Too much stuff

Since I last wrote, we have finished the last jobs at one house and went back to working on another.

This was a claw foot tub that had been "built in" by the former owner. Although I have 2 daughters-in-law who thought it was a great tub, it is gone!!

Replaced by a modern tub and shower with tile surround.

The old sink is gone to recycling.

I built a new vanity and put a different top on it. That finished up the house, we rented it, and moved on.

Once the demo is finished, the first job on  a house is getting the walls fixed and painted.

A newly painted wall makes a bedroom look so much better.

You could see daylight around the front door.

It was a tight fit for the new one. Micah and I were getting worried that we had the door out and were going to have to cut into the top plate. A Saturday, open hole where the door was and if we had to cut the opening taller, a permit is needed before you can install the door. I think we both breathed a little easier when that door slid in after cutting the trim work narrower.

Have gotten a good start on the kitchen as well.

New back door 3 weeks ago. New floor went in today.

Fridge is purchased and waiting to be brought in. We still need a gas range.

Living room walls needed some work, but that is complete.

All painted and the floor is about ready for a new coat of polyurethane. 

I was contacted by a tenant that there was a cold air leak at the head of her tub. I had already cleared half the stuff off the shelf when I took this picture. First of all, I know I am a male and bald so I have very little need for anything more than 1 bottle of shampoo and a bar of soap. Still, really, how many bottles does one use?

I hate clearing off other peoples stuff to do a project they have requested. This woman actually had a lot less stuff to move than the last bath room I had to work in. If you want something changed, it would be nice if I didn't have to move all the stuff. I get calls that there is a leak under a kitchen sink. I get there to check it out and about half the time the cupboard under the sink is stacked full. Not just 1 layer but actually stacked full to right under the sink. There have been times I have wondered if the kitchen floor was big enough to stack all the supplies that are stored under the sink. How do they find anything if they need to use it?  Maybe that is why they have so much stuff stacked in the cupboards, it's easier to buy another bottle than find the one they already have.

On the last house 6 pickup loads of junk had to be carried out and disposed of.

This was the back porch  of the house we are working on now, when I first looked at the house. Maybe a little too much stuff.

I am trying to get our storage building emptied down a ways. The kitchen floor Micah installed today, came out of storage. The wood for the vanity and the sink in the previous house bathroom, came out of storage.  The tile for the tub surround in that house, mostly came out of storage. The paint for the walls this week, came out of storage. 

It's time to use up what we have and get the clutter cleaned up.

Sometimes it's not just the stuff we have that is cluttering up our lives. Sometimes it's what we think is important but really isn't, that is cluttering up our lives. I decided a couple of years back, the only thing that was going to matter to me was building God's kingdom. That's it. Now I am not saying there are not weeks where I have to remind myself at the end of the week, "you let the things of this world clutter up your life, Royce, get your priorities back where they belong". 

But I tell you that if you let God use you to impact others and don't worry about what's in it for you, you can let your worries go and be free to see God at work. And life becomes so clutter free. I don't worry about "my rights" because God's kingdom building comes before my rights. I don't have to worry about my income because kingdom building puts you on God's payroll. He'll supply what you need. Life becomes a lot simpler. Even when things look like they are headed in the wrong direction, you know God is working and it will all work out in the end.

We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him. who have been called according to his purpose.

 

Shiny

We used to use satin polyurethane, now we use gloss. It makes the floors shiny. I don't know how easy it is to keep them clean and shiny,

but it really impresses prospective tenants. "The floors are so shiny" is what I hear now. It does give a clean new look to old wood floors.

Started work on a house we had purchased back in October. Even though we owned the house the previous owner was still living in it. He had several misfortunes happen one after another. Had 2 relatives die. Just finishing quarantine after traveling out of state for one funeral when they had to go to another funeral for a very unexpected death. They stayed in a hotel room with another couple. The other couple were infectious with covid. The owner's wife was hospitalized a week later with covid. I was telling how we owned a house but did not have possession for close to 60 days at Thanksgiving. I said I can't kick a man out of the house while his wife is in the hospital. Katie replied, "well you can ,but it would make you a bad person". Believe it or not, I do try to avoid being a bad person most days.

It is hard to see in this photo, there are 7 broken windows in the back 3 seasons room.

They were covered by plastic. Most of them by black plastic.

Got those all repaired this week. The center window's bottom pane looks like it is missing. That pane is plexiglass. It doesn't reflect light as well as the regular glass panes. Oskaloosa glass repaired 2  panes with plexiglass. They are installed differently than the others and did not want the glass to break. 

When I walked through the house before we purchased it, I told the owner he shouldn't have his ceiling fan wired this way. Box should be in the ceiling. Wire should be romax running in the attic. There should be a romax connector in the hole in the box. He assured me that an electrician had told him it was up to code. Yea, I don't think so.

Knowing how the bedroom light was wired made me check out more of the wiring. Opened up the porch wall to find this lovely connection. Just bent the neutral wire and hooked it over the feed. Oh the fires we could start.

Found the same thing above the ceiling fan in the porch.

Then there was this lovely set up also behind the paneling. Connections can not be made behind a wall. They must be in an accessible box. I found this while trying to trace why there was no current in the garage. Yea, one of those hook the load neutral wires over the feed had failed and almost burned through. There is a reason for the code.

I started out with pictures of a shining floor. We are called to be a light shining in our world. The space around us should be lit by our reflecting God dwelling in us. Like the difference between glass and plexiglass, we also don't always reflect God to our community as we should.

Sometimes we try to take shortcuts to make our life easier. Sometimes we ignore the laws and rules God has given us. That will make our lives become dark as we fail and no longer have the current of God flowing through us.

I need to think carefully about how my words and actions are seen in my community. Am I shiny? Reflecting God to everyone I meet. Do others know I care about them and love them because God is calling me to pass on the love he has shown me?

 

Some days are diamonds some days are stone

There were stones, pavers, bricks and cement blocks lined up around the foundation of the house. Would make it difficult to mow so I started prying them up with a shovel and stacking them. 

Matthew and Meagan are buying a house in Pella and are thinking of putting in a brick and stone patio.

I stacked (Ok Sharon gathered up the bricks) everything on plastic on the driveway so they wouldn't be frozen down when Matt and Meagan take possession December 18. What started out as stone and a problem has become almost a diamond because it now has value to someone.

In the house, I tore up some of the carpet in a bedroom, and then tore up some of the linoleum under the carpet and was excited to see a fir floor underneath it all. 

Yea, that diamond find turned out to be stone. There was an old opening to the basement stairs and some plywood repairs.

Micah covered it up with new floor yesterday. Much better look.

The living room walls and carpet were a wonder to behold.

Carpet and pad tore out and the floor was intact beneath. Problem was it had never been finished in the center where a rug was used. Without sanding the whole thing down an 1/8 inch there is no way to make the color match across the entire floor. After some discussion we decided to refinish the floor without sanding, and even though it will be multicolored it will be a better floor than a new laminate. 

But the floor under the dining room carpet was a gem. Beautifully finished and preserved for years under the old carpet and pad.

In the kitchen my plan was to lay a new floor over the old. Micah looked at it and said I think we can tear off the top 2 layers. I said, "It's glued down, it will not come up clean." That's when he grabbed a flat bar and proved me wrong on the spot.

There was an old pine floor hidden under linoleum and 1/4 inch plywood.

The old countertop had been patched with duct-tape. Now I thought we could just put duct tape on the entire countertop for that red-neck look, but I was voted down. We slid in the new countertop yesterday.

That's when we found that those hand built cabinets were not the diamond I thought they were. They varied from 23 to 25 inches wide. The countertop would not slide up against the back wall. At places there is an inch of gap. Yes those cabinets are truly stone. We can't scribe and cut the back because it is the cabinet width and not a crooked back wall we are dealing with. We will put up a tile back splash and see how much gap we have to cover once we have the tile installed.

In life we can see the problems or we can see the blessings. It is up to us to choose. We had 4 floors we uncovered. 2 beautiful, 1 iffy, and 1 we covered back up. That's not bad. It's usually that way in life as well. The good outweighs the bad if we just take a good look. 

God gives us a lot of blessings but we need to look for the good and learn to overcome the bad. 

 

Meeting the Loan officer

 Back in 1976 I was 18 years old and wanted to buy a piece of land. I went to the bank where I had a savings and a checking account. My parents had their accounts in the same bank. I told a teller I was looking to borrow money for a land purchase. She notified a loan officer (son of one of the owners of the small town bank). He took me into his office had me sit down in the chair across from his desk and patiently explained to me that a young man such as I, had no assets and would not be a good risk for a bank to loan money. He said “I am sure you can understand that.) I said “sure”.

I don't understand his attitude. Doesn't this guy look like a good loan risk??

The piece of land I was wanting to purchase was priced at $64,000. I had worked in high school and made some investments which had allowed my savings account to grow to $20,000 (wish I was smart enough to make that kind of money today). The bank officer had not asked if I had any assets. Had not asked if I had any cash; he just assumed I was some kid with nothing. I do wonder if I was wearing those red pants with the blue jean bottoms. Now those were "cool" and should have been an asset for the bank to use as collateral. 

I walked out of his office and went back to the teller line and withdrew the $20,000 in savings, emptied my checking account, closed both accounts and walked out the door.

Maybe had I worn my leisure suit, I would have been given the loan with no questions asked, not that any questions were asked as I was ushered out of the man's office.

Two days later the bank officer’s father, major share holder of the bank, showed up on our yard and wanted to talk to my dad. Why did your son pull his money out of our bank and close his account? Wouldn’t actually want to ask me, just have dad straighten that boy out and get the money back in his bank.

Of course why would any bank executive think this guy was managing his money. It really had to be dad's money in my name, right?

 Dad told me to tell the man why I had closed my accounts. I said, “I asked for a loan to buy real estate; your son explained to me that I had no assets. That being the case I do not know what you are talking about because if I have no assets I could not have had a savings account to empty.

A couple of days later dad pulled all his accounts as well. You didn’t mess with his kids. That is dad cleaning the windshield on my car before Sharon and I left the church after our wedding 10 years later. Hey look at the hat and leather jacket on me. 10 years later I had cleaned up a lot!

He went demon hunting

We purchased a house mid July. We had other houses we needed to fix before we could get to this one. Then when we had started working on it my world was brought to a screeching halt by a case of covid. The last 2 weeks we finally got back on track and Matthew coming for a weekend to help out really speeded up the process.

Yesterday we took out the last of the debris and swept the floors. The new tenant walked through and was pleased with the house. 

The owner who sold us the house had owned it for a long time but the last tenant had badly damaged the house and she did not think  she had the energy to put it back together.

After listening to stories and evidence we found in the house, I am sure the tenant was using drugs. This led him to the belief, while he was high, that there were demons hiding in the house. He tried to destroy the demons and that was where it got interesting.

The walls had a lot of damage. The previous owner had insulated the house with blow in insulation from the inside. I had never seen that done before. After drilling through the plaster they had put up paneling. Well the paneling was gone. If you are looking for demons pull off the wall covers I guess. 

We filled the holes in the plaster and fixed the walls. Paneling is not our thing.

The kitchen cupboards had used up their useful days.

The bottom ones were torn out and part of the floor was missing. Those demons might have been under the house in the crawl space. Yes, there was an egress to the crawl space, but when under the influence tearing out the cupboards and the flooring must have seemed to be the right thing to do.

We replaced the flooring and put in updated cupboards.

He had torn the gas line off the gas range and used it as a flame thrower. I guess if you are hunting demons nothing works as well as a flaming gas line. 

Now the house has an electric stove and the window and wood around it has been replaced.

Must have been demons in the toilet tank as well. Probably a good thing he had water spraying around when he had the flame thrower gas line working.

Yep, got that replaced.

Hmm, suppose they were in the medicine cabinet or did he think his reflection was a demon? These are the questions inquiring minds ask.

Put in new vanity top, as he cracked the last one and new faucet.

Also put up a new medicine cabinet.

Maybe those demons were in the attic. Tore a hole in the top of a bedroom closet.

I had Micah fix that hole. Recovering from covid and standing on a ladder while leaning over to fix a hole over my head was not on the list of things I was going to do.

Must have been some demons in the furnace duct work. I am not sure you can shoot a non physical being with a gun, but he gave it a shot ( Ok, that play on words might have been a bit much).

Brandt put the duct work back together and sealed the holes.

After that it was just fixing walls and painting.

New coat of paint makes a house look so much better

All carpeting always has to go.

Love laminate flooring and some brands snap together quickly and easily. 

Yesterday Micah dug around the sewer cleanout, that was 3 inches underground, so we could find it in the winter if the need arises, and we walked away from the house. All done.

I hope the last tenant of the house gets the help he needs. Since we do not know what his name is, I also hope we never end up with him as a tenant. I do believe in evil spirits but I do not think they were hiding where he was searching, if anything they may have been inside him. 

There is a lesson for me to learn here. What is lurking inside me to skew my view of what is going on around me? I too often think I know all the answers when at times I am not even sure I have a good grasp on what the questions are.

To hold everything I believe up to the truths found in the word of God is the only way for me to have a good grasp on the world around me and to live a righteous life.