Fix it and throw out the junk

John asked me if  I knew what color I wanted the shutters and awning painted on his house.

He had asked me that last year as well, but he has some time on his hands right now. He lost his job and is looking for employment. I appreciate that he wants the house to look nice and well kept.

I brought him  a gallon of Mars Clay paint and he got right at it. I have to say the house looks pretty sharp. Thanks John.

The big job this week was making the last house we purchased water tight. Previous owner had nailed tarps on the roof at some time. All but 1 were blown loose and flapping in the wind.

That was causing a real problem with the ceilings.

I laid shingles this week. Remember Monday and Tuesday when there were wind warnings? Yea it was windy on a roof. There was a time or two when I grabbed a new shingle as it was blowing past me and nailed it down. I was pretty happy Monday afternoon when I had the area covered that was leaking. 

I have a rule. No-one puts satellite dishes on our new roofs. We remove all the ones that are on the roof when we put on new shingles. This house had 2. I have removed as many as 4 from a roof on houses we have fixed up. 

Tuesday afternoon the north side was finished and I had found out why there were tarps nailed over the new roof on the south side. Whoever put the roof on did not know how to cap a roof. You have to buy the hip shingles that are made to cap a roof. It wasn't that way with the old 3 tab shingles but times have changed. The roof must have leaked because of poor workmanship on the hip of the roof, so he tarped the whole thing instead of fixing the problem.

At the end of the week it was a great feeling to look down that roof and see it finished. It was also fantastic to find out we had enough warm sun to stick the shingles. I was afraid we were too late in the year and we would be patching or redoing the roof in a few short years. We take possession of a house on Monday that needs a roof and I have seen the weather forecast. We will need to be ready to go as soon as we have a forecast of 50 degrees and sunny.

We have owned this house for a week. There is a new roof and a lot of junk piled outside the house. Micah spent most of Saturday afternoon carrying stuff I had torn out in the basement out to the junk pile. I was tracing electric wires and cutting out the unnecessary ones and those that would need to be replaced with new wire. I am sure the owner was doing his own electrical work. I am also sure he should not have been. Outlets in the basement ceiling. Nope, those are cut out and gone. Wires spliced in mid run to add another line. Nope, those are gone. 

Can lights energized by extension cord wire. Nope, those are gone. I like simplicity in rental houses. If there are 10 electrical outlets in a garage and it needs electrical work, there will be 3 outlets when I am finished. In this house there were outlets in the basement every 3 feet. We have to remove the paneling on the walls of the basement and there will now be half as many outlets. Code is every 6 feet in new build and there is no way I am going to cut around outlets every 3 feet. Nope, not going to happen! Ever! 

Fixed problems and threw out junk this week. John did some painting that was sorely needed to make the house look better. We stopped the damage being done by a leaking roof that needed attention. We carried a lot of doors and paneling and old shelves and electrical wire and florescent lights and studs out and threw it all in a pile for the land fill.  

The shutters and the awning John painted did not become faded and peeling in a short time. The roof did not degrade and start to leak right away (OK the bad workmanship didn't help). The wiring was mistakes made over a period of time. Every "repair" and additional light or outlet was done over a course of years.

We can be like that. We live our lives and don't notice that we are not as faithful to God as we were at one time. We ignore the slow slide away from putting God first.

Jesus says to the church at Ephesus "You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary, yet I hold this against you, you have forsaken your first love."

I have to take a look at my life and ask myself am I still loving God first. It is too easy to let your love of God fade. It is too easy too let added things get in the way of serving God first. That is when it is time to ruthlessly remove all the stuff keeping us from focusing on God. If my life gets too cluttered by what I keep adding to it, I need to remove some things and throw them on the junk pile.

This house we worked on this week will be a better and safer home once we get it finished (we will move away from it and work on the one we close on tomorrow first). It needs to be brought back to the state it was when it was first built with some improvements that have become available since then. GFI outlets and laminate flooring for example.

Sanctification, not only holding on to your first passion for God, but becoming more holy as you grow in faith.

You gotta be kidding

We took possession of a house late Friday morning. I started tearing out the flooring that afternoon.

The pad under the carpet must have been a quality item. 4 foot wide pieces 12 foot long must have weighed over 70 pounds.

With the carpet gone I could see that at some time the owner of the house had put stick down tile on the floors of the entire house. 

I removed all of the interior doors and we are ready for new ones as soon as the walls are all painted and new floors are in.

There was a broken storm door on the back of the garage. The front door needs to be replaced. When there is duct tape on the door to try to hold out the cold air, you know the door is past its useful days. I took the good storm door from the front and installed it on the garage. This morning I thought , "boy I did not get much done on that house this week". Then I realized I had only worked on it Friday afternoon and 5 hours on Saturday. We close on another house on the 28th and it is first on our list to get ready to rent. This house needs new shingles and that is the priority for next week.

I thought the electric was turned off at the house. As you can see above it needs a new breaker box to replace this mess. Rich stopped by earlier last week to look at what it needed before we had the keys and he told me the current was on in the house. On Friday I was able to get most of the outlets working and 2 light fixtures. At least it allows us to use power tools until Rich gets the new box in. I am sort of amazed the house has not burned in an electrical fire from the workmanship I am seeing.

 

This is the wiring that runs to the air conditioner. I am not sure why they made those lovely connections right there, sort of in the fuse box, when the wires from the AC look long enough to reach the fuse screws without the splices. Maybe they were looking to make a sale of the house to the insurance company.

I also started finding when they wired lights in the basement the wiring was extension cord wire. I do not know if that is cheaper than Romax but I do know it is a fire hazard and not code.

That is not an acceptable short cut under and circumstances.

Then there are connections like this. Just a bunch of wires spliced in the open with out wire nuts or even electrical tape. Live wires sticking out from the joists. That could be a shocking experience if you were to reach up there in the dark.

And then the dryer cord. First of all that wire is not rated for a dryer, second you can't just have 6 foot of loose wire with a box on the end.

I saw an extension cord running across the garage ceiling and I wondered what they had it there for. 

Well it went to this fancy cord. Love that spliced wire running through the wall that could be plugged into the extension cord. But being inquisitive I wondered where does that light weight cord run to.

Well lookee there. There was once an outside light between the garage doors. You just had to plug it in to make the light come on. So much easier than mounting a switch in a box, I guess.

I walked past the furnace and thought I would see how bad the filter looked. Uh Oh, no filter. I opened the doors on the furnace and found that the missing filter was the least of our problems. The furnace fan was missing also. We had $3000 in the budget for Furnace and AC repair. This will have to be the only repair we need to make that line item stay in budget

There is an egress window to a bedroom in the basement. A grate is over the top of the window well. I saw there was a chain and a padlock on one side of the grate. OK, not real smart, but I suppose you could tip the grate over and still get out if there was a fire.

Um, no. A chain and pad lock on the other side also. This kinda defeats the purpose of an egress window. If you padlock a grate over the window well it is no longer an egress.

When we did the walk through to estimate costs I did not climb on the roof. I knew the north side needed shingles as it was leaking and there were ripped up tarps on the roof. I did climb in the attic and could see the sheeting was still in excellent shape. When I climbed on the roof to measure the north side for shingles, low and behold what did I see? Some moron had nailed tarps on the south side over the new shingles. The tarps had blown off so it could not be seen from the ground there were slats nailed through the new shingles. Now we have to reshingle the south side as well because the new shingles will have nail holes when we pull off the slats.

A storm came through while the house was for sale and broke out the front picture window. It was a good idea to cover the broken window with plywood on the outside. But why, oh why did they screw a 4x8 sheet of OSB board to the window trim in the inside of the house as well. I am still wondering why the 2 short pieces of deck board were screwed above the OSB Board.

Look inside board gone and window is still sealed shut.

You know they do sell shorter screws. You don't have to run them clear through with a sharp point sticking out. That is especially true on a hand rail.

I was not planning on replacing all the windows until I got a close look at them. The outside wood was clad in aluminum. Yea, I know every one thinks that is a great idea. Never have to paint again right? It may be a good idea if you keep the moisture from getting behind the metal. Yea, this crew didn't.

I started pulling all the metal off and I will need to cut out a couple of the sills and replace them. 

Usually aluminum pulls off around the windows quickly and with ease. Oh not here. They had covered the windows with plastic at some time to keep the windows from leaking air. They used a nail gun to nail the slats holding the plastic. They nailed it every half inch. The nails are close enough you can not get a pry bar or the claws of a hammer between them. It is going to take a long time to clean up around 11 windows. I have 3 done and 8 to go. Each one seems to get harder with more nails in the slats and through the aluminum. I must be working backwards of the direction they put the plastic up. More nails in every window as I go along.

There have bee a lot of "you have to be kidding me" moments the last 2 days as I went through this house. Some of them I knew before we purchased it, some are disappointing finds (after reworking the budget we are pretty close to where we started on costs which is a very good thing). I keep thinking "whatever possessed them to do that?"
Floor your entire house with stick down tile.
The electrical work, Come on, who wants to live everyday in a house that is a fire waiting to happen?
You took the fan out of the furnace? What was that about?
Locked a grate over an egress window? How could you ever live with yourself if someone was trapped in the basement and died in a fire?
Nailed a tarp over a new roof? Why? Just why?
Sharp screw ends on your hand rails? That is one way to punish guests.
And then the windows, oh so many bad ideas.

We are going to have to undo a lot of the previous owners work. The unsafe needs to be made safe. The repairs and fixes that were made which are causing the house to rot need to be repaired correctly. This was definitely a case of  owner done repairs where a contractor would have been a good idea. Someone who knew what they were doing. They may have saved money by doing the repairs themselves but lost a lot of money in the long run. The house sold for $45,000 less than the value should have been. Twice there was an accepted offer that fell through when an inspector walked through the house.

Shortcuts in life seldom work out well. Living for the pleasure of today costs in the long run. Do the right thing the first time. That is a lesson in life I need to keep learning, because it is too easy to take the easy road. That is a recipe for disaster later.

still slacking off

Sharon was really brave this week.

She went off to Coffee break at church and left me in charge of the cinnamon bread baking in the oven. She asked me if I knew how to set the timer. 

I was honest and said "No".

She carefully explained that the bread had to bake for 37 minutes. After 20 minutes it needed to be covered with aluminum foil.

She wondered out loud if she was going to have to call me when it was time to cover the bread and when it was time to take it out of the oven. I think she considered staying home because I was going to mess up the bread.

Personally I think I succeeded. Of course I haven't actually cut into a loaf. I don't even know if there is any around here or if she gave it away as gifts.

I do think it shows I can be trusted to follow directions (that may not always be true as I sometimes get caught up working in my office when asked to do simple tasks.)

  

On Wednesday I finished up grouting bathrooms in the impact building at Lake view. This is the handicap bathroom and was the largest.

This one is off a common room upstairs

I think there were 6 of these smaller bathrooms in dorm rooms.

 2 of these on the ground floor. 

We traveled to Michigan on Thursday and returned on Saturday. We stopped at Walcott to get some food. I saw the grout job done in the men's restroom and thought  "well at least I did a better job than this". If no one else thinks so they can just keep their thoughts to themselves.

This is the common room on the ground floor. Chris, Bob and Dort are making it into a camp building with a rustic look.



Matt and Meagan are living on Wealthy Street in Grand rapids in an historic house. 

  

Meagan took us on a tour of the Dutch store where she works part time. Surprisingly they had wooden shoes for sale.

At first all I saw were the plastic "wooden" shoes. I thought "are you kidding me? plastic shoes?" Then I realized I had walked past the real ones.

There must be a big market here in the states for merchandise from the Netherlands.

The had a huge warehouse full of items.

I think most of it is sold on the internet and shipped out in boxes.

Sharon's sister Bonnie lives by Grand Rapids so we stayed there. Her mom traveled with us.

The food was good and I figured since I was not home, calories didn't count for those 3 days. Just start eating in the morning and continue going to restaurants and coffee shops all day long as well as meals at Ron and Bonnie's house, right?

Ron and Bonnie were married on October 3. The same day as Sharon and I, although there were 12 years between the  weddings.
I don't have a point I want to make this week. I'm just floating along between projects and maybe resting up for the big push ahead. We are supposed to close on a house this Friday that needs immediate work. (I haven't seen an abstract yet so I am thinking closing this Friday is not going to happen.)

Last year at one point when I was just slacking off Sharon said one morning, "Royce, you need to buy  a house." so I bought one that day. She hasn't said that yet this year (that might be because at this point we are just waiting to close on a couple and she know's I will soon have no chance to be bored.)

For the moment I am good with a slower pace, but it shouldn't go on too long. I find if I have a lot to do I get a lot done. If I have spare time I have difficulty getting what needs to be done finished. I guess I need some pressure in my life to keep me getting my work done. Oh well the pressure will soon be back.  I already have calls to rent the houses we are buying and we have at least 60 days work in each of them.

Making Changes

Last year I laid new oak floor in our hall

and in my office

After cleaning the carpet in our living room we gave up and decided to put new flooring in our living room as well.

The problem with oak 3/4 in flooring is every time you move across the floor you only have another 2 inches covered. At the end of the day on Monday I had worked on the floor for 5 hours and was not very far along. I did have it scribed and cut to a snug fit along the brick wall in front of the fireplace and the wooden stairs coming down from the hallway to the living room.

 When it was quitting time on Tuesday I was 2/3 across the floor. Putting down random length boards is like putting together a puzzle.You do not want the joint of 3 consecutive rows to be within 4 inches so you hunt through the pile until the right length is found. 

The last few rows can not be nailed down with the floor nailer. There is no room for the gun up against the wall. A floor nailer shoots staples that will hold against the constant walking and changes in humidity. When you have to switch to a regular nailing gun you know the nails will not hold the floor down as time passes, so you also put glue under the last rows. 

I was over joyed to have the last of the floor in by the end of the day on Wednesday. Thursday I could catch up on a few things and a couple of meetings. On Friday morning I went and finished grouting the bathrooms on the ground floor at Lake View camp.

Saturday Micah and started removing the wall between his kitchen and living room. It is always the unexpected that slows you down on  a project. This time it was all the unexpected electric wires in the wall. We had to find a new way to run the wires.  

By afternoon we had the wall out and all the wires rerouted except the wire to the light switch. It is a 3 way switch and will need a new wire pulled from the fixture to the switch. We didn't have any 3 strand wire and I was sure I had some in storage, so we will have to do that when we rebuild the cabinets and trim up the walls.

Putting in the new flooring was a lot of work. I was pretty stiff and sore at the end of each day from getting up and down, but I love the way the new floor looks and feels.

Saturday when I walked into Micah's house and looked at what he planned, I thought, Oh no, this is going to be a bugger to get done. It is what Micah and Linsey want and by the afternoon Micah said the house was looking better already.

I have come to learn over time that it takes time and effort to make change for the better. It never seems to happen for me easily or immediately. If you want a new wood floor, the furniture all has to be moved and the old carpet torn out. Then the new floor has to be painstakingly put in. 

If you want a wall gone, you first have to find out if it is load bearing, then locate what is running inside the wall. Electrical wires, heating ducts or anything else you may have to deal with and do not want to cut. You have to remove the sheet rock (if you are lucky it is not plaster and lathe). You have to cut out the studs and then fix any sheet rock issues and put up trim.

It is the same way in life, if you want to change for the better, it is never an easy process. You might have to give up ingrained habits. You might have to give up friends who would continue to pressure you not to change. You might have to give up addictions that you never thought of as addictions but really are. You might have to give up some things that you love even though you know they are not good for you. 

We all need to change for the better. In theology we call it sanctification. The process of becoming holy. It may be difficult but we don't do it alone. No one will become a better person on their own. Only when we ask God to walk with us and change us do we change. 

Our old dirty carpet is gone and we have a new oak floor. Micah now has an open concept house. Neither of us would go back to what we had. It is the same with life. When you ask God to make you a better person and then work to change, once you see what life can be, you would never go back to what it was.