Letting in some light and doing something right

We are making progress on the house we are working on.

Got scaffolding from Eric on Monday so I could put the windows back in. At some point in the history of the house it was decided there was only a need for 1 window upstairs. Not really a good idea. It was pretty dark up there, especially since there were 2 rooms, one of which had no window. That changes it from a bedroom to a closet by code classification.

The old windows were still there on the inside, but there was 2 layers of siding over them on the outside.

After the windows were installed and open, it made quite a difference on the temperature inside the house. Sure I could have run the central air, but I am much to frugal for that (I used frugal because I can not confess to being cheap, OK, I'm cheap).

Still need to do work on the walls upstairs but Micah got the trim in this afternoon. Look window sills.

There was piece of the wood missing (where a doorway was) in this wall. I thought I did a pretty good job of getting the replacement wood to match. Can you find the new piece??

I also got the missing side panels put on the cupboards. Looks like I got the stain of the new side panels to match the cupboards original color.

Clothes storage is in the 2nd bedroom. I won't call it a closet because we do not intend to put on a door.

Micah laid the floor in the master bedroom this morning. flooring should all be in now.

While Micah was laying floor, I put the tile in for the shower. Still needs to be grouted and sealed, but the tile are up. The old fiberglass shower is standing in the garage. We put in a lot of tile for showers. if you are one of our tenants that still has a fiberglass shower, sorry about that. If it needs replacing we will upgrade to tile.

There is just

something about

a tiled tub 

surround that 

makes a bathroom feel 

like someone cared enough to do it right.

We let a lot of light in a house this week. Finished up the floors and worked on trim. Tiled a bathroom to make it look good and last a long time.

Jesus said I am the light of the world. If you let him be your light he will take care of the details and make your life the best it can be. I happened to see a man I was blessed to share the gospel with, a few years back, this afternoon. He looked great and was shopping with his daughter for a BBQ. I remember how he used to be before he asked for forgiveness and accepted Jesus as his savior. I drove home thinking how grand it was that he and I were going to spend eternity together with God. He now has light in his life, just like I do, and God has really blessed him the last couple of years and given him a life that is so much better than the norm and will last for eternity.

 

It's my birthday and I'll kayak if I want to.

We are working on one house and have another one waiting. This week Nichole asked if she could strart cleaning up the house we have on hold so the time could be moved forward when it would be habitable.

She tore out all of the carpeting

and piled it up, ready to go to the landfill.

I hauled 1 load of carpet and cupboards out to the landfill. When I was there I saw this pile of steel lying off to the side. This tells me the price of old iron must be pretty low when someone would pay to dump 4 loads at the landfill instead of selling it to be recycled.

Nichole took down the remaining cupboards in the kitchen. The house is such a mess I kinda figured she would start to work on it and walk away. I even pointed her toward another house in town ready to rent now. She finished what I had for her to do and when I get the water turned on this week, is ready to start cleaning the smoke off the walls so they can be painted. I think if I were her I would have walked away.

Thursday, Lisa called and I looked at a house for sale.

This is not our usual purchase. The work has already been done on the house. All floors laid and the kitchen cabinets are new.

Tub is new and has subway tile around it. OK, I would have done the window different but we will improvise and make it work for maybe 5 years.

Even the driveway has new gravel. It is almost a turn key house. It does need a few small things changed to pass an inspection.

In the house we are working on Tom put in a new heat run upstairs and Rich and his crew updated the electric. Progress is being made.

I even got the trim up around the stairs.

Micah and I laid the new flooring in one bedroom

and the kitchen yesterday. We use a high end residential flooring now and it lays so much easier than the other grades you can buy. It is also 1/3 thicker so we are hoping it lasts better to make up for the higher cost.

This week Wednesday was my birthday, so Sharon and I took the kayaks out. I know, I do not take a day off very often and I didn't on my birthday either, but I did quit early for a little recreation.

The last year has been a bit hectic. Between August 12, 2019 and August 12, 2020 we took possession of 9 houses. Put on 6 new roofs, laid a lot of flooring, tiled showers, put in new kitchens, sided a house (that was a new low of only 1 house needing siding) replaced windows in 5 houses and fixed innumerable holes in plaster and painted, and painted, and painted.

A birthday is a good time to take stock of your life and all the work on 9 houses isn't really what is important.  

Are you living as God would want you to live? Are you showing the love God has commanded us to show each other? Are you a righteous person? Do you bless those around you?

If every year on our birthday, we had a form that made us rate ourselves on a scale of 1 to 10 on those questions and not how much work we did how would your evaluation look? Hmm, I don't think I will share how I would rate myself.

Sharon's Family Covid weekend take 2

It was not a week that much work was done. A few odd jobs were finished.

That pile of wood had to be turned back into a drawer. I was able to get 2 of the drawers fixed.

I hooked up a light to a 3 way switch. Did not check the wires before I removed the light that was there. Looking at the box, I thought, The wires going west out of the box would go to the switch on the west, and the ones to the east to the east switch. Makes sense right? They wouldn't take and wires and curve them the other way in the wall, would they? I knew the white wire from the west box would be live and the white wire from the east box would be the neutral. Now, that's not a couple of wires you want to hook up incorrectly. Yep, you guessed it, they crossed the wires in the wall. The old fuse box still hasn't been replaced by Rich and boy did the sparks fly when it blew the 30 amp fuse. Next time I tried it after I reversed the wires, I put a surge protector with a 15 amp breaker in the line first.

I also had to clear the branches from in front of a stop sign, at the City's request. I drove back down the street after I was finished to see if I had a clear sight of the sign. As I drove down the street, I thought, "why can' I see that sign?) That was when I realized it wasn't my tree blocking the sign anymore. It was the neighbor's big maple tree. Not my problem to fix.
The balance of the week was spent with Sharon's family. We had tried a month ago and 1 family could not come because of Covid exposure. This time our son's could not be there because of work and of course one had a Covid exposure.
Sharon and her siblings and Parents were able to attend.
Social distancing was the norm. Outdoor games were the status quo. Horse shoes,
Lawn toss (some missed the old Jarts game with the heavy metal darts flying through the air. Where was the danger element to add excitement now?) 

Throwing heavy fender washers into boxes for points,

hayride with Grandpa driving the old John Deere B (I think it is a B), that was originally bought 82 years ago by Sharon's mother's father.

Projects were made in the shop.

Even a furniture grade project was finished.

The high-lite, had to be the disc golf game. Most had never played before 

Let me just say it was evident on the first few "holes" as the discs went careening everywhere.

But the grandsons who had skill were soon giving lessons.

I had a large window air conditioner in storage and it kept the garage at 74 degrees. Meals could be eaten in a much larger space than the dining room in the house.

A lot of adjustments were made to keep the threat of exposure to Covid down but life continued with a family get together as it has in past years. There just had to be some changes to protect everyone. With family members who work with the elderly and some with people with special needs, to not have used precautions would have been unthinkable.

Can we be sure that there was no transmission by someone asymptomatic this weekend? Not absolutely, but we did our best. I cut the tree branches on our property that blocked the stop sign but I couldn't cut the ones on the neighbor's property. So it was with this weekend we did what we could.

Didn't want to be in the position I was in when I hooked up the electric wires and then threw the switch and sparks flew as the fuse blew. There were lives at stake if we had transmission of Covid. It didn't make our week less fun to be outside and spread apart most of the time.

I like to win. Lets work together and beat this thing. The broken drawers were not going to fix themselves. I had to get a couple of new pieces of wood, some glue and a nail gun. The drawers are now stronger than they were when manufactured originally. Lets, grab some masks, social distance, wash our hands, beat this thing and be stronger in the end. As I said I like to win.

 

Relationships

          It has been a busy week. spent a lot of time painting.

Mixed my own colors from paint left in houses we bought and mismatched gallons bought cheap at Walmart.

I have the entire first floor, except the bathroom, painted in the house we are working on.

It would be nice if you could just start rolling on paint, but that is seldom the way it works.

Before I could paint this room, I wanted that door way gone. that meant removing the door and putting a new stud in the middle. Filling in the hole with sheet rock and then taping and mudding it. Oh what fun.

Still need to put a piece of trim by the floor where the door was.

This is what the kitchen looked like when we bought the house. I was not planning on replacing that small light and ceiling fan. That is until on a cloudy day, I couldn't tell the difference if the light was on or off.

The 6 bulb fixture came out of a house our realtor sold. The new owners were going to throw away the fixtures and she told them she knew of someone who would use them. Thanks Lisa. One is in a house now and put to good use. The cupboards we are putting in come from our neighbors, Chis and Julie. They were putting in new cupboards and asked if we could use theirs to improve a rental house.

Micah and I got the old ones torn out of this house and started installing the old ones of Chris and Julie today. A much needed improvement.

I do wish we had another place for the range but one can only do so much with the space you have.

So this week Lisa provided the light fixture, Chris and Julie provided the cupboards, and others provided much of the paint. The house is being remodeled with the help of others who don't even know about their input.

We rented a house to Jess this week. When the house came open I posted it and had a couple of really good applications, but Jess contacted me. Jess lived with us for a while when he was a teenager. Yea, Jess was going to get the house if he wanted it, and he did. I told Jess, "I would have kept you when you were living with us." he said, "I would have stayed." No he wouldn't have. He wanted to live with his mom and that was the right thing. But Jess did say "You and Sharon were the best people in my life." and he gave me a hug. Jess that meant the world to me!

This evening Ian and Demi stopped by. We talked of many things. (OK, mostly I talked.) Man's free will, Calvinism, How one gets to Heaven. It was a great conversation with some people I just met in the last month. 

Some people collect things. I would rather collect relationships. Lisa, Chris and Julie, Jess, Ian and Demi, thanks for being in my life,. You made me have a great week.

Cherish the relationships God gives you and the people God puts in your life,