I didn’t do anything on the actual house for about a year as I worked on my boat project, the garage project, and work.

One day during the week my renter called and asked if Deana could stay in the front again. I knew that she had moved back from NoDak Land and had another live in boyfriend but had not really seen or heard from her much. Well I am a pushover for her and her girls and let them stay “while saving money” She offered to pay me $75/week until she found a place. Well $450 and 6 months later I had to ask her to find someplace for her, her kids, her dog, her chickens and ducks, and her new boyfriend that didn’t have a job. It basically came to a head when my brother said he was coming down to visit for a bit and needed a place to stay. They moved out two weeks later.

Back to work:

Well my “new” carpet looked like crap from the pets and spills. I ended up taking about three weekends to clean everything up and get it back into a semblance of order. Once that was done it was time to get it finished.

Since the front door was damaged I decided to replace it with a new steel door. And since I was replacing the front door I decided it was only fitting to replace the rear door as well. Oh and by the way since the rear door was being replaced I might as well replace that ugly kitchen window. See what I mean about going too far sometimes?

Well my wife told me that she had a guy working in her shop that had experience in construction that needed some side money. So I had him come over to take a look at what I wanted done. He looked at what was there and listened to what I wanted and came up with a price that I thought was not very fair. He wanted $350 to do the work when I supplied the materials. O.K. I KNOW that there is more work involved than $350. I also know that he needed some cash and that he liked old cars. So I counter offered with $300 and an old 1960 ford pick up that I had bought a couple years earlier. (intending on fixing it up) I figured I that would get him the cash he needed right away, give him about $1,000 worth of cash and trade for the work, and not look like charity. (Plus it got the truck out of my yard)

He accepted and we headed to……you guessed it, Home Depot. As most of the windows and doors in the house these were custom sized. So I ended up ordering a set of windows with a bar between them to replace the large window and two doors. About $1,500 poorer we left to await delivery.

It took about three weeks for the windows and doors to come in. That weekend he had both doors installed and the windows roughed in. The next weekend he had to redo the windows due to a slight measurement error. (Not mine) It was finished the following weekend and he was given the title and the cash.

I was not really satisfied with the end result and spent two weekends cleaning great stuff foam from off the side of the house and spackle off the kitchen floors, walls, and cabinets. Then I followed up with painting the sill and parts of the interior wall under the windows. Once that was done I repaired the broken mortar that had been broken out on the outside of the wall and painted that as well.