Bonus Week of work from my handyman ...
Just got back from ANOTHER week in the Poconos. Back to back work weeks - only this time we had to stay in 2 hotels rooms down the street instead of Wyndham Shawnee Resort.
Long week. Got 3 of the 4 new windows installed. Let me tell you, egress windows are big! And heavy when made out of wood. We got them into the first floor bedrooms after making the openings BIGGER. If they had been on the 2nd floor or higher off the ground, I could NOT have helped lift, hold, push and secure those buggers. But they look sooo nice. Did not get the kitchen unit in - I think mainly because the air conditioning is in that window. Bath and both bedrooms installed, but not yet trimmed out either inside or outside.
Smaller bedroom 3/4" hardwood floor is done. Sheetrock is painted my new color.
Larger bedroom window wall is taped with first coat of mud. Room has been out supply room and that is now moved. Ceiling is painted.
Bathroom plumbing is fixed and hookup with hot water to hot water valves all the way around. I installed a shower caddy, but was ordered to NOT install the shower curtain (rod was installed). Double sink vanity and new sinktop with new 8" center faucets really look nice. I had to resand the doors to the vanities due to some paint problem (paint did NOT gloss, but does now - don't paint in direct sun
). Did not have time to repaint the doors with all the other running I was doing.
Started staining ALL the new doors and woodwork. ME only, as my handiman has a childhood hatred of doing that work. He does like to bust on me as to how much more work I have to do and HE is adamant he will not do ANY of it.
He is even telling me that I will be up in the Poconos
alone for several more weeks - staining and poly-ur-phening. I will have to figure out a way to get even. He also tells me I am slower at it than anyone else he has ever seen.
We also attacked the ants. Big black ants. In the house, on the deck, crawling up the block walls, in the crawl space. After taking out the windows, we figured out the original builder did not believe in using ANY CAULK, anywheres, ever. I have T1-11 cedar sliding and after 35 years and several stainings, is still very sound. But no caulk with T1-11 means lots of channels for the ants to get into the frame of the house.
Granite countertop people could have been there NEXT Thursday - but I was not pleasant in talking to him. Most likely I went a week or two lower on the install list - but I did not want to drive back there again in 5 days.
Of course, the handyman loved the shorter drive to the job site as I whined about the double cost for motels rooms for this past week. He got to enjoy the teenage girls' giggy-fest and their mother yelling at them from midnight for 2 hours as they roosted in the hallway outside his room. I had called the front desk when I heard them around 10:30PM and the security guard "shuss" them. But they came back and I was sound asleep, not hearing them the 2nd time go-around. He would NEVER admit that Wyndham timeshares are better than a motel. I ate the free continental breakfast every AM as he usually leaves 45-60 minutes before it opened up.
I hauled a truckload of trash back home with me today - mostly the old wood windows, siding, some 2x4's and old trim from the house. Left behind a bunch of construction debris - next trip.
Made an earlier trash run on RUN home on Tuesday for my elderly aunt (86yo) with the tax assessor; so I booked a visit to see my doctor. Either we generated a whole LOT of trash this week or it has been in hiding the past month or two. There is still another pickup truck full in the yard up there now - sheetrock scraps, more wood flooring scraps, and 5 black trash bags full.
Moral of story this week: Don't yell at the granite guy on the phone. Staying at timeshares are cheaper, quieter and better for sleeping. Construction trash reproduces and multiples all by itself.
