Birthday fun

Just another day. It was my birthday and it started out just perfect. A tenant's child had flushed a toy down the toilet and I got the call to get it unplugged. 

I get to the house and a teen age girl quickly runs into the bathroom, her mother yelling after her don't you do that. Oh yea, she filled the toilet and it was not flushing remember??? I am thinking there is no way I want to remove and tip that toilet to get that toy out of there now. 

I had brought along our toilet snake. I am not sure why because I have never had it unplug a toilet. I always have to give it a try because I hate touching toilets. I pushed the snake in and it hit something. Yea it always hits something and never moves it. I turned the handle and felt it catch and I could push it in a little further. Did it again and again and suddenly the springed rod slid down and the toilet emptied. Some may say miracles don't happen but I am calling that one my birthday miracle.

Although why anyone would want to own rentals is beyond me. Really, who wants calls like that to start your day?

Next I finished laying a rustic oak floor. I really like the solid wood floors we are putting in houses now. It is slow installing but this is the last time in my lifetime I will be installing an new floor in that room. May need a touchup of polyurathane in a few years, but that 3/4 inch oak should be hard to destroy. 

Stopped to get the mail when I got home and there was a flat rate envelope in the box. 

                                                            

                           Now who would be sending me something special on my birthday 

 

Why, it's from the County Assessor. Its the property tax invoices. What a nice gift.

I finished my day off with a meeting with a couple of pastors and a young man who  feels God is calling him to be a minister. 

That young man made the statement that he had come to pray differently and it had changed his life. He no longer spent most of his prayer time asking and spent more time thanking God for the good things.

Everything has two sides. I get to meet people in difficult circumstances. I am sure that was a tough call to make to the owner of the house that your child has plugged the toilet. I hope I handled it graciously.

I am old enough to be stiff in the morning if I spend a day installing flooring but God has given me the health to still be able to do manuel labor and fill my days to overflowing with useful work. 

One of the saddest times in my life was the year after we had lost all we had and sold our house to try to cover our debt and we had no property taxes due. I had paid property taxes from the time I was 18 and 30 years later I no longer owned a single square foot of real estate. 

I don't complain when those taxes are due because if I have taxes to pay on real estate , it means God has indeed blessed me.

I could finish my day listening to, and encouraging a young man who has the desire to become a preacher. Don't get me wrong, as I told that man everyone has a call to minister, minister to and serve those around them, but it is still great to see a young person want to dedicate their life to God's service.

So it was my birthday and it was a great day in many ways, and I was blessed!

Whaaat

Sometimes all I can verbalize is, whaaat!

The house we are working on now, at some time in the past, has had the floors in half the house raised by 4 inches. One has to ask, just why? Why would you raise the floors 4 inches. The hallway to the bedrooms now has a ramp to go down 4 inches to the original level. Ok, just whaaat?

Took a storm door off today because we remove storm doors. They are a high maintenance item, so put on an insulated door that seals well and remove all storm doors. I went to remove this one and the screws were flat heads. Drivers do not work well with flat head screws. I am thinking the door must have been installed in the mists of time when flat heads were the screw of choice, still it made me go, whaaat?

Pulled up the old laminate flooring to replace it with new oak. Found the tack strips for carpet under the laminate. How did that ever work. The laminate had to rise 3/8ths of an inch all the way around the outside of the room. Couldn't tell they were there until I pulled up the floor. Whaaat?

When Matthew was lokking for a loose electrical connection, he tried to go into the attic through the attic access. Can't see it very well in this picture but the attic access is about 6 inches from ceiling to roof. Whaaat?

Then there was this little item. That is a 38 handgun I found in a house we purchased. They left a revolver. Whaaaat? I don't think anyone should own a revolver. No, I don't care if you think you need one, that is your problem. I sent this one to the landfill hidden in some nasty garbage to make sure it got buried.

I am sure there are a lot of times people look at what I do or what I believe and say Whaaat! I do hope that if they hang around me long enough they figure out I am not trying to fit in, I am trying to serve God. That may make me a little different and I am good with that. If it makes some say whaaat! I'm good with that as well. I want people to know I am not going to fit in with our self centered culture because I serve a living savior. If that makes them say whaaat! I have succeeded.

 

Moving forward

We finished up a house this week, Ok I am a bit premature here we have a couple outside things to finish yet, but we are way ahead of schedule.

The house had a remodel started by the previous owner before he was foreclosed on. Most of the work he had done had to be taken apart and redone correctly or at least improved to where we were OK with it.

I love it when we can salvage original wood floors. If they have lasted about 100 years we can surely get a few more years out of them.

One thing the previous owner had done is put some interesting storage in the laundry room.

We did put new floors in the upstairs bedrooms, more about that later.

I walked into a lumber store one day and saw they had a few of these doors in their clearance rack. I asked what the price was. I was told, "well those are expenseive doors let me look up what we paid for them." I said "at this point what you paid for them is not important, what I will pay for them is." He said "OK you're right, How about $50." "Done" I said, "write up a ticket".

We used 2 of them in this house.

Matthew did the showers.

Yes that is 2 different bathrooms. I read the other day that tiled showers are out of style everyone now wants tub surrounds. Yea, I think that was put out by the tub surround manufacturers. I still want something beside the look of plastic and so do the people we rent to. (confession here, I still have one shower with a surround in my own house)

Owner had paimted this vanity brown. Dark brown vanity, No I couldn't leave that.

Matthew built this one.

So a few days and we will be ready to start on the next house on our list. 

We have been purchasing oak flooring (Ok this is actually Hickory).

This is oak. The laminet flooring we have been using has had an extremely short life span.

This is oak stained very dark. We think maybe we can save money in the long term by putting down the most expensive durable floors, and maybe they will last 100 years like the old oak floors.

Had a tenat move out this week, They assured us the house was clean.

So the cupboards full is annoying but not something to say "no deposit return for you"

But the dog hair everywhere and the urine on the walls and the droppings smeared into the floor were a step too far. That is not clean, you shouldn't even live that way.

Now for a sad story. We purchased a house on May 13. When we purchased the house there was a lawn mower and some accessories still on the property, some in the kitchen. The owner was going to come and get the items that day. We went back a couple days later and there was a box in the kitchen. Not unusual in houses we buy that we are left junk to get rid of. Today when we delivered Oak flooring to the house I wondered, what do you suppose is in that box. I slit the tape on the cardboard box and there was a cooler inside with a warning about dry ice. Oh Boy, someone had left us $218 of strip loin steaks. Now they are definately past their use by date. It would have paid to be curious this time.

We finished a house so we are marching forward. Sometimes we try to make wise descions for going forward and sometime we miss something and it hurts a bit. 

 

Just Why

There are times you buy a property and see the work that was done and you have to ask just why.

We tend to put in 3/4 inch quarterounds, perhaps go as far as 15/16 but to use 2x2 lumber? Just why? I pulled them all up and yea, the normal 3/4 inch quarter round would have covered any oak flooring that didn't meet the wall

Railings on stairs are required by code, but using 2x4s? That is a bit of overkill plus you still didn't meet code. You have to be able to grip the railing. 3 and1/2 inches deep, is way to deep unless you have huge hands.

I realize that walls in old houses tend to not be straight and true, but setting the base cabinets 1 and 1/2 inches from the wall doesn't seem like a good fix. I peered behind the countertop and sure enough they attached a 2x4 to the wall and then screwed the cabinets to the 2x4. Just why?

and then there is the siding. Goal of siding is to keep water out of the house. If you leave an inch or more open around the water spigot that is a fail. Just why?

No outside or inside corner pieces and butt jointing the siding pieces instead of lapping them. That will allow moisture in and rot the sheathing. Just why?

I am going to guess the work was done by someone who is clueless about building standards. If  don't assume that, I would have to think the awful work was done purposely.

Sometimes we see how other people act and assume we know why they are acting that way.

I was approached by a man this week that I had seen walking around town in the past few months. I assumed he was enemployed by choice and was minimally housed at best.

He asked me if I had any part time work for him. He has just finished his cancer treatments and needs something to do. Ah, so I was wrong when I saw his life style and was asking "Just Why". Why don't you have a job, Why are you living this way? The answer is it, was out of his control because he was fighting cancer. Most common cause of financial distress in our country is health issues.

Jesus said "Do not Judge or you to will judged, for in the same way you judge others you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you."

I need to look at others and realize many do not have the advantages and blessings I have or their life is under duress and that explains just why they do the things they do the way they do them.

 

Finally done

We finished a house today. There were times it seemed we would never get to the end of this project.

The paint was pealing off the house when we started.

Tested the paint for lead so we knew if we could even work on the exterior.

Was a real moment of relief ewhen the paint tested no lead content.

That allowed us to fix the exterior without a lead abatement contractor.

The house has all the amenities tenants are looking for. Fenced yard

and attached garage.

Kitchen cupboards were saved but needed paint and back splash tiled.

New counter tops and all new flooring in the house.

Spacious dinidng room as well as eat in kitchen.

exterior doors were painted and resealed.

Plenty of natural light from the plethora of windows. 

Short hall that has storage on each side leads to the living room.

Living room has a ceiling with cross beams.

The ceiling had holes in it from upstairs toilet leaks when we purchased the house.

That was one of the jobs I was not looking forward to fixing but it was actually an easy fix.

There was an extra living room that we put in a door so it could be used as an office or 4th bedroom.

The master bedroom on the ground floor .

needed a total redo.

There is a bathroom just outside the master bedroom. Matthew tiled this shower. 

Matthew also built this vanity.

It was a horrid bath when we purchased the house but cleaned up well.

Laundry room just outside the master bedroom

with a closet.

Removed the filthy carpet from the stairs and they look much better.

At the top of the stairs is a area that can be used as a reading nook or for toys.

We removed the broken plaster and exposed the brick on the chimney.

The larger bath is upstairs

Once again Matthew tiled the shower.

A bedroom to the right

with closet

and a bedroom to the left

with 2 closets.

It has been a long complicated and time consuming job, but the house turned out well.

We have crossed the finish line, the house is rented and now we can move on to the next house.

I suppose I could say something about how our lives at times can seem as though we are making no progress and one year just leads to the next when in reality we are growing in wisdom and righteousness it's just hard to see the difference unless we are able to step back and see the work of God in our lives, One day we will be able to look back and see that God was turning carbon into diamonds, but I am tired and just going to let it slide and say nothing.