Are we making progress yet?

Sometimes you get to the end of the week and you have to ask yourself just exactly what did I accomplish this week. That is when it really helps that you have been taking pictures with your phone

Here is the starting point 2 weeks back

Here is where the room was at on Friday evening. It is actually starting to look livable. And I did not smash any fingers installing this floor. Although I will have to admit I started it on Thursday afternoon and I was fighting every plank to get them to lock. I did a bunch of other stuff on Friday because I did not want to go back to fighting this floor. Mid afternoon I finally went back to the floor and was having a terrible time getting the planks to lock when it suddenly occurred to me. Hey dummy this is Tarkett floor, where is your 10 inch piece of 2x4. I went and cut a piece off the junk pile outside the house and the floor just started locking perfectly. ( if you are wondering you smack the side of the plank with the 2x4 and they fit snuggly into place) I think I am getting old when I forget those short cuts. (I also lost 2 pair of gloves this week, did find one pair on Saturday though. I had laid them down in our storage garage).

This is the living room looking to the east 2 weeks ago. 

Here is the same room looking west after Micah was done with it today. 

When we bought the house both Sharon and Micah said the kitchen counter top had to go. I had told Micah I was thinking about tiling it. His response was "does any one do that?"

Tuesday I stripped off the old Formica top 

And prepped it for tile. Wednesday morning I mentioned to Sharon that I was going to use the tile we had left from another project on the counter. Hey free counter top. Sharon was not amused. Her comment, I believe was "you know I hate tiled counter tops" 

Ah, but you know how it is. I was alone at the house. That was the first mistake for those who did not want a tiled counter. 

I had 3 boxes of tile in storage, that was just gathering dust and needed to be used. No one had thrown those out, so that was their second mistake.

Personally I think it turned out just fine.

And I am willing to bet no one is going to redo it either. I did the labor, Third mistake. Strike three, I win!!

And then there was Monday's project. When we bought the house the owner told us the basement drain was plugged. I had Cody come to try to open it. He gave up after he found the trap was filled with cement. Hammer drill and a chisel to break out 8 inch thick concrete. Now that is more fun than a man should be allowed to have on a Monday afternoon.

Well lookee there, a brand new basement drain. I even wisely left the cover on the new drain that is there to keep idiots like me from getting concrete in the new drain till I had it all troweled in.

As I write this at 7 pm on Saturday, Patrick is putting up sheet rock and taping the bathroom ceiling and walls. I know when you look at this picture you ask "why would Royce want those art deco walls changed?" Tenants can be so picky sometimes. Patrick asked me on Wednesday if I had any work for him. He was just walking by and stopped to see if we needed any labor. I said no and then he said, "I do sheet rock taping and texturing".  Bingo, those are magic words. Come on, buddy I have a bathroom to show you. I picked up the sheet rock this morning and he wanted to do the work tonight so he could texture the walls on Monday and get paid. Said he needs the money. 

He told me I would be impressed with the work done when I saw it tomorrow morning. I told Patrick I wouldn't see it in the morning because it was Sunday and I was going to church. I think that was way outside of the norm for Patrick. As I was driving home I thought the only difference between me and Patrick is, God has blessed me. 

That was brought home to me this week when I met Frank in Walmart. Frank asked me how many tenants owed us money. I said none. Frank looked at me and said "God has really blessed you hasn't He?

Yea, God has really blessed us and every day I wonder why. May your next week be as productive and blessed as my past week has been.

fixing a few things

Sharon was asked last week if we could put a ramp on a house for a student in a wheel chair. Neither the tenant nor the owner of the house were in a position to build a ramp. 

The deck we attached the ramp to was not exactly level and standing straight. On Sunday I asked Marvin if he would be willing to help me build a deck on Tuesday. Marvin is only 89 years old and likes to keep busy.

We built the ramp Tuesday morning. I had to remind Marvin occasionally that we did not need to be perfectly straight and level because we were attaching the ramp to a deck that was not straight and level. We just started stepping back and eyeballing it to see what it looked like. If it looked somewhat level to us, that is what we went with

 It really pained me not to put spindles on the ramp instead of just boards on the side but I am not sure just how long the boy in the wheelchair will be living there, and a ramp not quite up to my standards is much better than no ramp at all.

Last week Friday Micah tore the carpeting out of house we had just purchased. He saw the hard wood floors underneath, and was sure we could get the paint off and refinish the floors. My question was who is this we. I know how this one would play out. I would be on my knees trying to get the old paint off the varnish and then putting on a new coat of varnish. Micah would be somewhere in Pella.

Sounds like a good idea if you can get dad to do the work. Notice the laminate flooring boxes in the corner? Yea, I'll return those as soon as I see Micah working on cleaning the floors, until then the plan is, they are going down, and its' on the schedule for next week so my guess is it is new floors  cover the past mistakes of others.

I spent my morning pulling up tack strips from the old carpeting. I hate pulling up tack strips. They are filled with tacks sticking up (hey, maybe that is why they are called tack strips. ya think?) and I am always bound to prick my fingers. I really hate it when they are nailed into hardwood floors. I really, really hate it when some fool put 2 nails every inch to hold the tack strip in place. See the above photo. That was a real joy. Most of the strip came out in tooth pick sized pieces.

Most of the time our lives are kind of like that deck we attached a ramp to, the floors under the carpeting and the tack strips. Our lives are not level and they are starting to come apart. When you look underneath our facade we are covered with ugly spots that shouldn't be there and are going to take some work to get rid of. When God tries to pry up the old to replace it with His ways, we have the old firmly nailed in place. 

God takes our broken lives and makes them useful if we will let Him. He comes and covers over the spots and makes us new, and if we let him he will take those sins we have such a firm grip on and will pry them away from us and throw those sins out of our lives. God only fixes us when we submit and allow God to be in control. I'm working on that. How about you?

Darkest before the Dawn

We took title to a house on Tuesday. We are now in the stage I call the sow's ear stage. You know the old saying turning a sow's ear into a silk purse. I think it is supposed to be "you can't turn a sow's ear into a silk purse". Most of the houses we have bought have looked like a sow's ear when we purchase them.

The deconstruction stage takes about as long as the construction. When we start I am often thinking this thing is a disaster and there is no way we will ever turn it into a livable house. We quite often end up with houses that elderly people have lived in. I do understand why they stay in their houses longer than they should and I would not want anyone to move to a home they are not familiar with when they are comfortable living at "home". But the value of a house falls quite quickly when there are no updates or even fixes.

Sometimes walls need to be totally taken apart and sometimes the cracks in the plaster have not been attended to.

sometimes there are interesting "fixes" that need to be rectified

Micah carried out refuse on Friday and piled it behind the house. The former owners have asked to be able to take anything they want to keep out of our discard pile. My reply was why would you want to save it, it has no value. Their reply was "you don't want to throw away stuff you might be able to use."

I look at my life and think it is a lot like a house rehab. It often has to get a lot worse before I see the error of my ways and clean up my act. I have often lived too long doing things a certain way even though I would be better off moving on. There is usually a lot of garbage that needs to be carried out and thrown out and once thrown out it needs to be let go permanently. The junk in our lives really has no further use. If I throw it out though that would be a problem because then everyone might see all the garbage I have been hiding inside of me.

Sometimes our lives are just a mess and looking nasty on the inside.

If we submit to God and say, "please take over and do it Your way" the end result is so much better. There might be a some pain between surrender and change. 

All the fixtures of your life might need to be torn out and replaced.

But the end result is so much better than when we are trying to do it on our own and hanging onto the garbage in our lives.

I love my new toy. We only buy Dewalt and Bostich tools because we think they are the best. Here's the thing, if we submit to God and let Him clean up our lives and lead the way, He only gives us the best. Just ask me when we meet, I will tell you how much God has blessed us since I have given up control and said, "Hey God you take the lead, I am here just to follow."

Laying Floors

A tenant had a washing machine leak last week. It made an old carpet even worse. For some reason the tenant felt she should have new flooring. What? New flooring just because the old carpet is wet and stained? Come on, it adds character right?

Ok so I could understand, she did not want her 9 month old boy crawling on that awful carpet. I tore  up the old carpet and carried it out of the house. The tenant kept asking when my sons would be coming to help me. I finally explained to her that is was just me on this job. Micah is a CPA and has a job that pays better than I get paid (yea, I know that is a bit of a blow to a father's ego) and Matthew is studying in seminary (if I am helping to fund that in a small way, he had better be studying).

We lay a lot of new flooring. Right now we are putting in laminate snap together floors only, no carpet. This is a picture of a bedroom when we bought a house.

Same bedroom with new flooring and paint. The tenant this week told me she wanted carpeting. I have learned you do not explain, you do not argue, you simply state facts. We do not put carpeting in rentals. If you want new flooring I will install it if you want to keep your carpeting, I am fine with that. "But I want carpeting" she said. My reply is simple, "we do not put carpeting in rental houses."

Sometimes when we buy a house the carpet is so horrid you have to wear gloves to touch it. The carpeting in this room was so bad it felt greasy. I really don't want to know what was embedded in it. I think there was a lot of tar in it from smoking. If you smoke, come tour some houses with us and see the residue you are leaving in your lungs. 

Same room with laminate flooring and new paint. Those are cut open apples lying on the floor. Apples remove the smoke odor. The amazing information available on the internet.

This room had a lovely stick down tile floor, although the pink walls really made it say "a professional decorator was here" to me.

Sometimes just neutral and bland has a cleaner look. We are not fixing up houses to sell so we do not have to worry about buyer preferences. I just have to please me (that is as long as Sharon is too busy to check on my work). When we started this buisness Sharon chose the colors, but she is usually too busy to show up until the deed is done. I have found that if you take all the remnants of paint we find in houses we purchase, add all the paint we have left from other projects and you get a nice gray or tan color. If you run out before the room is finished, well you were going to paint an accent wall weren't you.

I do get some satisfaction taking a floor that really has no redeeming value other than it is solid

and spending the time and effort to turn it into something I can say (in my opinion anyway) looks a lot better.

 (and for those of you who were wondering my opinion is the only one that matters until Sharon sweetly asks "your not going to leave that, that way, are you? Then of course my opinion doesn't matter anymore.)

I did get the new floor installed. This was the first floor we put in while a tenant was living in the house. We have still been installing floors as tenants were moving in, but when they are living there it makes it more difficult.

You have to work around their schedule and their furniture. When installing a snap together laminate floor, on some types you have to tap the floor together. (the manufacturers idea of tap is my idea of a good hit on the "tapping" block with a hammer. Now when I do that I am looking behind me to see that the pieces are joining correctly while hitting the block blind. I now know this is not a good idea. 

Wow does that hurt. I found out you can split your finger nail in half and take a chunk off the side of your finger with just one whack of the hammer. We have 1200 square ft. of flooring to install next month. I think that Thanksgiving vacation will be a good time for the boys to get that little item finished. I am kinda gun shy about laying flooring at the moment.

A Painted House.

John Grisham authored the book "A Painted House". He writes-
...I headed for the Mexicans. "Buenos Dias." I said to the group. "co'mo esta'?"
All nine answered in some fashion. They were going back to the barn for another wasted day. I walked along with them until I was far enough away that my parents couldn't hear. "Y'all want to paint some?" I asked....
Ten minutes later three of the six paint buckets were open and there were Mexicans hanging all over the west side of our house. They fought over the three brushes. ( A Painted House by John Grishom, page 348 published by Doubleday 2001. )

In August I was contacted by Chris Hurley of Joshua Christian Academy if I would paint a house that had been donated to the school in Des Moines. In a weak moment I agreed. We have a paint sprayer and have painted several of our houses.

There is a difference though, between painting a house that has just had all new siding and trim installed

The corners are all so crisp and straight. The siding has no old uneven paint and the end result just looks sharp. (at least from the curb)

They paint fast and a house can be finished in a day and a half. One day to paint the siding and the next morning paint the trim.

Well, I went up to Des Moines on Tuesday morning to start painting the house. Had been pushed back since the end of August as the contractor was getting the house scraped and the bad siding replaced. 

I was surprised to find the siding was not all on the house yet and the windows still needed to be replaced. I thought, well here we are the 3rd week of October and we are running out of time so I will paint what I can. 

I had to leave at noon on Tuesday and as I loaded my pickup I realized I was in trouble. I had some of the primer and a small portion of the finish paint on. 

Sharon and I went to visit Joan and Tony that afternoon and I asked if they would have any time to help paint a house. Joan told me her father loved to paint. So I went to see Marvin. Marvin is 89 years old and still stays busy. "Hey Marv, Y'all want to paint some?" Yea, he thought he could make that work.

Marvin is a good man with a paint sprayer. We got most of the body of the house painted on Wednesday. I went back on Thursday to see how much of the rest I could get done. 

I hate to leave a job unfinished but with the windows still needing to be replaced, the rake boards rotten on the ends and having spent two and a half days on what I thought would be a 12 hour job it was time to walk away. The only way we got as far as we did is because Marvin is still out there donating time and expertise at the young age of 89. It showed me that you are never too old to give of your time and talents to build the kingdom of God.

Where the tree falls

Ecc 11:3 If clouds are full of water, they pour rain upon the earth. Whether a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where it falls, there will it lie.
Ecc 11:4 Whoever watches the wind will not plant; whoever looks at the clouds will not reap.

Ecc 11:5 As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb,   so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things.

I was reminded of the above passage from Ecclesiastics when I went to survey the damage on Wednesday morning last week. My cell phone was ringing at midnight on Tuesday. That is a sound I never want to hear because no one calls me at midnight just to tell me what a lovely person I am. It was a tenant who although he knew it was late just wanted me to know a large branch had fallen on the neighbors lawn shed. (we also own the neighboring house so he wanted me to know we had a problem) This picture really does not show just how large this branch was. if you look closely you can see my 16 inch chain saw on the stone fireplace and it is much shorter than the diameter of the down limb. 

I had been sharpening the chain on my chain saw every time I used it this year. It was getting dull but it worked for what I needed it if I just spent a little time sharpening it. This tree limb was too big and the chain was cutting just off enough it was getting stuck. I went to Orscheln to get a new chain. I thought I remembered that the saw was an 18 inch blade. Now I want you to know that I did measure the blade just to verify that I was right before I went merrily off to buy a chain. Only problem was I measured the entire blade instead of just up to the slots on the blade. The helpful clerk at Orscheln , as I was checking out, perkily said "The senior citizen discount will help you out on this purchase today." That smarted a bit as I don't know at what age they give the senior citizen discount, but I am pretty sure you have to be past 60. Ouch, but thanks I guess. I just didn't ask her how old she thought I was. Now if you look at the picture above you will see the chain in that package is a 14 inch chain. Well of course I had measured the blade to the wrong point and the 18 inch chain was way too long. I had cut the packaging open and had to go back to the store and buy another chain after measuring exactly as the diagram on the back of the 18 inch chain package had shown how to measure. The clerk was very kind when I told her what had happened and told me she would take the 18 inch chain back and exchange it for a 14 inch. Well guess what, it was not a 14 inch blade either. It is a 16 inch blade. There was no way I was going to bring in another cut open package and tell them I had measured wrong twice, so I have a 14 inch chain if anyone needs one.

Sometimes we think we have our lives figured out and we know what tomorrow will be like. But then the unexpected happens and our world changes. The tree falls where it will. I often get too caught up in the tasks of the day and lose the vision of eternity. Don't worry so much about the fallen trees in your lives. Worry about whether you are loving those God has placed in your life right now. God will take care of everything else if you just go where He leads you.

Done Shingling

A lot of my summer seems to have been spent on roofs. I remember one 90 degree day a tenant asking me how it was going and my reply was it is hot. They said yea but you can get a good tan up there. Hey I am old I don't care about a tan, I realized years back looking handsome was a lost cause, I just want air conditioning.

Yesterday I finished our last roof for the year.And when I say I finished I mean "I" finished. Matthew went off to Seminary and Micah has been busy the last 2 weeks, seems to think he has a full time job he needs to show up at. Micah and Matthew did a roof this size one Saturday morning and we were home early for lunch. I think we woke a lot of tenants up on Saturday mornings a lot earlier than they had planned. Someone on your roof with a nail gun early morning has to be an eye opening experience. It took me 2 and 1/2 days to do this one. I like to think I am more precise instead of slow. The boys might disagree with that but what do they know, they are still in their early 20s. I knew it was time to end when 2 weeks ago Micah said, "I sure hope we do not have as many roofs to do next year." This from the guy that told me earlier this summer he would rather roof than put on siding. I told him if you stop buying houses we will not have to roof so many houses. (he is still looking).

So I am on this side on Wednesday and think I feel my foot starting to slip just a bit. Natural reaction was to put down a hand to make sure I was steady. Problem was that was the hand I had the nail gun in, problem was I had my finger on the trigger. Now the problem was I had this neat line of nails running down the roof poking out of those new shingles I had just put on. Yea great fun to tear those back off and redo. I really need to take my finger off that trigger, I am just thankful that line of nails was not in my leg.

This is about roof 14 for the year, we got a total of 18 finished, I think this is both my favorite way to roof and the boy's favorite way to roof. Me not on the roof. Do you see a ladder? Me neither, wonder where they put the ladder when I was not looking so I couldn't get on the roof.

This was one of the more memorable ones. We had finished another roof early on a Saturday afternoon. I said to Micah lets start on the next house and see if we can get a few shingles on. Micah set up the ladder and told me the roof was missing some shingles. I said "yea, I know there were a few blown off and I patched it a couple of weeks ago so it would hold water until we got to it." Micah replied "No dad there are shingles gone." I am thinking what is his problem I patched it up and put on some tar for good measure, we will get back to the tar in a minute. Micah wanted me to get up on the ladder and take a look. I did and said "I patched it right there what are you talking about." Look up to your right dad." Oh boy, about a 3 foot by 4 foot section of shingles was completely gone must have blown off in a wind storm we had that week. I was looking at bare sheeting. Our easy short afternoon turned into a mad rush to get the roof buttoned down and covered before Sunday. It was still April and it actually rained back then and there was rain in the forecast. As we worked on the roof the tar I had put on a couple of weeks earlier got on everything. Micah kept grumbling under his breath and sometimes quite audibly about ignorant people putting tar on roofs. I am sure he in no way was referring to me. 

As you can see there was no tear off on this roof. Just a shingle over. When we started doing this 2 years back the boys were adamant that the roofs needed to be torn down to the sheeting before we put on any shingles. I told them they could do a tear off, no problem, but I was not helping. Shingle over works just fine once, that is why we never buy a house with more than one layer of shingles. They patiently explained to me how much harder the tear off would be with a double layer next time the houses need to be shingled. I again stated they could tear off any shingles they wanted, but I was not concerned about the next time the roof needed shingling. I was 57 at the time and 20 years from then I would be 77 and I would not be shingling anyway. Your problem then boys. Funny thing, I never saw them tear a single shingle off, boy are they going to have a lot of work in 20 years.