Nope… Not Ready Yet.

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I know, I know… I said I’d be back on the 7th, but things didn’t work out the way I had hoped. Here’s the scoop:

Back in mid-April, the lovely “Department of Building Services Housing Inspection Division” sent me a lovely letter telling me my house looked like shit and needed gutters. They gave me until June 30th to have it done, or they “may issue a legal order”. After inspecting the situation for myself, it turns out they were pretty much on the money. The exterior of the house was really looking shitty.

For the first month and a half, I was getting estimates and applying for home improvement loans. Apparently the painters in my town don’t like credit cards, and the banks didn’t like my credit report. So what seemed like a good idea at the time, ended up being a waste of time. (BTW, my credit card doesn’t give me “convenience checks”, so that wasn’t an option.)

Plan B was to get my dad to help me… and talk about a deal with the devil.

I really could not do this on my own, so without Dad’s help, I’d really be fucked. On the other hand, my dad is in his 70’s, so things aren’t going very fast… or smooth.

You know they say experiences like this bring families closer together… Right now, we both want to gouge each others eyes out with salad forks, so people who say things like that are full of shit.

On a brighter note, we’re actually doing a pretty good job. The trim work looks fantastic, and the body is going to be done in a couple of days.

I know… Most people do the body first then trim, but Dad wanted to do it bass ackwards, and it turns out he was right. I have open eaves, so painting them by hand would have been a bitch. Dad used his paint sprayer to get the job done in a fraction of the time. So now we’re having to cut in the body color around the trim, then cover the windows and doors so we can cut loose with that paint sprayer again.

So that’s it, right?

Nope… Gutters.

See the old gutters were just nailed right into the rafter tails. E.g. no fascia board. The rafter tails were also cut at an odd angle, so we had to square them… There were a lot of little complications like this, but Dad’s insisting we do things the right way, and I couldn’t agree more with him. It’s a lot more work, but in the end, the house should be set for the next 20 to 30 years.

With all the little details we’re taking the time to address, I imagine it would have probably cost close to $8000 or more to have a contractor do it, but so far it’s only cost me about $3200.

Funny how I can charge up $3200 on a credit card, but get turned down for a loan from the bank to have a professional do it… But in the end, the professional wouldn’t have fixed the deteriorating woodwork, or repaired the broken and missing tiles for the siding.

So after all is said and done, all I can say is that Home Depot and Sherwin-Williams better send me a fucking Christmas card.

And yeah… The city only gave me to June 30th to have to work done… Sorry. I tried, but it’s going to take us a little longer. They could get that court order or whatever… But honestly, we’re getting the work done, and we’re going above and beyond to make this house look really nice. I really don’t see them making too much of a fuss about it.

For the curious, the house was boring ass white with shitty ass white trim… but now it’s “Needlepoint Navy” with “Swing Brown” trim, and no more white.

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Bold but soothing colors, and the neighbors love it.

So let’s just extend this hiatus a little longer… The house is going to be a couple more weeks yet, but I owe my dad big time after this. He wants two weeks of lawn and garden help, and believe it or not he wants me to update his resume!

We’re just going to add it all up and say see you in August… I hope!

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