In Which the Work on Our House Begins
Jul. 19th, 2019 10:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aLast year, when we walked the house with our past and future real estate agent, we highlighted a number of things to fix before we put the house on the market.
And then we spent about half a year not getting them done. Our first handyman of the year totally flaked in between looking over what we wanted done and giving us a quote. Then Barcelona happened, then Kauai, then sickness. And last month I finally found a handyman who gave us a quote. And this week he finally started work.
The biggest task on the TODO-list was replacing the backdoor. It's a 31" exterior back door, which is apparently small. And it's pretty much wedged in between our pantry and our back window, with pretty much no clearance on either side (and the door frame doesn't even go all the way around.) We'd tried at least one other previous time to get it replaced, but that handyman flaked too. The problem is that the door was getting to the falling apart stage due to sun and exposure, and it was never a good door. At one, point, for example, I learned that the deadbolt was placed in the door so delicately that when I tried to replace it, I nearly ripped out the side of the door. Which means that old deadbolt was giving us just about zero protection, but that's another story.
But replacing it was apparently hard due to its small size. One of our previous handyman talked about searching Urban Ore type stores to find a classic door in good condition, then cutting it down to fit. But as we know, that never happened.
This time around, our handyman just searched Home Depot until he found one that fit, and grabbed it (with our OK), even though it really wasn't what we wanted. (Basically, we'd wanted a door with a window, like the old one, and instead got a solid door. Which makes me feel like there's a blind spot int he corner of that room, though there's a bit of homey-ness and privacy that wasn't there before.)
But, oh, there was effort to get that door in. He in fact brought a different one first (an all-window door), but apparently that didn't work because it quietly went out of the house afterward. Then he told us he was getting a prehung door instead of a door slab. No idea why that made a difference, but whatever, we just wanted the darned door replaced.
Eventually it happened, after most of a day's work. And LOTS of banging. And for some reason it involved cutting a hole into the pantry and even dissecting one of the shelf supports. I just don't ask why this sort of thing happens, just that it be repaired.
And then much of day #2 was spent putting in trim around the door on both sides because that had all been removed and/or partially destroyed.
The price spiraled up over the course of the day, because of the move to a pre-hung door (why? I dunno) and because of the decision to also replace the trim outside. The result isn't perfect, but looks pretty good other than it feeling like there needs to be better insulation on some of the sides.
But, cost and perfection just don't matter as much when we're trying to get the house ready to sell.
And after that, work started on project #2, which is hatches for the three crawl spaces in the back of the house, a project that's literally been on our TODO list for 19 years, since we bought the house. Better late than never? Yeah, but this project is older than LAST year's incoming freshmen at Cal.
And I am entirely exhausted from two days of shepherding the work while simultaneously doing my work for Skotos. (And keeping the often annoyed cats shut up in my office.)
But we're clear for three days, with the rest of the work to be done next Tuesday and Wednesday and maybe Thursday. (I've scheduled some real brainless work for at least the first two of those days, which is getting all of Skotos files organized and up-to-date, with several years of filing needing to be done, and then boxing them all up. I can blast my music, pile up files, and watch the cats jump on them, and hopefully not tucker myself out as much.)
And then we spent about half a year not getting them done. Our first handyman of the year totally flaked in between looking over what we wanted done and giving us a quote. Then Barcelona happened, then Kauai, then sickness. And last month I finally found a handyman who gave us a quote. And this week he finally started work.
The biggest task on the TODO-list was replacing the backdoor. It's a 31" exterior back door, which is apparently small. And it's pretty much wedged in between our pantry and our back window, with pretty much no clearance on either side (and the door frame doesn't even go all the way around.) We'd tried at least one other previous time to get it replaced, but that handyman flaked too. The problem is that the door was getting to the falling apart stage due to sun and exposure, and it was never a good door. At one, point, for example, I learned that the deadbolt was placed in the door so delicately that when I tried to replace it, I nearly ripped out the side of the door. Which means that old deadbolt was giving us just about zero protection, but that's another story.
But replacing it was apparently hard due to its small size. One of our previous handyman talked about searching Urban Ore type stores to find a classic door in good condition, then cutting it down to fit. But as we know, that never happened.
This time around, our handyman just searched Home Depot until he found one that fit, and grabbed it (with our OK), even though it really wasn't what we wanted. (Basically, we'd wanted a door with a window, like the old one, and instead got a solid door. Which makes me feel like there's a blind spot int he corner of that room, though there's a bit of homey-ness and privacy that wasn't there before.)
But, oh, there was effort to get that door in. He in fact brought a different one first (an all-window door), but apparently that didn't work because it quietly went out of the house afterward. Then he told us he was getting a prehung door instead of a door slab. No idea why that made a difference, but whatever, we just wanted the darned door replaced.
Eventually it happened, after most of a day's work. And LOTS of banging. And for some reason it involved cutting a hole into the pantry and even dissecting one of the shelf supports. I just don't ask why this sort of thing happens, just that it be repaired.
And then much of day #2 was spent putting in trim around the door on both sides because that had all been removed and/or partially destroyed.
The price spiraled up over the course of the day, because of the move to a pre-hung door (why? I dunno) and because of the decision to also replace the trim outside. The result isn't perfect, but looks pretty good other than it feeling like there needs to be better insulation on some of the sides.
But, cost and perfection just don't matter as much when we're trying to get the house ready to sell.
And after that, work started on project #2, which is hatches for the three crawl spaces in the back of the house, a project that's literally been on our TODO list for 19 years, since we bought the house. Better late than never? Yeah, but this project is older than LAST year's incoming freshmen at Cal.
And I am entirely exhausted from two days of shepherding the work while simultaneously doing my work for Skotos. (And keeping the often annoyed cats shut up in my office.)
But we're clear for three days, with the rest of the work to be done next Tuesday and Wednesday and maybe Thursday. (I've scheduled some real brainless work for at least the first two of those days, which is getting all of Skotos files organized and up-to-date, with several years of filing needing to be done, and then boxing them all up. I can blast my music, pile up files, and watch the cats jump on them, and hopefully not tucker myself out as much.)