized my can of paint was in one of those boxes the went to the landfill. I have to confess that I did not tell the truth when they asked me at landfill if there was any paint in my load. It was a special blend and I would have gladly had it back as I had to go get some more blended to match just to finish 4 square foot of wall.

I hauled away bicycles, yes that is plural

and a pickup load of furniture to the thrift store.

I don't like to throw away furniture someone else can use.

A neighbor came and bought this table cheap

Neal came over to buy this dresser

I talked him into taking this one along for no extra cost. Thanks Neal.

Friday morning I did something I never thought I would do. I swept the snow off the back porch on this house so I could shingle it.

if you look close you can see the snow melt running out from under the new shingles. There was a fine layer left on the roof when I started shingling.

Got the garage finished Friday as well.

It is a good feeling to be finished with roofs for the year. Now we can do interior work till spring.

     It was a clean up kind of week. Had a house that needed to be cleaned out and cleaned up. Got the last of the roofing cleaned up and done for the year.
     I met some people this week and thought "wow you need to clean up your life." Its easy to see where others are sinning but not so easy to see where we need to clean up our own lives. I sat in on a Sunday school class this morning. Sophomores in High School taking a deeper look at the Ten commandments. Doug asked the class if we obeyed the first commandment of having no other gods would we need the other 9? He was right if we serve God first we wouldn't have to worry about the rest of the commandments. Our lives would be all cleaned up. I think instead of looking at others I need to make sure I am putting God first and get my life cleaned up.