Monday, June 9, 2008

I Think I'm Pretty Handy-ish

Well, the rush is over. We have had all of the guests that we are going to have and it is time to buckle down and move out of our house. Here's the back story...

When we bought our current house, I considered myself a handyman. The simple projects around the house like drywall, trim, and basic carpentry, were well within my skills. I watched DIY Network and HGTV, so that makes me an expert. Well, I am pretty good at it, but I also have ADD and I don't do very well when it comes to finishing things. So, we have several rooms in our house that are about 75% done.

Well, with my wife's graduation, we were set to have visitors. So, we started making to-do lists and I found myself getting overwhelmed. One day, she started naming all of the things that needed to get done and I kind of blew up at her. I decided to just go ahead and hire a contractor to finish everything. We didn't really have the money, but it seemed the way to go. We went to Lowe's and asked for some names of reputable people, and they recommended one guy very highly. So I called him and explained the situation. I said that I was in over my head and I was looking for help. He said "Well, some of us are meant to work on houses, and some of us aren't."

So, basically he lost the job. I may not be the best handyman, but I think I am pretty respectable.

Anyway, I have found that I always work better with a time constraint and I think that is true for my wife as well. We decided to work really hard every night after work and on the weekends (basically the times we should have been working on the house anyway), and we got it pretty well completed. There are still a few loose ends, but the house is almost done. We actually had a cookout last night and everyone made the obligatory "What a nice house you have!" comments.

Next step is to find a renter and we will be one step closer to moving.

I put this post in my blog because I am sure it saved us a bunch of money doing it ourselves, and it made us feel really good about what we had accomplished.

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