Bad habits

After a hiatus in latter December and first week of January, winter has come back with a vengeance. 

Before I was able to start working on the house we are rehabbing this week I had to shovel snow off the sidewalk too many mornings.

Thursday morning I also loaded up some insulation and went to make sure the water meter in a garage was well covered. At some point a bad decision was made to put the water meter in the garage instead of in the crawl space under the house. It generally does not freeze in crawl spaces. It does freeze in garages. Why would you put water pipes where they can freeze? It makes no sense to me. I built an insulated closet for it last summer after having to thaw the pipes last winter during that stretch of below zero weather. We were heading for Michigan on Friday morning and I did not want a call from the tenant when we were part way to Michigan that her water was frozen.Inside an insulated closet and packed in insulation I hope it says thawed during the -24 expected Wed. night of this week.

I spent most of the week finishing ceilings and walls.

The first coat of paint is on the bedroom and living room ceilings

See that brownish color on the ceiling of the bedroom before I painted? That ceiling had never been painted before. It was just the sprayed on texture. I am willing to bet someone smoked in the house and turned the ceiling brown. Having seen the residue that is left by smokers on walls, ceilings, and even in cupboards, I would strongly suggest never starting that habit.

What was once white had been turned a nasty brown.

It is going to take at least 2 coats of paint to cover the brown. I hate painting ceilings. It gives me a pain in the neck. 

I painted part of the kitchen ceiling before I ran out of the 2 gallon of paint I had purchased for the ceilings. It also had that lovely brown color of embedded smoke and tar.

I spent my week covering up the results of bad habits and a bad decision. I'd like to think I don't have bad habits and I don't make bad decisions, but who am I kidding. I just try to cover them up so they can't be seen. Instead of taking down the sheet rock and putting up all new I painted over the smoke damage. Instead of re-plumbing the house with the pipes out of frost's reach I buried them in insulation.

That may work and be perfectly acceptable in a house but it is not acceptable in our lives is it? If we have bad decisions and bad habits we can't just cover them up, we need to admit our mistakes and our sins and tear them out of our lives and start over. I think I may have to work on that this week. Take a hard look to make sure I am not just covering up instead of renewing my life with Christ.

walls

I spent most of my week working on walls. Some fool bought a house that had a rehab started on it. 

I have to admit I was the only one who walked through this house before we bought it. I thought it looked like most of the sheet rock was already back up.

I might have been wrong about that. At least this way we could hang moisture and mold resistant dry wall in the bathroom.

The ceilings were up, which helped a lot. I hate hanging dry wall on ceilings.

Since we are replacing all the windows, I pulled some of the new sheet rock back off and put up new cut to fit the new windows. 

We also closed in a wide doorway to turn a room on the ground floor into a bedroom. It will add a lot of value to the house.

By the end of today I am tired of joint compound, but the seams everywhere but the hall have at least the first coat on and several have the finish coat.

At some point, someone had removed a wall. A supporting wall. Even though the house has stood this way for, what looks like, at least 60 years, I still thought it would be wise to put a supporting beam across the opening.

The ceilings were 10 foot high in most of the house which means there are 2 joints running around the rooms. Yea that's what I really wanted, more joint compound to mud on and sand down.

My wrists are sore this evening from pulling a mud knife most of today. Not the type of work I am used to. I am not going to say I am very good at it either.

So I spent my week building walls. It seems the whole world is wanting to build walls right now. The attitude seems to be that if you are not like us , we don't want your kind living with us. 

I remember as a young boy singing the song "Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world." That may not be a politically correct way to say that truth today, but I have a feeling some only want Jesus to love the ones who don't look like us or talk like us if they live somewhere else.

I am willing to build walls in houses, but I am not willing to build walls in my life. I meet a lot of interesting and great people, who are not "like me". The past few years I have been tearing down walls I find in my life and recognizing God loves all the children of the world. It has allowed me to see God at work. What more could I ask for? 

House is rented

The windows that were supposed to be ready to pick up December 26 were delivered to the store this week.

That meant it was time to tear out the old windows

At least they were all the same size so I could cut all the filler boards the same length. It was almost like running an assembly line. Precut all the wood. Tear out the old windows. Fasten in the new windows and put up the final trim.

Carried all the old windows out and will give them away. It amazes me, people actually want these things. If you want a window and you see Sharon, ask her. She is in charge of giving them away.

It was the last major project in this house.

I was finishing up some trim boards on the exterior of the new windows when I saw the kitchen window on the east side of the house. AH, that's why I originally had 1 more window on the list to order. I still have a window to replace.

And all the wood working tools are moved to the next house, 

and the basement is swept out and cleaned.

Why even this lovely toilet in the basement is hooked up and usable. The inspector allows toilets in basements without vent fans or doors as long as the basement is not partially finished. I don't understand the rules, I just abide by them. If you have a family of 4 in a house they want that extra toilet hooked up in the basement. 

We removed the ones we had in basements when the inspection program started because of all the cost for code compliance. Then after putting in a vent fan, and a door, I watched the inspector walk past a basement bathroom without even checking it. I did not ask any questions that day because I did not want him going back and checking, but I did later. that was when it was explained to me they do not check "emergency toilets" for compliance. Even  later I asked for a definition of "emergency toilet". We were in a partially finished basement and we had removed a toilet and taken out the door because of a mold issue. The inspector took one look and said, "if you put that toilet back in there you will need a vent fan and a door." (This was  a house where the inspector and I were arguing a lot. He wanted balustrades on the front ramp. Sorry pal, not doing it it is only 27 inches high and has a rail. Code says I don't need them at less than 30 inches. Well its close he said. No it is 3 inches within code my friend. Did he really think I don't measure those heights before he shows up? He wanted a ladder in the basement window well. Sorry pal, not doing it there is no bedroom down here. Yea, but there could be he replied. Yea but there isn't. Hey there is a closet in the back corner of the basement so that makes it a bedroom, he said. There is a sink in the front corner does that make it a kitchen? I replied. Then I was informed he was going to put a note in his file. Oh, well if you are going to write a note.... Ask me if I care.)  Anyway for basement toilets it has to be in an "unlivable" basement and not in regular use. That made some tenants happy when we started putting the basement toilets back in.

New water heater is in. The one that was originally there was fairly new and worked great but there was no way I was going to get it to vent the exhaust within code so now we have an almost new water heater setting in storage.

Tom got the new HVAC installed this week. 

And I finished the wood floors. 

Ceiling light in the living room is up. Too many remodel jobs 40 years back removed ceiling lights. Evidently lamps were the fad. Stupid fad, if you ask me. Now I have to put the lights back in or else tenants have to have lamps. We always put in the ceiling lights.

Also enclosed the stairwell. I wanted to put up a half wall with sheet rock, Micah wanted slats. Look who won that one. I don't believe it was me.

Goal was February first. Tenant started moving in yesterday. I love it when we are ahead of schedule.

The house rented without ever advertising it. We have that happen quite often. I firmly believe God sends the people he wants living in our houses. That doesn't mean it is always smooth sailing. Sometimes rent payment is late, sometimes the house is not cared for the way I want it to be, but if God sends the tenant he will make it all work out. We may have to repair broken windows and doors and repaint walls, replace flooring, but I tell myself, I make a mess out of my life at times also and God keeps providing for me. If we can build God's kingdom by providing housing for those God sends to us. That is good enough for me.

A wedding

It has been a busy week. I realized today that I had no pictures from the week so all of the pictures on this post were pulled from a video. I am told there are over 1500 pictures of the wedding but I don't have any of those yet. Our middle son Micah got married yesterday.

Here he is giving Sharon a hug as he escorts her into the church. Sharon walked in with Micah alone because Micah and Linsey asked me to do part of the service.

I was privileged to walk down the aisle with Micah

I shared the best spot in the church to watch Linsey be escorted by her parents down the aisle.

I had put together the message on the passage Micah and Linsey had chosen. I had actually put some work into it and had an outline in My Bible. The night before the wedding I couldn't sleep.

God wanted a different message than the one I had planned. You can see in the picture above I have closed my Bible and put away my notes. God wanted the message to Micah and Linsey to be,"Open your eyes and see me at work, Have a vision of God."

God was telling me to give them this blessing as a father to his children; May you see God and may He be your vision. 

Nate, a friend of Micah came up and did the last part of the service.

The family came to the front of the church, laid hands on the couple and prayed over them.

Nate told Micah that he could kiss his bride 

and presented them as Micah and Linsey Spoelstra

Micah and Linsey are married. 

The song after the message was Be Thou My Vision. I do not know who chose the song, but it was not till Early morning on Saturday the day of the wedding, that I realized God had worked it out months before. I was to tell them to have God as their vision and then we were going to sing that song.

This morning in our church, star gifts were handed out. A collection plate is passed and you take out a "star gift". You do not know what the gift will be until you turn the card over. My card this morning said "vision" I knew the gift was not for me. It was a re-enforcement of the message and blessing for Micah and Linsey. The extended family watched Micah and Linsey open gifts this afternoon. After all the gifts were opened I said, "I have one more gift for you. It is what I received in church today." I handed it to Micah. Someone asked "What does it say?" 

Micah said "vision" and everyone there said "Oh, wow"

I saw prayers answered this week and a man live and recover who the doctors thought was going to die within 12 hours. I wonder is he alive today because we needed to open our eyes and see God at work. I wonder was he brought back from the edge of death to be a wedding message illustration?

I never underestimate the works of God.